Nice! Heavy "Col. Andrew Luck" vibes P. Phineas McGillicuty, MD is a solid name. My long-time alt-gmail spam account that I use for rando website signups and such is Jethro P. Beauregard, Esq
Years ago, in high school, about 50 of my closest friends, and I decided we were going to divide ourselves into mob families. We had the Ravioli's, the Spumoni's, and the Oregano's. We went around shooting each other with these plastic guns that shot little plastic disks or BBs (no way anyone gets away with that today) Any way, several of us went to an artsy movie theater called "the Enzian" in Orlando. I signed up for their newsletter under my name Vito Oregano. For about 5 years I got junk mail from dozens if not hundreds of companies to Vito Oregano.
Forty years ago, I went to the Galleria in Houston and they were holding what they called a prize contest for simply signing up. I knew they were just using me to inflate a mailing list so I used a variant of my name, Robert L., To this day i get junk mail after changing addresses several time in multiple states and I even get Social Security Advantage Plan solicitations to that name. Mailing lists are a form of immortality.
And that article was written before Lance outdueled Skenes. All is trending well. I absolutely expect them to go on a run with some pitchers back, add a bat, win the division easily and challenge for a top-2 seed.
McCullers has been quite good lately. A great development. Can he make it to the postseason to pair with "good Framber" If you get that, the team can win another ring with that dominant bullpen.
The playoff roster could be STACKED. SS Pena: playing at an MVP level 3B Paredes: playing at an All-Star level DH Alvarez: MVP caliber if he’s healthy 2B Altuve: shown he can still be a really good player 1B Walker: has been clutch and was all-star caliber in 2024 C Diaz/Caratini: .795/.804 ops in May CF Meyers: top 10 CF in MLB this season RF Smith: .788 ops in May LF Melton: elite ceiling based on hard hit rate, EV, bb rate, and swstr rate Bench: Dubon, McCormick, Salazar SP Framber: ace SP Brown: ace SP McCullers: ace outside of 1 bad start SP Arrighetti: ToR SP last 2 months of 2024 RP Hader: elite closer RP Abreu: elite setup man RP King, Okert, Sousa, Dubin: elite MR (all have era <3.30) Other P: Gusto, Javier, Garcia That’s a stacked roster if everybody is healthy.
Altuve and Yordan getting back to their norms. Pairing Pena to that. Who is Smith the rest of the way. Does Walker get back to the guy hes been in AZ. So many what ifs... Do you trade for a big bat at the deadline or do you let the young guys play. I really want to see Bryce Mathews get some run at 2B as he is starting to shine in AAA with clear improvement. This team is an amoeba when it comes to what they are playing for.
Giants DFA Lamont Wade. Wouldn’t mind Houston signing him to a minor league deal. Lefty on base machine who can play LF/1B. Just got hurt then slumped.
The bipolarness here is getting ridiculous. A week ago, people wanted to sell everything at the deadline. There was a multi-year talent decline and the manager was a moron. If the Astros were 21-22 going into the Rangers series a couple of weeks ago (instead of the 22-21 that they were), at least one person said they write off any playoff hopes this year. Now the roster is stacked, they'll run away with the division, etc. Until they lose 2 or 3 in a row and everyone on the team is awful again.
Many years ago I did incredibly dumb stuff like send money to wise guys by western union for them to give me picks on games to bet on. I did that for awhile (many crazy stories for another time), but somehow some way my mom started getting gambling paraphernalia in the mail from Johnny DeMarco advertising weekend packages with Jimmy “the Fixer” and the gig was pretty much up at that point
Then find yourself a sports message board with mature fans who never waver from their polyanna, sunshine pumping state of mind. There are great fans in here. Quit your b****ing or go find something more for you.
Meh. Between the injuries, unpredictable rookies, and declining performance of older players, this team’s projections have legitimately changed significantly from week to week. So while fans tend to always overreact to short term outcomes (myself included), there are real reasons why this team has been so mercurial. Not to mention that this roster has had more turnover than any in the last 10 years, so it’s perfectly logical that fans’ expectations would have more variance as time passes. But also, what’s the fun in keeping a completely level head as a poster on an internet sports message board?
Since I was the one who said they will run away with the division ... to be fair, I've said that consistently from before the season began and didn't waver. Perhaps I am always too optimistic, but I continue to believe there is more upside than downside holistically on the team ... even with some regression of the secondary bullpen members, Jake & Jeremy, the upside of the returning starters, Yordan, Walker and Altuve is more than enough to offset. They have been unlucky with both star performance and pitching depth, yet are leading the division. Baseball in this era is simple. Create a balanced team that can survive 162 games, winning a few more than you lose. A .530 win % is enough. Then hope to get lucky in the playoffs. No matter what, playoffs are a series of coin flips ... having a stacked team doesn't guarantee anything, though a few ace pitchers and a good bullpen helps. But playing one extra series cuts your odds roughly in half. Hence my obsession with catching Yankees or Detroit, which I think we can and will do. Finishing 2nd instead of 3rd is far more important than Yordan being healthy for the playoffs. Net net, I don't think the individuals on the board are bipolar as much as the group has diverse perspectives, and the optimists speak out in good times and the pessimists are louder at bad times.
No, they haven't. The team is never as good as it looks when things are going well. It's never as bad as it looks when things are going poorly. The week-to-week performance will change dramatically because of the things you talk about but the team's actual projections do not. They are the same team they were a week ago. It's also why managers don't shuffle the lineup in response to daily performance and why GMs don't cut or add players on a whim. The team will go in a slump at some point. And the team's expectations won't be any different than they are today or were 2 weeks ago. You can decide what's fun for you or not. I don't find going to the depths of "my team sucks" every other week to be particularly fun and I personally find it bizarre that anyone would - but what's fun is certainly different for everyone. But what it does tell me is that the fans who do go bipolar every few days should have their opinions discounted in a discussion because they have demonstrated that they aren't able to be objective or rational and have a memory span of a week. So their thoughts on the team at any given moment are likely to have little to no actual value when looking forward - they'll change a week later. It's the difference, to me, between opinions that I would want to listen to and those that I would simply dismiss.
Sorry - I wasn't keeping track of who said what. And I agree with you that the team will win the division as they generally do and that they will be a force in the playoffs as long as the "average" version of the team is what we see. Like you, I've generally just kept that viewpoint regardless of short-term performance. Obviously, as with any team, if everyone over or underperforms, that changes, but the average version of this team is simply better than the average version of the other teams in the division, and over time, that's likely to prevail - though obviously not always. The team is good. It isn't a great as it was. And it's not a team that needs to be dismantled. It's just on the latter part of a long dynasty.
I am hearing the pitch that hurt Wesneski's arm was an inside curveball that sawed off Yordan in BP. Yordan was seen holding his hand after the swing while the ball ended up hitting Arrighetti in the thumb.
