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September Baseball

Discussion in 'Houston Astros' started by cangrejero51, Sep 3, 2015.

  1. MadMax

    MadMax Contributing Member

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    Amen. I know too many salty jackasses in the DFW area ready to hand it to me if the Astros blow this...particularly if they blow it to the Rangers. No thank you!
     
  2. kaleidosky

    kaleidosky Your Tweety Bird dance just cost us a run

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    I'm with Hey Now and Buck. But I guess I don't hate the Rangers like I do the Mavs or Cowboys...or even Dallas in general. Maybe it's because the baseball fans feel relatively nonexistent most of the time? Maybe because they don't have Dallas in their name? I'm not really sure why really
     
  3. Hey Now!

    Hey Now! Contributing Member

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    Because they've been a mostly irrelevant franchise for the vast majority of their existence with no meaningful history with the Astros. And, frankly, the Astros have been an absolutely irrelevant franchise lately, and their time in the AL, so far at least, has been about as ho-hum as humanly possible. When your team routinely loses 100 games, it's hard to develop much hatred for anything.

    I think it *will* be a meaningful rivalry. And lots of fun. But... this Astro team kind of feels like an expansion team - any positive glimmer of hope has much greater resonate to me than any ultimate disappointment. None of us realisticly thought we'd get meaningful September baseball. Even the most head-in-the-clouds Astro fan thought .500 would be the team's ceiling. So this is all dessert, as far as I'm concerned.
     
  4. Nick

    Nick Contributing Member

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    Even if the Astros blow this, will never compare to the Rangers blowing it in the WS.
     
  5. MadMax

    MadMax Contributing Member

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    A point I will most certainly be making in the sad event that we lose out to them.

    As for the larger issue..I completely agree that they've exceeded my expectations. But after a season of being in first place for most of the year, I'm not going to pretend like blowing it to the Dallas/Arlington Rangers wouldn't suck. It would absolutely suck. We have a great young nucleus...and that's great...but nothing's promised. You have to strike when it's hot. I can think of a heaping helping of franchises in all sports who looked like they had an amazing future ahead of them that never ever materialized. I will be pissed. My expectation from the beginning of the season was formed well over half a year ago. When you lead your division for virtually the entire season, you need to close that ish out.
     
  6. cardpire

    cardpire Member

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    So weird and obnoxious seeing a guy who only has come to this forum before this season to blather about how he knows higher ups in the organization and about his quest to get Jeff bagwell in the hall of fame tell hardcore fans what we all expected this team to do this year.

    I mean since you didn't think this team could break .500 or get into the playoffs, NONE OF US possibly could have. :rolleyes:
     
    1 person likes this.
  7. Hey Now!

    Hey Now! Contributing Member

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    Well, that's a remarkably petty response. You mad, cardpire?...

    And only this season? Really? That's your latest hill? Not that you spend a lot of time in the zip code of right, but, yeah... not exactly one of your sturdier branches. But, please - go on... hardcore fan guy.
     
  8. Rocketman95

    Rocketman95 Hangout Boy

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    Before the season, I would not have been surprised with a Wild Card run. Listen, you all can feel however you want. No one's trying to tell you how you should react if the Astros somehow do not make the playoffs. Me, I'm going to be extremely disappointed if they don't make it and even more because it's to the Rangers. If you're not as disappointed as me it a) doesn't make you any smarter than me or b) doesn't matter to me in any circumstance.
     
  9. Hey Now!

    Hey Now! Contributing Member

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    Do you mind pointing out the post where I suggested how you should feel? I was merely - and, frankly, rather clearly - pointing out how *I'd* feel (the dead giveaway was all those "I"s and "me"s I used; not a lot of "you"s. In fact, there are exactly zero "you"s in the entirety of all my posts on this subject).

    There's plenty of room for differing opinions and reactions, and any idea that I was stiffing, rejecting, or looking down upon yours is... well, that's frankly on you because I certainly do not have, and did not express that opinion.

    *I* will not be disappointed. It's been a remarkably unexpected year. If you feel differently, cool.

    ETA: rereading your post, RM95: it may have been intended more generally - I initially missed the "you all" part - so if my response was overly pissy and personal, I apologize. If, however, you *were* calling me out, why you dirtynogoodsunva----.... IT IS ON!!:)
     
  10. cardpire

    cardpire Member

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    umm, yeah, you must have misread my post. believe me, you get full credit for stumping for jeff bagwell. wouldn't dare take that away from you.
     
  11. Hey Now!

    Hey Now! Contributing Member

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    Doesn't matter. You're still wrong.

    But enough about me - let's talk about you, cardpire: why are you so mad?
     
  12. ima_drummer2k

    ima_drummer2k Contributing Member

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    I, too, will be disappointed. Extremely. I really want us to get some playoff games under our belt, since we're such a young team. Even if we get swept, it can't do anything but help us in the long run.

    But I'll quickly get over it when I remember that we are still on schedule for this:

    [​IMG]
     
  13. cardpire

    cardpire Member

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    Saying you post obnoxious garbage doesn't make me mad.

    It's as if you feel guilty that you're a bandwagoner and wrote this season off before it started, so you want to lump everybody else in with you to make yourself feel better about it.

    Anybody who watched or paid attention last season, saw our offseason acquisitions, understood what was in the pipeline, and understands there's tons of variance in MLB, yet thought our absolute best case scenario was .500, is either an unreasonable pessimist, or just plain dumb.
     
