Astros 2021 Season General Discussion Thread

I don’t see them necessarily going bargain hunting, although I’m sure that’s what some of the pundits here salivate over.

Easy to say that they’re going to take the extra salary money and spread it out elsewhere… but takes a lot of variables to sign free agents, and they don’t necessarily do so at the team’s timetable.

Revenues/attendance hasn’t exactly been off the charts… even with lesser restrictions. Will need a deep playoff run to give them some financial flexibility. I could still see short term offers considered for Verlander/Greinke and a negotiated middle ground with Correa… but if they end up with none of those guys, not necessarily automatic that they’ll put that money elsewhere.

 

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but the new collective bargaining agreement presents MLB with a window to show favoritism again. If the Yankees or other favored teams go over the new luxury taxes, they will receive forgiveness. If non-favored teams do it. there will be stiff penalties.

It makes non-favored teams have a particularly difficult time pursuing FAs without a new agreement in place.

 

I'm just saying that revenues this year aren't necessarily in line with past years. A playoff run with 6-10 sold-out home games could change that (although wouldn't be surprised if there are tickets available for the division round series games).

I agree Crane will spend what it takes when the window is open. Even though small sample playoff series shouldn't dictate future spending/approaches, the revenues do matter. And Crane has shown a tendency to spend more on known/familiar commodities (extend retained players) vs. going out and spending big money for free agents.

 

José Urquidy’s looming return gives the Astros room for flexibility with their September rotation
https://theathletic.com/2783775/202...or-flexibility-with-their-september-rotation/

José Urquidy’s rehab from his second shoulder issue of the season seems to be going as well as the Astros could’ve hoped. After pitching three scoreless innings without issue Thursday in the Florida Complex League, he returned to Minute Maid Park on Sunday to throw a bullpen session. His next stop will be Triple-A Sugar Land, and he’s expected to make two or three starts there; the first is scheduled for Tuesday.

All signs point to Urquidy’s being activated shortly after active rosters expand from 26 to 28 in September. The question will then become how the Astros manage six starting pitchers in the regular season’s final month leading into the postseason.

“You’ve got to come back first. … We’ll start thinking about that the closer he gets,” Astros manager Dusty Baker said Sunday. “I certainly want him back as soon as possible. But I don’t want him back to only go four or five innings because that puts a lot more pressure on my bullpen. I’ve already got two guys who are kind of five-inning guys. We need a seven-inning guy, potentially a seven-inning guy.”

Regardless of how deep he pitches — if you take out the two starts he exited early because of injury, Urquidy has averaged roughly six innings per start this season — Urquidy’s return will be a decision point for the Astros. And even though Baker isn’t ready to go there, the team’s options are apparent. Let’s examine them.

A six-man rotation

A six-man rotation, at least for a good chunk of September, seems like the likeliest outcome. The Astros have already shown a willingness to do it, as they went to a six-man rotation for a couple of weeks in June, and they are scheduled to play 17 days in a row from Sept. 10 to Sept. 26. If an argument against a six-man rotation is pitchers having too long between starts in the weeks that include a team off day, a long stretch without an off day is the ideal time to do it.

Moving back to a six-man rotation would also be an easy way for the Astros to spread out Luis Garcia’s starts amid his career high in innings (116 2/3 and counting). Garcia’s average fastball velocity has dipped from 93 mph earlier in the season to 92 mph in August. The extra day or two of rest would probably benefit him. Another option would be to skip one of Garcia’s starts altogether.

The Astros have already limited Garcia’s pitch count. They’ve taken him out with fewer than 90 pitches in his past seven starts. In the most recent start, Garcia was pulled with a pitch count of only 70, his lowest since April. A lot of the damage against him this season has come after he’s reached the 75- or 80-pitch mark in an outing. As for his postseason role, he projects best as a two-times-through-the-order starter.

Bump Jake Odorizzi to the bullpen

Along with Garcia, Odorizzi is the other five-inning starter Baker alluded to Sunday. Odorizzi hasn’t completed six innings since July 9 against the Yankees. His season-long performance has been the worst of the Astros’ starters, and a demotion to the bullpen would be justified given how well Urquidy pitched when healthy (3.38 ERA in 77 1/3 innings). But it’s also not as if Odorizzi has been so bad that the Astros can’t keep starting him just to give the other five starters an extra day or two between outings.

