If our rotation ever gets healthy again at the same time, what 5 would you roll with? Keuchel McCullers Morton McHugh Fiers Peacock Musgrove Paulino Martes Keuchel & LMJ would obviously be locks for everyone, and I think Morton would be pretty overwhelming. It would seem to come down to Fiers, McHugh, & Peacock for those last 2 spots. I'm starting to think McHugh would be the odd man out if Fiers doesn't go back to practicing for the HR derby. I'm assuming injuries and rest will probably keep us at always needing a 6th starter to fill in, but that isn't as interesting to think about.
I'd be surprised if they employed a strict five-man rotation. I think they'll liberally skip starts from here on out, given their depth, in an effort to get everyone to October healthy.
I think Astros go with a modified 6-man rotation like Hey Now suggests with LMJ, Keuchel, Peacock, McHugh, and whoever they acquire as the main 5. I think Musgrove provides spot starts as 6th guy shuttling between AAA and Houston maybe every 2nd or third rotation. Morton becomes an interesting multi-inning guy. Fiers becomes a less interesting multi-inning guy or is traded. Martes and Paulino become guys that can spot start, start in AAA, provide bullpen help, or get traded.
The big wildcard is McHugh. What can we expect if/when he is healthy again? Id go with Keuchel/LMJ/Morton/McHugh/Fiers so Peacock can go back to the bullpen if McHugh can get it done.
Fiers is gonna be an interesting one to watch. Since he made that adjustment he has looked like a completely different pitcher. He could just start to suck again, but right now I would have him as our 3rd best pitcher. Plenty of time to let his results play out of course. They could also use guys for multiple innings out of the pen and play the DL shuffle. At this moment, not including the starter we likely acquire I would go Keuchel, McCullers, Fiers, Morton, McHugh. If we trade for a pitcher, or if one of those 5 simply aren't getting good results, Peacock would be next up. We should also find some way to keep getting our prospects some innings, even if our big guns are healthy. If we do add another starter, I think we should give strong consideration to using Morton as a short burst pitcher in October. Use him for 3 innings, nothing more. Don't even give him a chance to start a 4th inning. He's been ace level overpowering for the first 3 innings, then he has rapidly fell apart after that. Peacock has had pretty similar results, so tagging those 2 up could make for a dominant start.
If Morton and McHugh are fully healthy, they are locks along with McCullers and Keuchel. We have to assume they will trade for another pitcher, and if so, there's you're rotation. Any optionable guys (Musgrove, Martes, Paulino) would have to be sent down, although I think at least one of those would be a part of the trade. Peacock and Fiers would have to move to the pen. That's a shame given how well they've pitched, but Peacock has failed to get deep into games and Fiers has been good for only a few starts.
Given that thinking, we could use Morton, Devo and Peacock to pitch a complete game if the situation called for it.
I really like this idea, but I don't see Morton coming out of the rotation. But man, suddenly the 'Stros seem STACKED.
On Fiers, I am not trusting his new found ability to limit homers. Rest of his game has gotten back to what he has been prior to this season. I am back to expecting a back of the rotation starter once the homers return to a normal level (he went from being shelled early in the year to basically none). While Peacock's innings are an issue now, I don't know if it will be such a big deal once Astros have Keuchel, McHugh, and whoever they acquire. Also, Astros pen should have 1-2 long men once team is healthier.
Curious, why would you find his ability to limit homers as being new? Prior to this year, he hasn't had a big problem with giving up HR's. One could easily argue this is just his HR rate returning to normal, not the other way around. And if you look at his numbers, his GB ratio was 0.79, over these last 4 starts his GB ratio is a 1.59, so the peripherals back up his HR limiting results. Very McCullers like to go along with his new curve.
Certainly the advantage of Peacock in the bullpen is that we've seen him excel there earlier in the season, while we don't know what Fiers or McHugh would do there.
His career average is 1.33 HR/9 innings. His last 4 starts are 0 HR/9 innings. Yeah, I'm not buying the 0. His HR/FB for his career is 13.4%. I'm not buying the 0 HR/FB. His GB% indicated he should be giving up fewer HRs. If you believe that he can sustain his GB% at 60%, his HR/9 should be closer to 0.90 HR/9 than 0 assuming career HR/FB number. HR/FB number usually goes up slightly as GB% goes up. This is due to pitchers causing lower launch angles. Overall lower launch angles are good for a pitcher, but lower launch angles on flyballs typically leads to slightly more homers. If he gave up 0.9 homers per 9, he would have given up an extra 2-3 homers or an extra 3-5 runs. That still shows a lot of improvement if you think the HR/FB number regresses to average, but takes some of the edge off. It takes me a lot longer to believe in a pitcher's ability to significantly change his HR/FB than it does in Ks and BBs. I was looking at last 30 days as it is an easy thing to do on Fangraphs. That extra start puts him at an xFIP of 3.93 which is slightly higher than his career 3.90. His ERA is usually very close to his xFIP and his FIP is slightly higher for his career. The big difference in his xFIP and his ERA/FIP currently is that he is not giving up homers as shown above at anything close to his career HR/FB number or his HR/9inning.
Would love to see Morton be a bullpen K weapon come playoff time. His stuff is electric to start games.
I am totally all in on this. I think if he is healthy, he and Peacock become the bridge from the starters to Harris, Devenski, and Giles in the playoffs.
Obviously he's not gonna maintain a 0 ratio, but I'm not expecting him to maintain the 1.78 ERA either. The fact is, and the reason it has my attention, is that his GB rate has taken a seismic change over the last 4 starts. Not a slight increase, it's been night and day, and we've seen minor adjustments make huge differences with pitchers. His K rate has also seen a spike to basically 9. Will he maintain that, I don't know, but if he maintains this GB rate, to go along with his typical 3/1 K/BB ratio, he will be really good moving forward.
Just trying to explain my comment on his new found HR suppression (which I typically use to refer to HR/FB).