The houston astros are currently the 2nd worst team in run differential despite being 6th best in runs scored. When are you all going to get a clue. It doesn't matter. You can cling to that hope you have but it's not going to matter. How the hell can you be top 10 in runs scored and be nearly dead last in run differential? Because the astros have no defense, and no pitching. When you have Altuve, who is way past his prime, at 2nd base, a past his prime walker at 1st base, a past his prime or out of his position Correa at SS/3rd, no Myers in center, and couple that with terrible relievers and starting pitching, you get the astros. Firing Espada isn't going to solve that. Nothing will. If you homers don't see that the astros are a broken team, nothing will. Yordan ain't a young Mike Trout. The guy is great if you have defense around him, but he isn't fixing this team. Not to mention that the astros have one of the worst farm systems in baseball. You guys need to get reality back in your brains. If Yordan gets a season injury, it's all over, no big haul.
Let's get the pitching healthy and see what they've got. Imai and Hader will be back soon. Hunter is about a month away.
Correa is out of the season so it doesn't matter now but I'm not sure you have a clue what you're talking about when you bring up Correa as a reason for no defense.
Correa was a contributing factor more than pena. But going believing what you want. The writing is on the wall. The Astros are probably the worst team in baseball sans an unexpected batting season for walker and yordan doing yordan things.
Defense is the least of our problems. Only Altuve is a problem in that regard. Looks like Matthews may be the real deal. Cam is already one of the best defensive OF’s in the league and I am confident will be a really good hitter. The problem is pitching. Probably not completely correctable this season, but there is still hope with Burrows and Imai, Brown and Hader coming back, and Arrighetti. If we can trade Myers and some of our upper level minor leaguers for bull pen help, we have a chance to be pretty good by playoff time. Just can’t dig too big a hole. This is not the year to wait for the deadline. If there is an opportunity for bullpen help now, we should take it and go ahead and fire Espada.
When you have this much top end talent and play in a division and league this bad you should never do a complete rebuild. I can understand at some point the metrics say you have too many injuries and are too far behind too many teams to compete this year. At that point you trade away your rentals, bring up young talent who can be contributors next season and build for the next season. If you have a guy who is coming up on his final offseason of control and projects to get a FA deal out of your budget you must trade him at the deadline OR offseason. You keep everyone who can help you win and is under control 2+ seasons. You never build a roster with the expectation of not winning within one year.
It comes down to pitching. Brown is hurt, and Imai, Burrows, Javier, and LMJ are all ******** the bed. Bullpen needs Hader back and the SP to solidify. It might end up a lost season. If that’s the case, bring up Pecko, Ullola, etc and let’s get a top draft pick. Mainly need to get out of LMJ and Javier’s contracts.
The pitching (along with having veterans in the lineup) is very reminiscent of the 2000 season. MMP/Enron gets blamed for most of the pitching issues… but that team also lost Hampton, and made the wrong choice as far as extensions go with Lima (or maybe he was just the only one willing to negotiate). But Elarton/Reynolds regressed (likely due to the park adjustment) and the staff was led by Chris Holt who threw 200+ innings! (Surprisingly Lima still threw 196 and Elarton threw 192)… was certainly a different time, or the steroids really were more beneficial for pitchers vs. hitters. 2001 was a resurgence largely due to continued improvement from Wade Miller, Oswalt call-up, and they did improve the Enron dimensions some (in 2000, anything near the visiting bullpen fence was a HR… got raised to the brick wall after that year). Thus rebounds after one-off years are possible but you have to have the pitching as a baseline. Right now it would be Hunter Brown, Spencer, and hopefully at least one minor league call-up that projects as a legit starter. Otherwise Crane’s $$$ will be towards that if he’s still looking to field a possible winning team.
I know it was more the one sentence but I just posted this. One of the more infamous fire sales in recent history largely netted no one of any real significance aside from a closer. That would piss me off to no end.
This could be an okay team once it's healthy, but probably not much more than that. They desperately need an infusion of young talent, but I'm not confident that it's coming any time soon. I'm afraid what you see is what you're going to get for a while.
Can they still be in contention when Hunter makes it back. Will Imai be healthy and get over his case of homesickness. It would help if Pearson could be the 6th Starter. Will Burrows continue to improve Will Hader make it back and be effective If these things happen then the Stros don't need to be sellers.
The astros have no defense. Pitching isn't just striking people out. You seem to think that the defenders are afterthoughts to the equation. The astros have a terrible position(s) defense behind those pitchers and can't get people out. No, the astros need to scrap this setup and start rebuilding. Which starts with improving the farm system talent.
Which is exactly the same scenario if you trade away good, still young, players for prospects. Hell no to another re-build.
Your wasting your time. He listed Correa as a bad defender so he has zero idea what he is talking about. That being said, the answer to your question is Yainer Diaz. If you believe Statcast, he's worse than Altuve. Terrible at blocking, framing and literally one of the slowest pop times in the league which is why he doesn't throw anyone out. Go look at 2023 and you'll notice he was actually good too - I'm not sure how you regress like that at his age. Every year he's gotten worse and worse in all of those measures. https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/yainer-diaz-673237?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb
Their defense is fine. 3B Parades above avg SS Pena very good 2,B Altuve poor 1B Walker very good RF Smith very good CF Matthews very good LF avg C Diaz below avg
The Astros are second to last in run differential. But they have a team of elite defenders. Homerism at its finest.
