Odd that the best 2 AL pitching staffs are watching from home already - one not even making the postseason.
Astros didn’t have the best pitching in April… once it came together, they were the best team in baseball. You are who you are after 162. This 1 month crapshoot tournament doesn’t really mean that much in terms of what went right/wrong… but a helluva lot of eras are defined by these results and a lot of knee-jerk reactions (especially in Milwaukee/Baltimore) will happen because of it.
I don’t think Baltimore will do anything knee jerk. 3 starting pitchers and their closer missed the season or most of the season. They also lost a few bats during the season including Westburg for several months. I doubt they change course yet, although the city is screaming for Hyde’s head. Gunnar is 24
I'm not trying to spin anything. You are absolutely right- he was a below average hitter. And I never said any different.. As a 24 year old w/o a full season in MLB yet, he had an OPS+ of 82/wRC+ of 83. In 2023 he was 66 and 67, respectively. And, as I said, he improved in many important catagories. The whole point is that he has not yet performed, so the Mets may be willing to give him up and his price should be affordable. Trading for young players is specifically about trading for potential, not already established. That's how you can get extra value from the performance. If he already had a 100 then the Mets would either not trade him or want more from him. As I said in my original post, Baty is a guy who fits a hole and may be ready to have a breakout.
It’ll be interesting to see where Houston ranks when fangraphs updates 2025 depth chart projections after the World Series. My guess is that Houston will rank 8th at worst (4th in the AL) when all the free agents are removed. With a good offseason they’ll probably enter 2025 projected as the 2nd or 3rd best team in the AL. It’s not time to rebuild.
Watching these other teams...it's obvious we weren't on of their levels. This is why I'm already over this. We weren't beating anyone if we got past the Tigers..
You are who you are after 162. Don’t let the drama or combination of bad pitching, good hitting, bad hitting, good pitching, sold-out crowds, and the amplification of every pitch (because it’s the playoffs) skew your mindset. It’s a crapshoot… no doubt… but it’s a crapshoot the Astros owned for the better part of 10 years. This year’s team could have swept or gotten swept vs any of these teams…. As did past Astros teams to some degree. Not having a fluke first round series the last 7 years is still the ‘more impressive’ accomplishment than the 2 WS or the other pennants (in terms of things this fan base will likely NEVER see again).
This team has 4 star level position players - Altuve, Diaz, Yordan, and Tucker all all among the 3 best in MLB at their positions. The other 5 position players are average at best. They have 2 Cy Young contending SP (Framber and Brown) and 2 solid middle of thevrotation guys (Blanco and Arrighetti) They have 3 talented leverage relievers but the nature of relievers is inconsistency. Then there is a lot of question marks.
Not sure about that. The other teams have holes too. The only team I saw the Astros play the last 100 games of the season where I walked about thinking "They are better than the Astros" - was the Padres and even then it wasn't some impossible task. The Astros had a chance - they had a slow start and injuries, addressed pitching and not hitting - then lost to the best pitcher in baseball and then lost a game where the Tigers had tremendous luck on ball placement etc. That can happen - and does happen. Doesn't mean the Astros couldn't compete with the other teams - I would take them over the Indians and I think they had a 50/50 chance against the Yankees.
anything to make you feel better. LOL. the problem is we had to face the best pitcher the AL in a 3 game series. We F’ed ourselves with our slow start and injuries.
True, but I also would say that Pena is an above avg SS. Gotta add those 3 bats. Adding Robert would be adding a bat without losing much if anything at all defensively. If Walker was added at 1B that would be an upgrade defensively. Signing a low cost LF like Winker or Comforto shouldn't hurt the defense too badly and would be a major upgrade as a slightly above avg MLB bat. No holes in the lineup.
I would say that the construction of our team was off this year . Hopefully brown can right the ship going forward . We were simply too top heavy and weak offensively . Injuries hurt , but perhaps they hurt most in not being able to trade from a strength in pitching to acquire a bat . I have faith in Garcia coming back , but outside of that I wouldn't expect Lance /urquidy / francs / Javier to be back next season . So idk . I think we should hold on to frambwr and tuck and try to keep yusei and bregs too (if the price is fair ) We definitely need CF and 1B (as much as I love Singleton) and if we lose Bergman we need a 3b Our RP is locked in , and hopefully effective Same with so to some extent