Odorizzi has a 4.52 ERA in 79 2/3 innings, which is only slightly worse than the major-league average. Most teams would take that from their fifth starter in a heartbeat. There is some value in the depth he represents if the Astros do go to a six-man rotation.

In a bullpen role, Odorizzi would be a long reliever, which the Astros don’t have right now. An argument for putting him in the bullpen is that if he makes a postseason roster, it’s more likely to be as a reliever than as a starter. However, even a spot in the postseason bullpen seems unlikely right now, and moving Odorizzi to the bullpen in the regular season could backfire on the Astros if their rotation encounters injuries or Garcia runs out of gas and/or needs to be moved to the bullpen in September. Their next best depth starter is Brandon Bielak, who’s being stretched out in Triple A. This late in the season, it’s safe to assume Cristian Javier will be a reliever for the rest of the year.

It’s possible the Astros begin September with a six-man rotation, then shave it down to five later in the month. This much is clear: Their surplus means they can be flexible.

 

Raley with a little fire

 

Do they have money to spend? First MLB proposal to MLBPA was to lower the first luxury tax to 180 million. We really don't know what the new CBA is going to look like. Astros have gone over the tax ONE time and that was in 2020. Ironically, they didn't have to actually pay the tax because of the short season and COVID.

Ignoring the CBA.. do I think they will just hand the SS job to Pena or Leon in spring training? NO

They will probably bring in a cheap free agent veteran or make a trade. However, I expect one of Pena or Leon to emerge and take most of the reps at SS next season.

 

It's possible, but Pena is a fringe top 100 prospect who wasn't had an opportunity to make the leap to AA ball, much less MLB. He's currently projected to be a substantially worse hitter than Maldy. I think he would be doing well to be merely above replacement level next season, and would have to blow away most people's expectations to be close to an average major league player.

I can see Leon's bat possibly playing in the majors by sometime next season, but it's hard for me to see him being good enough defensively to serve more than as a backup or emergency SS. How many players have been able to pick up SS proficiently enough in 1-2 seasons to play it everyday at the MLB level? Also, the numbers that are available w/r/t to his fielding in the minors (Davenport translations) at SS are very poor. Even with the lowered LT threshold they can find someone who projects as an average player at SS, and it would be surprising to me if either Pena or Leon could achieve that level of productivity at SS by next season.

If money is really that tight then I would prefer they roll with a rotation of Garcia/LMJ/Valdez/Urquidy/Odorizzi next season in lieu of spending on a TORP.

 

Booed, scorned and ready for more, these Astros chase a title untainted by scandal
https://theathletic.com/2784037/202...se-astros-chase-a-title-untainted-by-scandal/

Carlos Correa keeps his 2017 World Series ring inside a safe at his home in Houston. He does not open it. If he did, dozens of diamonds would gleam in the light. One hundred and one for all of the games the Astros won during the regular season. Eleven more for the playoff victories required to capture the title. Correa, the 26-year-old shortstop, does not need to gaze at the jewelry to remember what it represents.

“It means a lot of hard work,” Correa says. “It means a dream come true.”

The ring meant something different to the nearly 53,000 fans teeming in the stands at Dodger Stadium earlier this month. To them, the ring was the bauble of a thief, whose team stole signs and then stole a championship. Correa understood what they thought. He wanted it to feel palpable. Which was why he stepped onto the field, alone, to stretch about 30 minutes before the first pitch. He ventured across the grass where he had celebrated a championship. He knew what was coming. The crowd lit him up. Correa says he basked in it.

“I was like, ‘This is awesome,’” Correa says. “I loved every bit of it.”

The ring means one thing in Houston and it means something else in all of the other cities the Astros visit this season. On a humid Kansas City evening last week, as Correa stood at the plate, a lone voice barked across the half-empty ballpark.

“Cheater!” the man said. “Cheater!”

The second epithet had just left the man’s lips when Correa swung. He clubbed a toothless slider over the left-field bullpen. As he rounded third base, he cupped his hand to his ear, a gesture that has become customary in the aftermath of the Astros sign-stealing scandal. Correa can hear you. He will not pretend otherwise.

