Gimme a break Dusty is 100% right. If Cole gets the ball game 7 in the 7th we win the game. Period. Hinch over managed the game .
For all the hemming and hawing about our often listless offensive production, if guys like Bregman and Abreu simply played to their expected level, we'd be stacked. Assuming we stay healthy in the 2nd half, of course. And while we've seen some marked improvement from Abreu (although not without lingering concern), Bregman, save for about 3 weeks, has been the definition of a mediocre player. Like you said, Bregman doesn't get paid like a mediocre player, he gets paid like an all star. It's about time he starts providing all star level production. Start earning your keep bc popping out to the infield or weak grounders to SS isn't going to cut it from our 2/3/4 hitter.
Probably will be an unpopular take, but is it wrong to say Bregman, more than any other Astro, has never looked the same since the sign-stealing scandal?
Taking away the juiced ball is what killed Bregman more than most. He's still walking a lot, not striking out much and swinging at good pitches. He's just not hitting them as far. The only season we used the sytem was 2017, he had his best years in 18 and 19. Marwin Gonzalez is the guy who benefitted the most....by a lot. Carlos Correa also had the best OPS+ of his career in 2017, by a fair amount.
When Alex was coming up, I viewed him as a hit tool over power infielder who would probably settle in as a backup to Altuve and Correa. I never expected him to hit more than 10 HR in a season or get to .750 OPS. He immediately exceeded my expectations and became one of my favorite players because he was producing runs so much more than I expected. After it was reported/discovered that the ball was juiced, I realized he simply doesn't have the physical ability to hit the ball 400 ft or at 100 mph consistently. Unfortunately he changed the type of hitter that he is. He could have been Wade Boggs-lite who hit .300 with lots of walks, few Ks, and 40 doubles each year. He has modeled his swing for loft and power at the expense of AVG. With the ball de-juiced, he is a max 20 hr guy who will still drive in lots of runs because he puts the ball in play. He has the talent to have amazing weeks when his swing is tuned in but will remain inconsistent throughout the season because he has so little margin for error when his swing is off which is just the nature of a 162 game season.
Someone posted upthread a b**** about us not doing anything at starting pitcher and that sent me on a deep dive into FA starting pitchers signed this off-season. I’m going to talk about it on my podcast but let’s just say you wouldn’t want to be in the business of trying to sign a FA pitcher in 2023 unless you were from the future. 33 guys got Major league contracts, they are collectively making 450M this year, and I think you’d say probably at most 12 teams are probably happy with their signings. And of that 12 one was the Japanese guy and 1 was Kershaw, both of those guys probably shouldn’t even count in the analysis. Of the 10 left over 3 or 4 of them are average or worse but the teams probably happy because they are pitching innings (someone has to) on short years and short money. Not someone you’d want to pay 6M to be Blanco for you if you could pay Blanco himself 600k to do that for you. Leaving apart the international guy and a Kershaw there are only 4/31 pitchers I think Astros fans would be happy with. That’s pretty miserable odds. i think it made perfect sense to not sign a FA guy this winter. Unless you absolutely knew out of those 31 guys you could sign Nathan E I, Wacha, Taijuan Walker or Zach Effin. And everyone other than Wacha comes with a chance to turn back into a pumpkin.
The Astros beat them 3 in a row though... and it just happened to be the 3 games not started by Scherzer and Strasburg. They basically won because Scherzer/Strasburg were dominant against one of the greatest statistical offenses in the game's history.
Tough to pinpoint exactly what caused this, but his attitude is also noticeably different since the 2019 World Series when he proudly embraced being the villain and did things like carry his bat all the way to first base. It might be the sign scandal, it might be simply growing up and settling down, or he maybe just didn't like the image of himself that he had created... but I think he's the type of player who thrives off of that type of attitude and it just isn't there anymore.
There was no "villain" label on the Astros during that series... the cheating scandal broke after that. As far as why he carried his bat... who knows. Maybe more than the ball was juiced? He's continued to get big HR's against cy young award winners in subsequent post-seasons. Combination of his leg injuries and no juiced balls is what has likely sapped some of his counting numbers over 162... but during a 2-3 week span (or as he had a scorching August last year), he can find it.
The Astros weren’t yet villains, but Bregman absolutely embraced the ‘heel’ role in 2018-2019. I understand why he calmed down, but I think it was to his detriment.
Free agent hitters: 3+ years and lots of money: 235M (this year only salary- tons more owed) 22.5 WAR prorated for a year. 6 good or fair deals for this year- 4 bad deals. This is much worse than it looks when you consider you are supposed to massively outperform in the first couple years of the contract to make up for the last couple years of the contract. Only guy doing that is Dansby Swanson by War, maybe Brendon Nimmo. interestingly enough for as much **** as some people have given me for pounding the table for Contreras he only got 5/85 (17 per) and he has 1.5 WAR and a 105 OPS+ I know about the STL pitchers. Lets just say that after having to watch the **** show that is Martin Maldonado and hear everyone orgasm about OMG the intagnibles I'm not inclined to believe a pitcher if he told me the sky was blue 2 year deals- decent money: 111M in salary (this year only) and 10.26 War prorated for the year. 7 guys. 2 steals, 2 fair values and 3 no way jose deals. The steals are Justin Turner and Cody Bellinger. 2 year, small money deals- Disaster! 45M in salary this year, pace for -6.7 WAR. 6 guys, 5 of which are a disaster and Brandon Drury, which is a ****ing steal. This is the only category that doesn't come out to basically 1 WAR equals $10M on free agent market. 1 year small money (I've got Brantley here not to make a point but because Bellinger got 17M and Brantley got 12 and I don't think anyone else got anything in between: 19 players- 138.3 M in total salary- 14.04 WAR (projected) for the year. 9 of the 19 players are worth the contract based upon $/War, but I only count JD Martinez, Brandon Belt, Kevin Kiermaier, Adam Frazier Adam Duval, David Peralta, Tommy Pham, and Andrew Mccutchen as guys that we would probably like to play if we were more or less healthy. Peralta is probably marginal, Kiermaier wouldn't be an offensive improvement nor would Frazier. So, Pham, McCutchen, Duval Belt and Martinez that would improve our offense. There is NO move that we could have made to improve our offense more than deciding to DFA maldonado in the offseason. The Astros signed a guy in the 3+ big money and lost, and they signed the most expensive guy in the 1 year small money category and lost. Everything they did was a loss this offseason, but there weren't a ton of wins. Also, pretty pretty bad year for FA class when you consider that its only break even on the multi year deals and this should be about as good as it gets.
Recap of last week, the first half of the season and then talk about all star game and the best 9 in the world. Fun show in my opinion. Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1NFkFcrE1XxmGh6RQ7NwPJ?si=mW0xMQhmTZ20EGR-Z-ovQA Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breathing-orange-fire-a-houston-astros-podcast/id1683955456 Amazon: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/8...r-edition?ref=dm_sh_fQosmUhVNMU7bhLBBby8OM6pL
Why the hell does race need to be a thing? It has no relevance. I don't know you but you are either a bigot or very tone deaf and ignorant of the current world.
The same Jeter who bombed out and completely failed as an owner/executive/quasi-GM-type and then quit after about 5 years with the Marlins?
