ESPN Insider: Dis-Astros in for rough 2011 campaign

yawn. great journalism. a piece "predicting" that a team will be bad who most national media think will be bad. way to go out on a limb.

literally EVERY single season, there is at least one surprise team who makes the playoffs that nobody saw coming. we are in a very weak division with possibly a top 2 staff within it. we have a bunch of young, capable players in our lineup looking to play hard and hungry prove themselves, and a manager looking to prove himself and squeeze the most out of his players (and who was able to for the bulk of his first year as manager).

hope springs eternal and whatnot. there is no reason to write off the season before it begins. maybe he was bitter, but berkman was interviewed by JD during our game vs the cards the other day, and said the division was a 4-team race, including them, chi, cincy, and milwaukee.

let's prove everybody wrong and shock the world this season.

 

The article wasn't trying to go out on a limb. It was simply reporting what the statistical analysis suggests is going to happen.

 

did statistical analysis concoct the name "disastros" too? **** jay jaffe.

 

Johnson could be an average 3B. Wallace could also be an average 1B.

 

i agree, as I was reading the article i was laughing, half at all of his "projections" but the other half at the fact that our offense is going to be horrible, and the Astros are most likely to be pretty bad this season.

 

This. Too many "journalists" try to be cute nowadays and nobody freaking knows how to *write* anymore.

I can look up PECOTA statistics all by myself (assuming I gave a rat's... but that's beside the point). I don't need some smartass hack to spoonfeed them to me mixed in with a few prepubescent wise cracks.

Drivel.

 

So what he's saying is...The Astros shouldn't even bother playing the season. Just become submissive biotches to the likes of St Louis or Philadelphia.

In Houston we wear the underdog label well. Thank you Laffe!

 

Don't pick up Baseball America. Their projection is the worst I have ever seen for an MLB team. 60 wins....60...if this team loses 102 games they should fold the franchise. That's a special kind of suck. Then again Fangraphs did Baseball America's projections and they called the Astros big league talent the worst in the Majors. That seems harsh. I would point to the starting rotation for the Kansas City Royals. Luke Hochevar on opening day?!?! http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/2011-organizational-rankings-30-housto/

 

Even in this recent time of suckage the Astros have been exceeding the expectations of these "experts". In fact I posted a link a few months ago from the crawfishboxes.com that with the use of statistics shows the Astros have actually been overperforming the past few seasons..............


If I can find the link I'll repost it.

 

Oh and lets not forget about another article from ESPN..............a bit conflicting with this one.


http://espn.go.com/mlb/notebook/_/page/bbtn100920/baseball-tonight-clubhouse

 

Hey, give the guy credit. He called Carlos Lee fat! That's cutting edge journalism.

 

He cant use Dis-Astros, that's our word! F*** that piece of **** journalist. Go stros!

 

**** that piece of ****! HELL YEAH

 

Basically he is assuming every player will underperform, and all of the prospects will flame out.

How can you project any stats on players with half a years experience anyhow.

Waste of time.

 

Nice!! Haha I wonder what that dude is writing now. I liked what the Astros did over the course of last summer, too, but I'm not throwing "division title" predictions out there. I'm not even gonna throw a "3rd place or better" prediction out there.

 

Except that he's not.

By using minor and major league data from thousands of prior players and how they translated from the minor to major leagues.

The criticism here seems to fit one of three categories: (1) He's slamming the Astros; therefore he's an idiot or (2) I don't understand the statistical analysis; therefore he's an idiot; (3) I don't like the uncreative title; therefore he's an idiot.

 

You left out (4) He's regurgitating statistics we can all look for ourselves while telling us nothing we don't already know, while mixing in smart-alec remarks, old cliche one-liners, and "fat" references; therefore I'm not sure if he's 31 or 13.

 

you are contrarian; therefore you're cool.


question to those with insider access: did he do one of these for every team? if not, which is how it appeared in my quick search, why the hell did he pick the astros?

 

I haven't observed Major being "contrarian". I've seen him take weak arguments to task on many occasion, but I've got no problem with that.