Correa is one of only five members of the 2017 squad on the active roster as the franchise traverses its first season playing in front of fans thirsting to admonish them for their skullduggery. Only Jose Altuve, the American League MVP that year, receives more vitriol away from Minute Maid Park. If Altuve absorbs it, Correa says he feeds off it. “I want more,” he says. So he relishes the chance to hit the road this October.

“At the end of the day, it’s an entertainment business,” Correa says. “And we want to entertain people. When we go on the road, it’s entertaining to make the fans go quiet.”

Correa was standing inside the home dugout a couple of hours before Houston widened its lead in the American League West. He wore an orange tank top: “H-Town vs. Everyone.”

The playoffs are coming. The Astros will be there.

Are you not entertained?

Dusty Baker eased onto the bench at Minute Maid Park as his team prepared to host the Mariners last weekend. He had walked past a bottle of Syrah from the vineyard that bears his name. He wore a pair of wristbands that bore his visage. On his mind was the number that has occupied his mind each month in every season since he first became a manager, back in 1993, a year before Correa was born: 15. If you win 15 games a month, Baker calculates, you will probably make the postseason.

“Believe or not,” Baker said, “I’m a numbers guy.”

Baker, 72, knows the math cold. He has managed a playoff team in each of the past four decades. The Astros were on track: 14 victories in April and 15 in May, 19 in June and 19 more in July. Then came a cold snap, with series lost to the Twins and Royals. Before the series against Seattle, the Astros had lost more games than they had won in August. All teams enter these doldrums; it is the manager’s job to shoo them away.

“I don’t like that,” Baker said. “We’ve got to finish strong this month.”

This season is Baker’s 24th as a manager. It may be his last; he does not have a contract beyond this season. Then again, the 2017 season once looked like his last. After two first-round exits in a row, the Nationals fired Baker 12 days before Correa, Altuve and the rest of the Astros sprayed champagne at Dodger Stadium. Baker returned to the Bay Area to watch his son Darren play college ball and to pamper his first grandchild, trying to feel content about the conclusion of a admirable career as a player and manager.

The tumult after the 2019 season brought Baker back to a dugout. Former Astro Mike Fiers blew the whistle on the intricacies of Houston’s sign-stealing apparatus in the championship year. Subsequent reporting unearthed details about secret cameras, illegal monitors and bashed trash cans. Major League Baseball levied yearlong suspensions on Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow, manager A.J. Hinch, Red Sox manager Alex Cora and Mets manager Carlos Beltrán. All four were fired by their employers. The subsequent scramble by Houston owner Jim Crane led him to Baker.

Baker offered the acumen required to manage the game, the feel required to manage the clubhouse and the gravitas required to manage the outrage. After a 60-game season curtailed by the pandemic, the Astros limped into the expanded playoffs last year with a losing record but won two series and pushed Tampa Bay to Game 7 in the American League Championship Series. “It was a weird season,” Correa says. “Honestly, I didn’t even feel like playing at some points. I was like, ‘This is not baseball.’”

Even with the pandemic ongoing, the 2021 season feels like a return to normalcy. And so Houston has reclaimed its place atop the West, the division it ruled from 2017 to 2019. FanGraphs considers the Astros the American League team with the best chance to win it all. The offense led the sport in runs, OPS and weighted on-base average, heading into Tuesday’s games. The pitchers were second in the American League in ERA. At the deadline, general manager James Click executed a flurry of trades to upgrade the bullpen. Houston maintained control of first place in August despite injuries to Alex Bregman and Yuli Gurriel, two other 2017 veterans.

Bregman has nursed a quadriceps injury for two months. His rehabilitation has featured fits and starts. During a recent losing spell in Kansas City, he hounded Baker about getting activated. “He really feels guilty about not being here to support his team,” Baker said.

Baker told Bregman not to rush. The team would activate him when they believed he could last through October. Until then, the others would fixate on finding those 15 wins per month.

“Our guys come out to play,” Baker said. “They come out to fight. And you know something? It’s not always fun.”

 

Lance McCullers Jr. keeps his ring inside a closet in Houston, dangling from a silver necklace. He doesn’t often wear it. “Even before everything, I didn’t wear it too much,” he says. To him, the jewelry represents the connection between a team and a city smashed by Hurricane Harvey two months before the playoffs began.

