Maybe we need a new batting coach. I know our starters have the potential to bat over .300, because they did last year. Maybe they need another coach to join the Stros and bring in his perspective on what they are doing differently. Who knows, but it can't hurt.
Astros!! Can't give up on the team but need to get going!! Just want the team to hit their stride going into the playoffs and ride the wave to another Chip. H-Town Crazy!! Go Astros!!
This is the key. Altuve is the heart and soul of this team - he comes back and hits stride this team will blow the cobwebs off in a hurry. I know teams are up and down the roster in baseball, but Altuve is a real difference maker. It may take him a few weeks to hit his stride, but they should make the playoffs and if they are surging (which they should be), that will be perfect as far as timing goes. The current slump may be disappointing after the highs of last season, but skit happens to the best of them and still being right there while in this slump speaks of better things ahead.
I was thinking about the A's vs Astros division race after Oakland tied it up yesterday. Baseball is funny so anything could happen, but the Astros have a roster full of all-star/first division regulars, while the A's have only have a handful and most of their players are playing over their head. Let's map it out. Astros: Altuve Bregman Correa Springer Verlander Cole Keuchel Morton McCullers Osuna Rondon Bullpen McHugh Maybe Reddick, Gurriel, Marwin (lately), Peacock, Pressly, Devenski? A's: Chapman Davis Treinen Manaea Maybe Lowrie, Olson, Trivino? I believe in the Astros talent. Oakland's hot streak will turn and when it does, Astros will be hitting their stride for a deep playoff run. Plus the Stros have had one of the worst BABIP's in MLB since the all-star break. That won't continue.
The Astros clinched the season series with Oakland yesterday, which is not insignificant. Any tiebreaker with the A's will be played in Minute Maid Park. So..... not a good weekend - but not a lost weekend, either. The A's fell 11.5 back on June 15; they are 41-13 since, a 123-win pace. It's possible they could ride this through the end of the season - but it's not likely. We all saw Cleveland go on an unprecedented run last year we knew wasn't sustainable - and sure enough, it caught up to them.
Close games routinely come down to 1, maybe 2 plays and are often rooted in dumb luck. Look no further than Friday night's game - the A's were lucky that an out was turned into a tying run. Otherwise, they probably lose that game. There is no luck involved in blowing teams out; that is a component of having either an elite offense or an elite pitching staff, or some combination of both. I think the A's are a legit threat - but I suspect they'll regress as the season winds down (their current pace is simply not sustainable) and the Astros will win the division handily.
Fan optimism: Believing a team will turn things around and play much better even though the team isn't playing well at the moment. Fan pessimism: Believing a team will start playing poorly even though they are playing well at the moment Is there a flaw in Astros' optimism if it depends on Athletics' pessimism? If both teams regress or both progress are the Astros' chances still better? I think so Fan Realism: Believing a team that is playing bad is playing bad. They might get better, or they might get worse but right now they are playing bad and are as good as their current record. I think a lot of Astros fans are more realistic than pessimistic. They see the team as it is currently playing. I don't see anything wrong with that. Sure, you can point to last season where things turned out perfectly but there have been other times when it didn't. All we know for certain is now. And right now, they are leading the division despite the slump they've been in. Plus the reigning MVP is due to rejoin the team pretty soon. Even the worst realists can't be disappointed in the season.
I didn't say W/L's was a good predictor. In fact, I wasn't talking about prediction at all. My statement was meant to say that RD wasn't a good measure of how productive or how good your team is currently. In this context, W's and L's are all that matters.
Right; which will likely prove hard because their record eventually has to normalize - which, in their case, means a fairly large regression is looming.
I believe I said ALMOST meaningless. So no, I dont completely dismiss it. But I find RD to be incomplete and therefore flawed as a accurate predictor. I will admit that it might be the best predictor we have, but it doesn't account for winning and losing margins. Winning by 5 runs one day and losing by 2 the next is still a 1 and 1 record. Yet, RD would tell you we were the better team. In one sense that may be true, but it doesnt translate to the fact in such a case, were still .500 or merely even in the given hypothetical. To take real world examples, we have been way ahead of the A's all year in RD. Back in June, there would have been no indication that the A's would catch us based on any prediction of RD. Yet, they did tie us in record recently. So using the deeper past to predict the more recent past doesn't hold up either when trying to use RD as a predictor.
Normalize to what? And also, this isn't the same team from the first couple of months, since early June they've added 2 SP and 3 big pieces of their bullpen.
Their run differential is that of a ~90-win team; their recent run has them playing at a pace of ~123 wins. So... in theory, they would need to play a stretch of a ~57-win to "normalize" - yes, 57: that's how insanely hot they've been. I don't think they *will* play that poorly - but they're due to regress eventually. They're not the *same* team, sure - but those guys are not what is essentially an ~18-win swing.
Not much time left in the season, and the A's are likely one of the best 8 teams in the majors even with regression. Astros are likely going to be the division champ because they are the better team, but race could go south for either team with one bad week.
They're 15-3 in one-run games since they started this run. They're +5 on their W/L Pythagorean. They're ninth in run differential; closer to last place Texas than the first place Astros A regression to their mean *is* looming.
It's not true in "one sense". It's simply true. The team that wins by larger margins has a larger margin to get worse and still remain 1-1. The team that squeaks by gets a little worse and they are suddenly 0-2. Barring injuries or trades that change the course of team's futures, it's better to be the team with the bigger RD than not. it's like saying a basketball team that wins by 30 every night is not better than one that wins by 3. If those two teams play each other, I'm taking the +30 team every time.
To be fair, this is not how regression to the mean works, although people commonly assume that. It does not mean teams that go through a hot stretch will go through a cold stretch and even it all out. It simply means that regardless of how the team played, they are likely to play "average" going forward. As a result, a hot past + average future = getting close to their overall average/mean, as does a cold past + average future.
So maybe the A's are in the Top 9 instead of Top 8 teams. Regression to the mean (mean being the true talent level of a team in this case) does not erase what has happened. Regression to the mean happens when future events greatly outnumber past events such that the past small sample size events get washed out by the larger future sample size (or that past results are disregarded). Assuming A's are a true talent level 83-win team, they would need to go 9-29 to get back to the mean. That's not likely to be close to what happens as there just are not enough games to wash out what has already happened. A's are likely to finish in the 91-96 win range assuming they are a true talent 83-win team. One bad week by A's, and they are done. One bad week by Astros, and they are in the 91-96 range (i.e., toss up instead of 90% favorite to win division).
This is baseball, where playing .500 ball for most of the season mixed with a few hot streaks gets you to 90-98 wins. For example, If you’re sprint in a marathon, you burnout. It’s all about timing, and keeping your players as healthy and fresh as humanly possible. So If the Astros relax, the hits will abound. And they’ll be fine.
