Because Loperfido strikes out about half the time with zero power, so he does indeed have some things to work on. Also, apparently nobody thinks he can play 1B yet(!), so there's that. Abreu is sunk cost, if you can get anything out if him after his Florida time, why on earth wouldn't you try for a bit? Same with Chas, just coming back from the DL...what do you want to do with him in order to bring up Leon? He's started 5 of the last 10 games since coming back, iirc. Don't be that guy
Loperfido is still light years better than Abreu even if he strikes out a bunch. The powers there it's just going to take a bit for it to come out. Loperfido also has played an above avg 1B at Sugarland. Chas will probably be traded at the deadline. Right now he's dead weight and it's not a coincidence that the team played better without Abreu/Chas on the team. But hey lets run them back out there again and expect a different result. Brilliant
I'm just telling you what *is* happening, I really don't care much outside of that. Your fanciful thoughts on what *should* happen are semi-aligned with and just as meaningful as mine. Which is not meaningful at all.
As if snap of finger = winning is that easy. Would be a lot easier if they weren’t trying to win… they wouldn’t sign guys like Abreu and Hader. They would t extend aging relievers like Pressly. They wouldn’t pay market rate for middle to late guys like Montero. they wouldn’t trade for 40 year old pitchers like JV. They wouldn’t extend 35 year old Altuve. They would have traded Tucker/Bregman long before this year. Two components: highly paid vets need to play better. Farm system development needs to support the MLB team better. The latter can be traced to a multitude of things (lost draft picks, GM changes, trades, timing). The former are sunk costs and things high payroll teams have to accommodate. Every high payroll team has overpaid players not playing up to their abilities (or just getting old). But this is “trying” to win when you’re not able to take years off here/there to reload/rebuild, but also your farm is middle to lower tier and doesn’t pack the sure-fire mlb ready guys who are immediately impactful.
First line says it all. You don't feel like it's over -- only "kind of". If the Astros lose 80+ games, it might literally be the most unpredictably notorious season in the history of sports. This team is NOT last year's Mets or the Nets when they threw together Paul Pierce and Co or later on with Durant-Harden-Kyrie. Astros are a *proven* winner, full of prime or near-prime players who made the previous winning happen. The close losses are killing us, but I still say it's mostly bad luck. Hader got off to a rough start (some fault of the manager), but has settled down. Hunter has settled down. Pressly will either play better or be replaced with other options that seem viable. Yordan most likely will NOT hit 200 OPS points below his career average for an entire season. Espada will either learn to do better (via in-season experience or outside counsel) or he will spearhead the greatest 162 f*** up. BAD LUCK So yeah, if the umps constantly give opponents 10 extra ball-strike calls against Houston every game and opponents get 2x the bloop hits as we do over the course of entire season, the dynasty that is the Astros might lose 80+. And THAT would be the most unpredictably notorious season in the history of sports. I still believe everything will even out and we win 90+. It just sucks right now in the moment.
You got that out of that post? What I was saying is the best players played when Luhnow was here. That's no longer the case. Players that make the most money play even if they suck Luhnow built a dynasty and now the back of a baseball card has taken precedence over the analytics style Luhnow used. Also they're missing Luhnow's ruthlessness..
Lol Sample size was tiny But you gonna have a hard time making a case that Abreu is better than Loper It ain’t Loper fault that Espada wouldn’t give him a single inning there, yet has no reservations putting Abreu bum ass there
Oh, Loper has no power. Ok As for why wouldn’t you try to get something out of Abreu, maybe because we are behind already and trying to win enough to get back in the race
When did “back of the baseball card” become a repeatable mantra here? Im as big a supporter of Luhnow as there was… but it wasn’t simply him. His methods and how he built things was what was at fault, even though it generated results. Also, Carlos Beltran played a ton on that 2017 team. So did Evan Gattis. Chris Carter played way too much given his inconsistency on those earlier teams and Brett Wallace before him… but there was no established winning franchise back then so experimentation was not only allowed, it was encouraged. Then they got guys like McCann and Yuli so Luhnow certainly had to learn how to optimizer the big league club to turn it into “win now” when they probably could/should have done better in 2016. Also, the toxic corporate culture he created from the scouting department on up is why he isn’t allowed back in baseball… not simply the sign stealing scandal. It’s his “ruthlessness” that got him banned. Now if you simply want somebody with big time GM experience but also knows how to win now… somebody like Dombrowski (who won with the Red Sox and is winning now with the Phillies) is probably the type of target you want… and he’s all about the “back of the baseball card” or whatever implies trading youth/assets and getting proven track record players in their primes.
I'm a results oriented person. So I really could care less about most of this post. Crane should have hired Sig and kept this thing going. The back of the baseball card and the Bagwell philosophy is where this came from.
Despite being the 2nd highest paid player on the team... he started less than 2/3 of the games at DH.... he wasn't forced fed to play the field despite being a 3x former gold glover in center. Abreu is being forced fed to play first almost every day except for his short exile despite never even having the history of being a solid defensive player. As for the catcher situation, Hinch as a former catcher himself realized even with a solid catcher in McCann, you couldn't trot him out every day...
They should play Loperfido at 1B so at least they have a competent fielder there. Him hitting would just be gravy.
But Sig is more like Brown. A scouting/behind the scenes guy. Nobody else has hired him either despite being attached to two successful rebuilds. Hopefully this BBS is starting to learn the difference between a true Director of Baseball Ops…. And a GM. Crane hasn’t had a true director since Luhnow. He basically has had to keep that title for himself (mainly because of how Luhnow’s actions led to things running away with itself). It was also what allowed Crane to further negotiate with the commissioner to keep the championsip and avoid any further discipline for him, as he had total plausible deniability given Luhnow had full control over everything baseball. Also, if you are a results oriented person… you certainly have to appreciate how the results are generated. Anybody can enjoy a good meal… but when you really know the pain/labor that went into creating it, you tend to appreciate it on another level.
Dubon is probably the best of all infielder options for 1B right now if it’s solely defense… but hell, his offense is probably the best of all the options as well.
I've read enough about Sig to have a feeling that he would've carried on the systems and procedures Luhnow left behind. Those systems have basically been trashed Yes, I know that Luhnow was the fall guy since people like Hinch, Cora, Beltran were more directly related to the cheating scandal. In fact the press was out to get Luhnow and that's what they did since everybody but Luhnow has a job in MLB. As far as the last paragraph goes I could really care less about the pain/labor that's put into building a winner. Building a winner should be expected. I only care about putting a winning product on the field. I thought I made that clear and I want a GM that's singularity focused on winning and will do whatever it takes to win. Right now Crane's org is lacking the singular focus on winning games.