“The ring to me signifies more than just the title,” McCullers says. “I know people say, ‘Give the ring back,’ or whatever the case is. But I still have it. It may be weird or odd. But I’m still proud of the guys on the team.”

McCullers is the only pitcher left from 2017. Zack Greinke spent that season in Arizona. Jake Odorizzi played for Tampa Bay. Pedro Báez and Yimi García were Dodgers. Blake Taylor pitched for the Columbia Fireflies, a class-A affiliate of the Mets. On the road, it does not matter. The heaviest jeers land on holdovers like Altuve and Correa. But the others catch flak.

“People want their ounce of flesh, pound of flesh — whatever the right terminology is,” Odorizzi says. “Personally, I just think it’s passed. It’s almost four years ago now. That’s a long time — especially in the baseball world.”

The industry tends to agree with Odorizzi, even if plenty of baseball people outside Houston still harbor resentment. At times in 2019 and 2020, it felt like the scandal might capsize the sport. In the early days of spring training last year, rivals raged at the Astros for cheating and at commissioner Rob Manfred for not pursuing punishment toward the players. Houston trotted out Altuve and Bregman for canned apologies. Crane insisted the cheating did not taint the title. The comments were met with scorn in other clubhouses.

Manfred suggested the players would receive judgment before fans at ballparks. The pandemic delayed that by a year. It would be up to the public, because the official punishments have expired. Boston re-hired Cora this past winter. Hinch landed in Detroit. George Springer fetched $150 million in free agency from Toronto. The Astros could recruit new players with the same strategy that works everywhere else: Offer the most money. “When I signed here, it wasn’t in my thoughts,” Odorizzi says. “Like, ‘Oh, it’s going to be questionable to sign here because of what happened.’”

The reminders were swift. The Astros got booed in spring training. The reception for the season opener in Oakland was uncharitable. The atmosphere at Yankee Stadium in May was raucous. The two days at Dodger Stadium were remarkable for their intensity. Even in places like Kansas City, which had no playoff history with Houston in 2017, the fans voice their displeasure.

The Astros have avoided a repeat of last year’s on-field skirmishes, when Dodgers reliever Joe Kelly emptied the benches by blowing a raspberry at Correa, and when hitting coach Álex Cintrón incited Oakland outfielder Ramón Laureano to charge the dugout. The venom has been limited to the stands. If anything, the scandal has acted as a stimulus for stores that sell inflatable trash cans and Oscar the Grouch costumes. Some Astros believe it has deepened their own bond.

“It takes something special to wear Astros across your chest,” Taylor said after the series in Los Angeles. That sentiment stuck with Odorizzi. “We’re all in this together, regardless of whether we were here for it,” he says. “We’re all going to get booed the same. We’re all going to get ridiculed the same. So the only group that matters is the group wearing this [jersey].”

The links to the past involve more than the uniform. Several newer Astros spoke about the depth of the group’s bond and the clarity of their collective vision. Those ties begin, of course, with the players who have already won — the players who were there for the trash cans and the cameras. In that sense, the connection between 2017 and 2021 is inextricable. And, when the players venture outside of Houston, it is impossible to ignore.

For the pitchers, the treatment resides somewhere between an annoyance and a source of amusement. Kendall Graveman faced the Astros three times with Oakland in 2017. He relieved for Seattle up until a trade on July 27. Soon after, Graveman joined his new teammates at Dodger Stadium. “I’d only been there for like a week, and people were yelling at me,” Graveman says.

Ryne Stanek, a Ray in 2017, chuckled about recent additions like Garcia and Graveman. “They’re like, ‘You guys are cheaters!’” Stanek says. “They just got traded here — this week!” The treatment of García at Chavez Ravine particularly tickled him. “It’s like, ‘How do you not realize that he was on your team?’” he says. Stanek, a jovial fellow with a blond mane and a wicked splitter, could go for a while on this topic.

“Nobody is creative, either,” he says. “It’s the same thing everywhere. It’d be one thing if somebody was funny or made something up that was different than everything that’s been said the whole year. Which was been like the same six things, over and over and over again.”

A different moment stuck with McCullers. In Cleveland, he heard fans harangue Michael Brantley, who made three All-Star teams with the Indians and didn’t sign with the Astros until 2019. “People were yelling that he’s an effing cheater,” McCullers says. “And we’re like, ‘He was playing for Cleveland during that time.’ But people, they just don’t care.”

