Thanks man. I really thought that had a shot at 500. It's crazy how a guy his size generates so much power but then again I just found out an 11 yr old girl can outdrive me on the links. Talk about getting your man card revoked.
I agree the starting pitching staff is better than expected. Cant say that about the bullpen though (excluding Qualls). Sure, 80 wins could happen, just don't see it as likely.
Was he out of options? Seems pretty quick to just release a guy, especially considering the trash we have currently occupying LF.
Robbie Grossman hit really well to end the season and looked like he would be our LF starter, we had just traded for Fowler, Hoes looked like he could be decent man in right, and then we had Springer knocking on the door to move up. Meanwhile JD had just finished back to back poor seasons. I also wonder why we released him (no more options?), but there really wasn't any space for him to continue to suck.
Martinez was out of options so it was a numbers game. He played great in 2012 when they Astros called up J.D. and Altuve together. He was bad in 2013 and he said it was because of a wrist injury, and last year he was no better in fact at one point he was so bad he got sent down to AAA. He is probably one of those players that with other great players around him he looks good, but when he was forced to be the man he couldn't handle it.
Odorizzi is extremely vulnerable the second or third time through the order. Hoping Buchanan can at least keep it close until then.
He sucked for 3 seasons, he basically had a good month when they first called him up, and then had an OPS under .700 the rest of his time here. His OPS got progressively worse over those 3 seasons. I don't expect him to keep this up, if he does good for him, but I didn't bat an eye when we released him, we certainly gave him a long enough look. The best he could do was sign as a minor league FA, it wasn't as if the league jumped all over him.
Agreed. J.D. has always been a streaky hitter. He's in a hot streak right now.. I mean he's only been a full time player for 10 days or something along those lines. Otherwise I think he was platooning and facing good matchups, hence the higher avg/etc? Combine that with him generally being streaky and in the midst of a super hot streak...I'm not too worried about him being gone. He's a bench talent in the ML who can get hot at times
I wonder if the FO just didn't want to keep giving JD chances over and over like they did Brett Wallace. We heard almost the same off-season chatter with JD that we heard every year with Wally, "JD is working with new coach XYZ retooling his swing and is hitting very well in the random South American Winter League". I think the FO made the reasonable decision to evaluate the upside of relative unknowns (Grossman, Hoes, Presley) rather than slot JD into an outfield bench spot. It didn't work, but it was a fair play. Based on their player movement history, I gather the FO wants to get all the fringe guys their cup of coffee. Because once the big prospects are called up, they're getting extended big league looks/aren't going back down. I base that on Alex White and Buchanan getting the call before Folty or Trop. And Hoes/Grossman getting their look before Springer.
