Having to play through injuries, bad years happen more than people realize. In early projections, Astros are projected combined to win 98 games without adding a reliever. Astros add a reliever like Morrow and lefty and the projection will likely move to about 100 wins with average health and average production. Lord help the rest of baseball if the Astros stay healthy and Kyle Tucker or Whitley don't bust.
The biggest X Factor for me going into next season (and mainly as the season progresses) is seeing whether the team is still hungry. Talent-wise, they are going to be absolutely loaded again, but motivation and focus are things that tend to wane after winning big. It would be completely understandable if they don't set out on a 100-win pace to start the season due to Championship Hangover.
I typically see Hangover affect pitchers, the manager, and the GM the most. Pitchers pitching into late October just don't have as much down time as the other teams. For the manager, they can be influenced by small sample sizes in the playoffs too much as it worked to win the world series even if it was just someone hot or cold or just plain randomness at play. GMs don't want to rock the boat on what worked. They may lean on guys that just had a career years in the World Series season instead of operating like they did leading up to the World Series. For the Astros, the team is so young at important spots that I don't think leaning on Altuve, Correa, Springer, and Springer is a bad thing even if Altuve regresses to just a great player instead of MVP.
Beltran and Cora are gone after this year and they were major leaders in the clubhouse in regards to attitude and approach. Some of the core is going have to step up and take on that role. Not saying they cannot, but I think they will really need to. Otherwise, I think there is a pretty good amount of friendly rivalry and internal competition inside the clubhouse, especially the core everyday players, that now that they will want to one-up the other guy. Not in a divisive, tear-down the chemistry way but in a way that motivates them to each to come out next year. Also, they need LMJ, Peacock, and Morton to carry over their playoff performances into healthy runs next year. I think Keuchel will still be very good, but I could see Verlander not be as dominant next year as he was down the stretch.
Maybe someone will provide bulletin board material calling us flukes etc. Something the guys can look at and get fired up over.
Total different topic. I know it is a few weeks away, but are there any worries about losing some good players in the Rule 5 Draft in December, or even better some player we may be able to steal who be a nice bullpen addition?
Blame the albatross contracts that have been handed out recently. It has jacked up the market. It is going to make it even more difficult to retain our core once he gets a contract like that.
Keuchel, McCann and Verlander should fill any leadership void. In addition, the new bench coach was the Puerto Rico manager in the WBC so I assume he will resonate with the Latino players.
Didya know JD Martinez has VERY COMPARABLE advanced metrics to Bryce Harper over the last 3-4 seasons? He might not get all the way to $200M, but only because of his age. He'll get well north of $100M.
Initial reports say 70 million over four years. If you look at most of the playoff teams this year, teams with glaring closer needs outside of the Cubs are the Dbacks, Astros, Cards (i expect them to be big players this offseason). Astros seem like the best fit, especially if he's willing to take a three year deal.
Agreed, certainly happy for him. The guy was probably one more season like his first three in MLB away from being out of the game, and he completely turned his career around. That's a neat story. The power numbers he put up after his trade to Arizona are absurd. He had an 1.107 OPS and 29 HR in 62 games. The Diamondbacks play in a hitter-friendly environment, sure, but wow.
https://www.crawfishboxes.com/2017/...eliever-targets-for-the-astros-in-free-agency Brandon Morrow Bryan Shaw Mike Minor Jake McGee Anthony Swarzak Steve Cishek