  14. Castor27

    Castor27 Moderator
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  15. right1

    right1 Member

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    I expect them to win the division now and if they don't it will be a huge disappointment. However, I expected they would call up a player in White who that more than likely can get a hit every 3.5 AB's compared to every other option we have that barely average a hit every 5 at bats. The career OBP for Gomez, Rasmus, Gattis; Valbuena, Carter, Conger, Gonzalez, Marisnik and Castro are all under .313 (Gomez) and some are a lot lower.
     
  16. Hey Now!

    Hey Now! Contributing Member

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    cardpire, that was the expectation of the team... I don't know if you know this - but I bro out with Astro brass, bro. Totally. And their plan (which was presented to us by Jim Crane during the 2014 season) was:
    2015: .500
    2016: Wild Card hunt
    2017: Division hunt

    If they had any inkling this was going to accelerate this quickly, they would have sold it to us. I mean, they freaking (cougharrangedcough) participated in an SI cover story declaring them 2017 World Series champions; not 2015 or 2016.

    Sure, *anything* is possible. Most of us fully understood - and appreciated - that this team was headed in the right direction. But spare me the idea that only smart, hardcore fans knew what was going to happen. Yeah, I'm sure you knew the Angels, A's and Mariners would all massively regress and open up the AL West; I'm sure you knew the Os and Tigers would regress and further open up the Wild Card...

    And, FYI, the Astros are on pace to finish 7 games above .500. I'd be careful not to sprain an elbow congratulating yourself as if you correctly predicted a 100-win season. There's not a tremendous leap from 81 to 88 wins. A few things go your way, in fact, and it's a fairly short journey. And most of us, myself included, fully understood that was in play.

    But, with those being hard to predict, 81-ish wins was a reasonable, realistic projection, and I feel strongly that it is where the majority of fans fell.

    So, again... why are so mad? What little lingering anger do you have?... Like I said, seems really petty.
     
  17. colt45nyc

    colt45nyc Rookie

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    At the start of the season it was not too realistic for all of us of saying we will win the division and everyone would have been happy to just play meaningful games in September. It's already been a very successful season even without making the playoffs. A wildcard or division will be sweeter, since it was only a dream six months ago.

    We have a core of very good young players so the future can only get better no matter how far the team advance this season.
     
  18. cardpire

    cardpire Member

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    You shoulda told those knuckleheads that there's not a tremendous leap from 81 to 88 wins.

    So, which is it? Most people, yourself included (of course!) understood that winning 88 games was in play? Or "only the most head-in-the-clouds Astro fan thought .500 would be the team's ceiling" and "None of us realistically thought we'd get meaningful September baseball"??



    And I'm not congratulating myself...you implied in the other forum that I, like you, couldn't see the forest for the trees, and would have thought the Astros would suck this year had somebody asked me before the season, and I showed you otherwise. Nowhere in this thread did I even mention that.

    And I don't think 88 wins was an extraordinarily bold or optimistic prediction, given the facts, but please don't suddenly pretend that you agree that it wasn't bold. We won 70 games last year. Our bullpen was the worst in the league and blew a few dozen games. Several quality moves were made to rebuild the bullpen. That would account for many added wins on its own. We added Springer, Valbuena, Rasmus, Gattis, Lowrie, and Marisnick all to the opening day roster, a roster that was awful for the bulk of the season last year. Correa would be on the roster at some point in the near future. These are all upgrades, some likely massive, to a team who still managed to win 70 games. And our starting pitching was already good, and it stood to reason that moves would be made to improve it further if games were being won. Not too much had to go right for us to get a heap of wins more than 2014.
     
  19. Hey Now!

    Hey Now! Contributing Member

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    They were in the midst of winning 70, cardpire.

    Here's the forum's prediction thread. 29 people submitted a guess - you might want to sit down: the average number of predicted wins was 81.4. (I threw out both the 0-162 prediction, as well as the 162-0 - I don't think those were genuine guesses...) (And BTW, samtaylor - you should tread lightly, sir. You are officially a prime candidate for my **** list.)

    If you consider a fair variance to be +/- 2, then 22 of the 29 predictions fell at, or below, 83 wins. (And yep, yours was one of the outliers and, at this juncture, looking extremely good, if you replace "Cole Hamels" with "Scott Kazmir".)

    So, yeah, I think I correctly read the pulse of fans, at least in this forum.

    Now then, most of us understand that expectations come with some degree of variance. If I think the team can improve by 11 games... while not expecting it, I can fully comprehend the many ways in which 11 might become 18. Or, frankly, just 4. We've all been watching sports for a long time; we understand how unpredictable this can be.

    Nope. As usual, you are literally making things up. I never implied that "the Astros would suck this year;" I wondered how your no shot at the Super Bowl prediction would have played in March if we were talking Astros:
    Man. No wonder you're so mad; who knows how many made-up things you imagine I've said are floating around in your head.

    I didn't say the prediction wasn't bold; I said for those of us who pegged them for ~81 wins, 88 isn't a shock. It's a surprise, and a nice one, too. But 81 to 88 isn't 81 to 100.

    If you think a team can win 81, only a fool would dismiss the viability of 81 becoming 88.
     
  20. cardpire

    cardpire Member

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    No, as usual, you continue to clearly imply things, and because you don't explicitly state your implications word for word, you have convinced yourself that it leaves you some imaginary out. It's such a juvenile way to debate it's laughable. Hopefully nobody is dumb enough to not be able to see through that.

    I mean what the hell else could you possibly be implying when you snarkily say "sure would have been fun to ask you what you thought about the astros chances in march, huh?", in the context of that argument??

    (Oh, and bad news: continuing to tell me I'm mad doesn't make me mad). :(
     

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