Too young to have been around for 1986. But I hate Steve Cohen and him buying a superteam. I guess part of the hate is just a general "New York" thing. F the Yankees first and foremost, as always.
The '86 NLCS is some of the best baseball you've never seen. Watch the entire series, buy it if you have to. Same with '80 against Philly.
The HR he hit in the bottom of the 14th in game 6 to tie things back up only to eventually lose in the 16th or was it another HR?
80 is when I became a fan still living in Indiana. My dad was a huge Pete Rose fan but I fell in love with the Astros. At 10 years old two years later by chance we moved to Houston.
Have you read Ball Four by Jim Bouton? It's a diary of the 1969 season. He was traded from the Seattle Pilots to the Astros. Nice insight into the Astros first non losing season.
Passan had to do extra research to realize that these grades are all variable based on their own made up criteria? So now a 96 = an 88 for hard/fast/no fudge-factor analysis. Great. Still doesn't change the fact that Angel Hernandez likely doesn't call balls/strikes as well as the ones that consistently grade better on the hard/fast/no fudge-factor websites. And why can't the strike zone we see on TV,.. be the strike zone? Why can't one umpires strike zone stay consistent from game to game (or inning to inning)? Some umps literally change their calls based on how the catcher catches it, where they lineup behind the batter, or whether its a lefty throwing the pitch or a righty throwing the pitch. All in all, the human "error" of calling balls/strikes will continue to be exposed more and more with all the other tools/information we have now to track real time. If the TV box can tell somebody whether it was a ball/strike within a second... the hope is that they are able to utilize this information in real time to get the call correct on the field. I wouldn't imagine they'd allow 2-3 inches of buffer for a safe/out call on a base... or a ball hit down the line.
I remember when a case could be made that our offense was 7 deep. Now, we have one guy with an OPS >.780 (Yordan). 7 deep to just one guy Oh, and I take back a comment I made earlier in the year saying Bregman looked good. It could all change starting today. But to this point, after 23 games, this is the worst the offense has looked to me since 2014.
The baseball has changed along with other factors. A 0.780 OPS (137 RC+ for Bregman) so far this year is about the equivalent of 0.893 last year (137 RC+ for Jose Ramirez). RC+ adjusts for park factors as well as baseball environment. Astros had 1 guy with an OPS over 0.893 so it is one guy down to one guy. Alternatively, the 7th guy last year had an RC+ of 115. The Astros have 5 guys over 115 RC+ and Chas at 114. I'm guessing Altuve gets his sh$t together and gets over a RC+ of 115 to give Astros 6 guys with an RC+ over 115. So 7 down to 6 provided Yuli and a CF don't get above an RC+ of 115. Astros problems with hitting are almost all on the catchers, Altuve, Diaz, and Yuli.
Funny how some of the long-timers were talking about the old Philly and Mets series. Today the Phillies led 7-1 going into the top of the 9th. Only to lose 8-7 after allowing 6 runs in the 9th.
