2023 Season Astros General Discussion Thread

...and stop monkeying around with the lineup and bouncing players around, leave it alone as much as possible

 

Yeah, the Astros have to remove Montero from the bullpen equation altogether. Any of a dozen options from the farm would be safer than him. I'm not a fan of Dusty, but he can't simply refuse to pitch one of his pitchers, and any game that's even remotely close is endangered by Montero right now.

If Crane doesn't want to eat all the salary than deactivate him with an "injury' while he tries to get it together. Hell, maybe a simple mental reset with some time off will do him some good.

 

https://bbs.clutchfans.net/threads/fire-baker.307216/page-73#post-14697379

Great minds and all that...

 

This is it. This is our best lineup this year. And we have not seen it one time.

 

May 23rd is probably the closest the Astros have to this lineup with Julks instead of Dubon. Astros did lose 6-0 which is probably all the evidence needed not to play more of the better players together.

This may be making a mountain out of a mole hill....
Personally, I think the Meyers/Chas in CF/LF with Alvarez at DH is slightly better. I like Meyers's defense vs Alvarez's defense more than Dubon over Altuve, and I think Meyers is a slightly better batter than Dubon despite Dubon having a slight edge this season and despite Meyers sucking at the plate right now. This is nitpicky, and probably doesn't make much of a difference over a season. I could be wrong. I think the important thing is the first 8 guys listed, and the last guy being an averagish hitter that can play defense.

As far as order goes....
Altuve
Alvarez (could swap with Bregman)
Bregman
Diaz
Tucker
Chas
Abreu
Pena
Dubon/Meyers

Diaz looks like the prototypical slug first slug second cleanup hitter. Walk guys before him at your own risk.

 

Blue Jays sent down their supposed "ace" starting pitcher Manoah after we blew him up. Why can't we do the same for Montero? His numbers are eye popping. One of top 3 worst relievers in baseball. We got to make a move here. It seems based off Dusty's quotes, as long is he available, he will keep getting played in the same situations.

 

Manoah still had options available.

Montero has "earned" enough MLB tenure that no team can send him down without his permission, or DFAing him.

 

I think Montero has declined every post game interview after blowing up a game...

 

I would also call that our strongest lineup. How can we have 2 strangest lineups? They are basically the same and the last guy in the lineup is basically the same value as a hitter. I probably prefer Meyers defense in center to Dubon's at 2nd, but then again Altuve is a mess at 2b and we apparently have to DH him all the time so whatever.
Yes- that would probably be the exact batting order I would settle on, but not before putting Pena in the 2 hole for a solid week to see if we can recapture last years magic. I'm still interested in your explanation (I think it was you) in saying that you'd need to see thousands of PA with different splits between 2nd and 7th or something like that to believe it made a difference.
I'm typically in the "doesn't make a difference" crowd but who knows- mental **** matters in any endeavor, people aren't robots and maybe this is the unique situation where batting order actually matters to one guy.

 

How about not the 8th inning in a save situation you d******d?

 

On the batting order thing...almost every player's splits between regress to being close to adjacent batting order positions over a career. Granted, the lower spots are generally worse numbers as a player is played down in the order when he's older/recovering from injury/pitchers have figured out something about the batter. All one has to do is look at career averages of most players and see that the rate numbers look the same for adjacent spots in the order, but then look at their early years and you will generally see more variance.

In Alvarez's 1st 100 or so PAs batting 3rd, he was an average hitter. Did you freak out when Dusty put Alaverez 3rd thinking Alvarez would be an average hitter or did you think Alvarez would more or less crush batting 3rd as his numbers overall were more indicative of his talent?

Dubon has an OPS below 0.700 batting 1st this year. He has an OPS above 0.800 batting elsewhere. Do you think batting 1st is holding Dubon back or that he had a hot streak to start the season, he got moved to leadoff, and then regressed to his career averages at the leadoff spot?

For Pena, he bats great at 2nd and 8th. He's a pretty good hitter at 7th. He completely sucks elsewhere. What about Pena batting 2nd, 7th, or 8th makes him better?

If you look at 100s of splits, there are going to be odd things like a certain batter plays better on Tuesdays than Saturdays. If a doctor ran 100 tests for different diseases for you and you came up positive for Ebola, would you have Ebola? If there was 100 splits regarding current Astros hitters for various spots in the batting order, and one said Pena batting 2nd matters and the other 99 don't matter, is Pena good at batting 2nd or is it randomness?

