This this this. With teh way the Astros are pitching there is no reason to think they aren't a true talent 100 win team. The offense hasn't been efficient and I would call it an underperform or a bit of a disappointment. How much of that is guys like Dubon getting too much time? I don't know. How much of it is guys like Yuli and Pena and other non elite hitters hitting at the 2 hole? I don't know. How much of it is guys not getting optimized like Chas not being an auto start against LHP? I don't know. We are tied for 8th/9th in runs scored and we are 6th in OPS so we've been a bit inefficient in getting runs home. Probably random noise. For much of the season we were hovering around 12-14th in runs scored when I was looking earlier, so that has obviously improved from earlier.
LOL. You think this team is underperforming? Because you had this team in the 97-102 range? After losing CC? With the uncertainty of McCullers? Not knowing how JV was going to bounce back?
Underperformed? Even though they will most likely exceed your expectations? Even though they replaced an all star SS with a rookie? Even though they lost Brantley for 60% of the season?
Pretty sure he's saying the offense has underperformed. Even accounting for Brantley's injury...Yuli's disastrous year and various critical players going into extended slumps at various times (Bregman/Tucker/Alvarez/Mancini/Pena) make it a perfectly defensible statement. To my eyes, their biggest problem is their penchant to go into team-wide funks for a stretch of games. That's the #1 red flag to me looking forward at the postseason.
I don't know about that he had what he thought the win totals should be. If he said the offense, I would have no issue, but he thought this team should have been a 100 win team leading up to the year. I have been worrying about the offense as well, I just hope this pitching staff continues to be very special.
If you have depth, you expect 4 or 5 guys to pick up the guys in a funk. That's why 3 black holes in the line-up are so aggravating. That said, if I had to choose 2022 JV or 2022 Correa, I like what we got. But at the time it wasn't an easy call. But replacing much of what Correa was was giving us was easier than replacing JV. Yes we have pitching DEPTH. But you need that ACE.
Somewhere Jimy Williams is smiling. "Can you explain why you chose to [do X] in [Y situation], given that [Z was an option]?" "Manager's decision. Next question."
1st half Bregman was atrocious. Mancini has been as horrific as Yuli. Vazquez has spurts but been down. Maldy was struggling to break .100 for the first third. Tucker had a notorious bad start. Yordan was on MVP pace until he hit a wall. Pena started strong then faded but got back to respectable. Siri/Meyers had really bad stretches that one was dealt and the other was demoted. The only one that maintained any level of consistency is Altuve.
And we're all hoping for at least 3 years of JV, Valdez, McCullers and Javier doing their best at bringing 4 Aces to the table. Garcia Urquidy and Brown could make us better than the 90s Braves.
For the playoffs only I might have to seriously give consideration to CC over JV with this teams makeup if you put a gun to my head. CC at SS. Pena at 1B. Altuve Yordan Bregmna Tucker Correa Mancini Pena Chas Vasquez I might prefer that lineup to what we end up getting more than I'd prefer JV starting game one instead of Brown, Urquidy or Garcia being the 4th starter.
I will be surprised if Crane actually does fire Click, and if that happens I will hope it will be because of reasons we can’t know, not just because Click didn’t overpay at the deadline. So my comment was more saying that firing Click just because he didn’t make a bigger trade at the deadline would be a huge mistake. Obviously if Click is snorting mountains of cocaine off his desk in MMP or whatever then it would be justified. The Astros caught bad luck on offense with Yuli falling off a cliff and Brantley/Meyers/Castro getting hurt, without any other players really over performing. Yordan/Altuve/Bregman/Tucker performed like stars as expected but Pena was an average player and Maldonado was an offensive black hole as expected. Click addressed some of the issue with Mancini and Vazquez but they haven’t panned out and they didn’t really project to fully replace Brantley/Gurriel anyway. But we can’t know what the prices were for better options (Reynolds, etc.). It didn’t help that Lee and Leon didn’t break out; if either had reached their ceiling this year they would have gone a long way to shoring up the offense. The Astros have had better luck on the pitching side as they always had extra SP, and they ended up with 2 CY candidates and 7 quality SP candidates going into October. I honestly believe that if Meyers had gotten/stayed healthy earlier and Gurriel turned his season around in the 2nd half, Click would be in the mix for GM of the year.
Everyone has had spurts including first week back Meyers until he had that sliding catch. Yuli has become... a doubles machine... just shocking a team that is not strikeout heavy since Chris Carter and Colby Rasmus left has become incredibly streaky in dominating or pop ups.