The sports world needs villains, even if those wearing the black hat reject the label. McCullers was irritated last October by stories suggesting the Astros intended to win a title to spite all the teams who ripped them the previous spring. “We weren’t trying to spin it,” he says. “We were the bad guys of the story. We were just trying to go out there and play good baseball.”

McCullers suggested the Astros occupied a place similar to the New England Patriots. After Spygate and Deflategate, the Pats just kept winning. McCullers signed an $85 million extension with Houston through 2026 because he feels his organization can do the same.

“You can’t go back,” McCullers says. “You can’t change the past. I’m not asking anyone on the road, any player, any fan, to feel a certain way. You want to come out and boo us, if that’s what makes you feel good, then, by all means, come out and boo us.”

McCullers does not believe Houston requires another ring to validate the one in his closet. And he does not think a second ring would lessen the jeers spewed toward those who received the first.

“I don’t think people want to move past it, if that makes sense,” McCullers says. “There’s only a couple guys left on the team. And maybe, after this year, even less.”

 

In the hours before he arrived at Dodger Stadium earlier this month, James Click made a cautious decision. He muted his wardrobe.

“I’ll be honest: In L.A., I wasn’t wearing team gear,” Click says. “I was wearing orange. But I wasn’t wearing, like, Astros gear.”

Click, 43, has been Houston’s general manager for 18 months. He had spent the entirety of his baseball career in Tampa Bay before Crane hired him to replace Luhnow. He believes he has learned more about the members of his organization in the past six months than the first 12. In some ways, he says, he can only speculate how the players process their reception. “I would be speaking out of turn if I said I had any inkling what they are going through,” Click says.

Little about Click’s first year was tidy. The Click family did not leave St. Petersburg for Houston until June, as the sport remained shut down. Click tried to learn names and faces across Zoom. When the games began, the Astros had a chance to prove they did not need to cheat to hit. It did not go well: Altuve batted .219 and Correa posted a .709 OPS, the worst of his career.

As the team stumbled through the 60-game season, the players insisted to Baker and Click they would revive themselves if they reached the playoffs. Click was skeptical. But the Astros made good on their promise. The performance in October only made the regular-season malaise more puzzling. “I think it is incredibly difficult to figure out how to handle what happened in 2020, both from a baseball perspective and just a humanity perspective,” Click says.

Click has fewer reservations about the readiness of this year’s club. “It is rare in this game to be on a team that has this kind of talent,” he says. He altered the edges of the roster while benefiting from the inherited core. Altuve and Correa have rebounded into All-Star form. Both are hitting, and Altuve has rectified the throwing issues that overwhelmed him last October. The duo, along with fellow All-Stars Brantley and reliever Ryan Pressley, skipped the festivities in Denver last month. Some wondered if the players wanted to avoid getting booed by the crowd or iced by their peers. Altuve suggested he needed to rest after an unspecified leg injury. He wanted to be as healthy as possible for what could be his final season sharing a clubhouse with Correa.

Alone among the active 2017 group, Correa is not under team control beyond 2021 (Justin Verlander, who is rehabbing from Tommy John surgery, will also be a free agent). In April, Correa told reporters he rejected an extension offer worth $120 million across six seasons and a second proposal worth $125 million across five. That proposal would soon be dwarfed by the deals struck by fellow shortstops Fernando Tatis Jr. ($340 million) and Francisco Lindor ($341 million). The Astros can afford to bring Correa back. But he speaks about this season with something approaching finality.

“My last year with the Astros, hopefully we can win another championship,” Correa says. “I can leave this great organization with two of them.”

Click harbors similar ambitions: “Our goal is to win as many World Series as possible over the foreseeable future,” he says. Whether those teams include Correa will depend on the volatility of the market and the willingness of Crane to win the bidding. In the interim, Correa remains a vital contributor to what Click describes as “the brotherhood that they have in the clubhouse.” The Astros, Click is quick to point out, have grown accustomed to hostilities on the road. The outpouring of disdain won’t derail them, he says. They aren’t built like us.

“Look, I’ve been at Fenway in the playoffs,” Click says. “And I can say that I’m glad that the athletes are the ones in the field in that situation, and not me, because it has an effect. At least, it has an effect on me. But there are innumerable things that separate those guys from me, and normal human beings, and maybe one of them is the ability to zone that out. Whatever it is, I’m beyond impressed by it.”

