2023 Season Astros General Discussion Thread

Trade deadline looking critical for hopes of making another run this year

 

I hope Dana Brown can make up for Crane and Bagwell completely punting on pitching in the off-season outside of overpaying for Montero.

 

I swear there was one spring training where McCullers had went to a biomechanics expert or something to prove that his curve put less stress on his elbow than his fastball did. Granted, that's probably a pretty good indication that at least someone was worried that there is a correlation between his pitch usage and his injury history.

 

I was really hoping for Michael Wacha in the off season the way he was available so late. That thought was really looking bad after his first few starts but he's a borderline all star at this point.

 

Man I agree with you. It sucks that fans are like that. Certain players that rep Houston so hard. I remember when the scandal was really hitting hard and we went to LA. All those ******* LA fans booing our guys. He beat the Dodgers and said that was for Htown. Yes it sucks hes hurt but if u dont think he wants to be out there. Come on. I'm sure this is killing him. I'll always love Lance. I hope he comes back next year and has a bad ass year.

 

They should have suspected LMJ wouldn’t be able to pitch an entire season/playoffs and should have been rightly concerned about his “arsenal” post flexor injury based n his 2022. They had his medicals. Knew his rehab process. Knew what he was capable of pitching like.

Enough here (myself included) were concerned enough to want more depth to account for gimpy LMJ, rookie Brown, and Javier haven’t ever pitched a full season. Fans should still be concerned hence why SP acquisitions continue to be a priority.

The only presumed sure things going into this season (based on injury history and usage) were Framber and Garcia… and one of them out for TJ surgery.

They still need to be focused on SP at the deadline (amongst everything else).

 

I disagree- they were losing Verlander and Whitley and McCullers have been unreliable.

 

Even Baker wanted another veteran pitcher to add depth but he basically said he was ignored.

 

I can agree with Verlander and LMJ, but why Whitley? He has been irrelevant since 2018 and even pitched less than LMJ. Plus, he got hurt during the season

 

source?

 

https://www.si.com/mlb/astros/opini...-pitcher-justin-verlander-left-houston-astros

I guess he wasn't technically ignored because he said it was because they didn't have a GM but they managed to get Montero and Abreu signed without a GM.

 

Need to make multiple moves for sure.

 

This might sound like a troll, but a decent argument could be made for Diaz (or at least the version we've seen so far this season) being the most talented position player on the roster.

 

You can argue that the Astros need another playoff caliber SP with LMJ being out this season, but it's hard to say at this point that they would have benefited from some scrub bargain bin veteran SP with the value they've been able to get out of France, Bielak, and Blanco.

 

I guess it depends on who that veteran is and how he performed.

France, Bielak, and Blanco have taken the ball and admirably given the team a chance to win.

That's really all you can ask from AAAA replacement starters.

However their peripheral numbers are terrible. They are most likely heading for some ugly ugly starts.

I will be much more comfortable with Urquidy on the mound, but signing a JAG veteran would have given the team a much larger margin for error.

FIP
France: 4.97
Bielak: 5.55
Blanco: 5.20

MLB avg 4.29.

At some point, the probabilities will catch up with them and they will start giving up 1 - 1 1/2 more runs per game than they have been and the offense with need to be that much better for them to keep winning.

 

This is a very important point that people talk past each other with.
so far, the actual results from a runs scored perspective is fine and the stop gap guys wouldn’t have been worse than the MoR guy you talk about adding.
So far, it seems like good fortune is what makes that statement true and it’s likely they will perform significantly worse than they have this far and they. Red to be upgraded. Both statements can be true at once, they aren’t contradictory and I see people arguing with each other as if they were in the astros ecosystem (not necessarily here).
BTE- Astros starters typically outperform their FIP by a decent bit (call it 1/2 a run- I’m talking about going back to 2017). France might be an average dude going forward. For minimum wage that’s actually pretty valuable. Fingers crossed.

 

They shouldn't have penciled him as a dependable starter either.

 

They didn't - the Astros had 6 starters. Unfortunately, 2 more besides McCullers got injured.

Any team that loses 3 starters is going to be lacking depth and pitching AAAA type guys.

 

The Astros have had 21 games this season where they scored 2 runs or less (4 shutouts). They are 1-20 in those games.

I think they’ve played 69 games so far.

Also, they have 5 more games where they scored 3 runs and are 2-3 in those contests.