Can't win them all... Win tomorrow and Thursday and all is forgotten. Musgrove started nicely, then deteriorated. Not much confidence in him going forward. He's currently a suspect 5th starter.
Posted mine before seeing this Can't win 162. Musgrove has been disappointing. Peacock should be on deck for replacement. Let Musgrove earn it back from the bullpen, or the minors.
14 games. Also, with their lineup, after the first inning, more than likely he will come up with men on base. Besides, if we're going on such small sample sizes, he was on base 50% of the time tonight. And if we continue to go on small sample sizes, Marisnick should be playing every day.
Completely disagree. Granted I took a nap during the game and missed most of the start but it looks like he got shelled. Musgrove is just a young starter; he has less than half a season worth of starts. He's also just 10mo older than McCullers with a lot less bigly experience. Young starters are (wildly) inconsistent. Last year he had a few starts where he looked really damn good and a few where he sucked. That's the nature of a young starter. And the only way to get good at starting in the bigs is starting in the bigs. When Mchugh comes back Musgrove will be the 5th starter. As long as the 5th starter gives you like a 50/50 chance of winning, he's fine in the position. If we want him to be a productive starter not only later this season but in the next few seasons, he (and the team) needs to take his lumps now. Besides with fringe guys like Peacock, I'm of the 'don't rock the boat' mindset. He's currently productive in the bullpen role, why potentially risk losing the first ML productivity peacock has had. I feel the same way about Devo and not trying to make him a starter too.
Musgrove wasnt good but if Springer is able to make that tough catch we are probably talking about a solid start. He's young. You have to deal with some ups and downs from most young starters if you ever want them to work out for you. Guys like Fiers and Peacock should not be given innings ahead of Musgrove unless he is really struggling.
It just seems misplaced to have the guy who hits the most HR's (by far so far) in the #1 spot, regardless of his OBP numbers. Add to this that his base stealing capability has never been great, and this year especially.
You're making the mistake of magically transferring Springer's numbers to a different position in the batting order and/or higher-leverage situations and just assuming nothing would change. I think that's flawed reasoning. Springer has a career OPS of .731 w RISP, which is nearly 100 points less than his career average (.821) and 250 points less than his OPS leading off the game (.982). It's also 200+ points below his career OPS leading off an inning. The numbers seem to indicate he's better - for whatever reason - leading off. Some of it is sample size; some of it is luck. Some of it, frankly, is the opponent. Springer is a notoriously hard-swinger who strikes out a lot - I guarantee you pitchers are not as careful with him leading off a game like they would be several batters later if he came up with RISP. As the stakes rise and pitcher bear down, his flaws are easier to exploit. Case in point: his career OPS between innings 1-5 is ~918; innings 6-9: ~.711. Now! It's early; I'm not panicking or suggesting a move. But if you wanted to argue he should be moved down, it's not because he's hitting a lot of home runs; it's because he's *only* hitting a lot of home runs and you need your lead-off man to do more. His walks have fallen off dramatically (on pace for ~45 this year; he had 88 last year) and he's on pace to total ~40 fewer non-HR hits this year - that's roughly 80 fewer 1B/2B/3B + BB than last year. He's simply not getting on base enough to hit lead-off right now.
My post was a truncated version of my larger opinion. The part I bolded in your statement incorporates more of my thinking. To make a change doesnt imply panic or desperation in my book. Its just smart when the signs are there. Just like they were when we moved Bregman down. Aoki is batting too well to be in the 9 spot.
Fair enough; I reiterate what I said initially: You're making the mistake of magically transferring Springer's numbers to a different position in the batting order and/or higher-leverage situations and just assuming nothing would change. I think that's flawed reasoning. See above. Also, I think the Astros are rethinking traditional line-ups construction. Having a guy like Aoki at 9 really extends the line-up; suddenly, Springer's power becomes a more viable weapon if he has a guy on base in front of him more often. I kind of like it and hope they don't tweak with it too much.
No, Musgrove has put together a couple quality starts. He made a good pitch on the inside of the plate and Pujols just did a great job of getting too it and somehow keeping it fair. That was the difference between a quality start and a bad outing. I can count on one hand the amount of teams Musgrove would be an upgrade on a rotation whether as a #4 or #5 starter. Every pitcher has bad outings. Keuchel can win the Cy Young and still have 4-5 starts of 5+ runs allowed. It's baseball and starters make 35 starts.