Where Jose Altuve keeps his ring, and what it means to him, is unclear. He presents himself as a closed book.

A few hours before a game in Kansas City last week, Altuve draped his arms over the dugout railing. He tucked his chin to the green padding. The Royals were taking batting practice. Reggie Jackson, an Astros advisor, was boogieing to “Caribbean Queen.” Altuve looked serene as he accepted a fist bump from a reporter asking if he had time to talk.

“Not right now,” Altuve said. He placed his fingertips on his temples and generated a smile. “I have to visualize before the game. It’s part of my routine.”

A team official described Altuve as “selective” in the interviews he grants. Those who know him say he has felt wounded by the criticism these past two years. His teammates have insisted Altuve disapproved of the cheating and asked that the trash can not be used during his at-bats. It did not matter. He did not stop the scheme. He benefited from its usage. As the face of his franchise, he became the face of its scandal. If that is unfair, well, so is using an unauthorized camera to intercept signs and transmit them in real time.

Correa calls Altuve “one of the greatest players to ever put on a Houston Astros uniform.” Fans call him something else. Altuve took the game’s opening at-bat that night. The response was immediate and typical. Howls. Expletives. Altuve made a first-pitch groundout. Head down, he jogged to his dugout.

“You’re a cheater!” a fan yelled. “You’re a cheater!”

A day later, Altuve emerged as the Royals warmed up. He was scooped off the ground by Kansas City catcher Salvador Perez, a childhood friend from Venezuela. From behind the plate, a Kansas City native named Brad Burger beckoned to Altuve. Burger asked for an autograph. Altuve scrawled his signature across Burger’s green notebook. As he made small talk with Burger, a few other Royals fans noticed. Soon Altuve was fielding a flurry of baseballs to ink.

One fan thumped his chest.

“You’re going above and beyond,” he said.

Altuve finished signing. The reporter caught his eye. Altuve shrugged and kept moving.

“Maybe next time, OK?” Altuve said.

“When might …”

He was gone before the question ended. Altuve bounded down the dugout steps and disappeared into the cocoon of his clubhouse. Burger and the Royals fans beamed at the autographs. Altuve knew that when he returned, 90 minutes later, no one would ask him to sign his name. They would only ask that he return his ring.

 

100% agree. I think the lineup is as good as any during these contending years but we have a bunch of #2s that sometimes look like #1s. Not feeling as confident as prior years without Keuchel, Cole, Verlander, Morton, etc.

 

A bit of revisionist history.

Keuchel was a true ace in 2015… but 2017 did fall off and while they won the epic game 5, he did not pitch well.

Morton exceeded all expectations and forever gets the glory of being on the mound when the Astros won game 7… but he had some sub-par playoff starts in 2017 and 2018…. Never had a dominant ace-like start.

LMJ/Greinke both capable of going 6-7 innings (which is unheard of in playoff baseball these days). Urquiddy may be the best suited (if he’s healthy) based on his ability to throw strikes regardless of the situation, and the league’s still relative unfamiliarity with him.

Still hoping that all this p***y-footing with Javier was so they could truly unleash the Kraken come playoff time and have him tandem multiple games/series as needed with all the off-days (unlikely now since he rarely throws 3 innings).

 

A very solid plan.

Maybe you could get a cheap vet SS to split time or show Pena the ropes. I would go with Pena if that means bringing back Graveman and signing Alvarez/Tucker long term.

 

I'm really excited to see how Urquidy performs when he's brought back up. He hasn't had much of a chance this season to show what he can do this year with the shoulder issues but if he's finally healthy I think he could go on a tear down the stretch.

 

The Union won't agree. Lowering the Tax is a backdoor Salary Cap.

 

I agree... however this happened earlier in the season as well (he pitches great for 6 weeks, then shoulder hurts... rests... then pitches again for a month, shoulder hurts... rests).

I do think when he comes back, he should be fine for the playoffs given that this seems like an overuse injury. However, long-term, I bet he's going to need some sort of corrective procedure on the shoulder that fixes whatever the issue is.

When he has pitched this season, he's actually been one of the most consistent/reproducible/effective starters.