 

You'd never have had the opportunity to see it, because when Yordan was healthy, Abreu was the worst offensive player in baseball. So if you played that lineup earlier in the season, Abreu's inclusion would have made it not the best lineup. And now, you don't have a Yordan. And Altuve was gone for the first 6 weeks, so there was only even a limited window where both Yordan and Altuve were healthy.

 

LIke I said- I'm not generally a believer in that mattering but your contention was 1000's of games and that struck me as overkill. I typically default to randomness in almost everything but this seems possible as to mental vibes/confidence/protection occasionally helping a guy, and if it was going to help a guy Pena is almost who I'd draw it up in a lab to help.
Hell, maybe I'm just superstitious enough to say if the team is 43-7 (I think that's the number) with him batting 2nd I'd go ahead and bat him second until that stat wasn't true anymore.

 

Cool. Play the best possible version of the lineup that you can today with Yordan out. That doesn't happen either.

 

The basis of the argument for Pena at 2 was that he was benefiting from people giving him fastballs to avoid walking him in front of Yordan. So if there's no Yordan, does it even work? People didn't like Pena at leadoff with our 2nd best hitter in Altuve protecting him, so would #2 with Bregman or Tucker be any better?

This is a good way to get the worst out of players in the long run if it really is just randomness. If you move them up after hot streaks and then move them down after cold streaks, you end up basically always playing guys in the wrong spots. You get the cold version of the guy at the top of the order and the hot version of the guy in the lower part of the order.

 

Does the basis of the argument really matter when you have a 50 game sample size with overwhelming results? Your line of thinking is what may play this team right out of playoff contention this year. This team is 5.5 games back in the West, so eschewing result-driven decisions for conventional baseball decisions, being concerned w the hypotheticals, is a luxury we don't have. Besides, what data do you think Dusty relied on that convinced him to move Pena from the 2 hole to begin with?

This team is injured, under performing, and playing w the largest deficit it's played with in 8 years. You don't maximize results by ignoring distinctly positive trends (Pena at 2, Diaz over Maldy, Abreu down in the order, Chaz getting adequate playing time, limiting Montero's exposure especially late in games).

 

By that logic, they have a statistically significant winning percentage when Julks is in the starting lineup vs. when he's not...

Pena at 2 is fine with Yordan there... but saying he should be there regardless because "the team just wins" is as magic feather-ish logic as it gets.

The 2004 Astros finished the season 36-10. Crazy runs can happen in this sport in 50 game sample sizes that have nothing to do with just one particular aspect.

 

What would you give up for a Justin Verlander Sequel?

MLB Rumors: Could Mets trade Verlander to reset for 2024?

New York Mets owner Steve Cohen went all-in to land last offseason’s top available starting pitcher, Justin Verlander.

Verlander was signed to a two-year contract worth $86.66 million. Kodai Senga and Jose Quintana were also signed last offseason. They join ace Max Scherzer in the second season of a three-year contract worth $130 million.

The Mets made a massive investment in pitching and have very little show for it. The Mets are 34-40 and in fourth place in the NL East. They are 13.5 games back of the Braves. Things are not looking up for the Mets, who may start looking at the writing on the wall and prepare for next season.

In a recent post on MLB trade deadline targets, The Athletic’s Jim Bowden said of Verlander, “If the Mets don’t turn things around, why not pay down some of Verlander’s contract, trade him to a contender, and reboot for 2024, and beyond?”

While not many teams could afford to take on Verlander’s contract, enough teams are looking for a veteran starting pitcher who can throw strikes and eat innings. If the Mets can even unload some of the contract to a team in contention, it would help them build toward the future. Cohen will likely be picky in where they would trade Verlander, but being able to trade him to a contending team for prospects would help the Mets in future seasons.

Verlander, 40, is a 17-season veteran starting pitcher. He has a career record of 246-137, a 3.26 ERA, 26 complete games, and 3,242 strikeouts over 3,215 innings. He is 2-4 this season over nine games, a 4.50 ERA over 52 innings. He has 44 strikeouts this season.


He is older but got a late start to the season due to injury. The way the Mets have started their season is not helping Verlander. They might be able to help him, and themselves, with the right trade opportunity.​

 

I'd be happy to take on 25M plus whatever 25M prorated is for the rest of this year. So, if they sent 25 or 30M or whatever that number would work out to at the deadline I'd be willing to send them something like Leon, Whitcomb and Melton?
Or, I'd do LMJ for JV straight up with no money going out or coming back.

 

What's our rotation look like for the rangers series?