I thought that the Nerd Cave was not all-in on steals. :shrug: Steals like RBIs are a great back of the baseball card stat
Astros are up and down on steals. If you remember early on with Luhnow they attempted to steal a lot of bases - but were bad at it and eventually stopped. Now - they are back in on it, Espada has been prioritizing it in the Spring.... does that carry over? I don't know, being fast is one thing, being a smart base runner is another.... you need to be successful like 75-80% of the time to make it worth it. Melton was a Click draft pick, but someone that Brown liked in the draft and he is just naturally a pretty good base runner. Brice Matthews was a pick by Brown and is just a high-level athlete and can use that to get bags.
It's all about the math which says that on average, if you are successful less than about 75% of the time, it's a net negative. Of course, the individual team and players must be considered as well. Stolen bases were ( correctly) rare on the 2019 Astros but the less firepower a team has ( or has coming up) the more valuable success and less costly failure is. Enlarging the bases and limiting throw overs affected the calculus and now success rate is higher and it's more beneficial. I still don't want Paredes attempting a steal in front of Yordan and Walker, but Pena in front of McCormick and Meyers with a RH pitching should be very common.
Much like the tired concepts of "moneyball"... people continue to struggle with the concept of capitalizing on the aspects that other teams are undervaluing. Smart teams continue to be ahead of the curve vs. what everybody else eventually starts doing... and steals may be one of those aspects thanks to the new rules. Still trying to figure out if Dana Brown and the new front office are ahead of the curve, following the trends (behind the curve), or just going by feel/gut instinct.... I was slightly perturbed that he didn't realize how many innings Blanco threw last year...
Not sure if anyone has had the chance to listen to the interview Dana Brown had with Adam Spolane last week. I don’t want to misquote what was said, but when asked about where Cam Smith will start the season, Dana said something along the lines of: As the spring goes on I think it’s going to become very clear as to where Cam needs to start the year. The tone of the interview was an absolute knob slob session. To say that Dana is excited to have this guy is an extreme understatement. Maybe this will finally be someone he’s able to lock down long term. He better move fast though.
I hope they dont send him down simply for getting the upper hand on years of service, if he deserves it, he should start on day one
This is one of those "old people don't know baseball, can't even do math" things, but that ball sounded great off the bat
A good sign is that his swing is very easy and doesn't look violent like he is selling out for power. It's even smoother than a young Correa.
