After a disappointing 2016 marred by underperformance, the front office made some splashy moves to lengthen the line-up and bring in veteran leadership (/consistency). The off-season was also marked by the conspicuous non-acquisition of a front of the rotation starter. Expectations are high as this year is the year SI projected the Stros to break out and win the World Series. With that here are some of my thoughts on what’s gone well, gone poorly and pretty much as expected. Gone well: Nearly all of the veteran bats acquired at hitting well. Gurriel in particular has come on extremely strongly since a terrible opening two weeks and now looks like a solid starter at 1B. Reddick, McCann, and Aoki are performing as expected if not a little better in Aoki’s case. It’s made for an extremely deep line-up. Charlie Morton looks like a solid MOR starter. There are times he looks absolutely brilliant and cruises through innings, striking out a bunch at a time, and there’s also times where he loses command and gives up a bunch of runs. Devo and the pen pretty much picked up where it left off (including Sipp unfortunately). Keuchel: has mostly regained his form. He isn’t striking people out like he did in 2015 but he’s been incredibly effective in the early going. Peacock: unexpectedly has been an effective middle reliever. He’s buoyed by an extremely low BABIP, 100% LOB% and 0% HR/FB rate but even with regression has pitched well. Deficits haven’t scared the team, as they have multiple comeback victories. Veteran leadership: guys like Musgrove and McCullers seem to have responded to McCann and you can see them working on something new every game. The results are inconsistent but promising. Gone poorly: The core 4: That group of 1-4 hitters from last year is struggling in some form or another. Bregman and Correa are obviously underperforming. Springer’s struggling to make contact. The best of them, Altuve, has seen his strikeout rate skyrocket from 7.5% three years ago, to 9.8% last year, to a whopping 21.4% this year. Fortunately he’s still hitting extremely well but it portends a much worse slump if and when it happens. Sipp: Continuing to be a turd this year. Fiers: Continuing his downward slide since being acquired. Every inning looks like a struggle for him. Beltran: unquestionably underperforming his salary but hopefully providing valuable mentorship. Base-running: I don’t need to dwell on this but they’ve been awful nearly across the board. As expected: The rotation: Projected to be a top 10 rotation overall (8th in the FG power rankings) and is currently 9th in rotation WAR. Young pitching being inconsistent: McCullers and Musgrove have flashed brilliance interspersed with wheels-fall-off innings. The bullpen: Expected to be good, continues to be good. Contact: Strike outs are down (19.4% from 23.4%) with the addition of more professional hitters. MarGo: just a consistently solid utility guy who comes up big every now and then. Being 15 and 9 as well as 3 games up in the division, a lot more has gone right then wrong. I do think Luhnow and Hinch are giving a lot of latitude in the early going. Guys like Sipp, Correa and Bregman are being given the chance to work through their struggles. At the same time, Peacock is being given the chance to show he belongs. Some questions remain unanswered, like will they actually need another ace come playoff time. Overall I had a blast watching the team this month and knowing that the best is likely yet to come.
Aside from Keuchels sterling performance, the story of the month to me is the lineup depth proving itself. The 7-8-9 hitters have hit extremely well and Houston's won a lot of games via the 2nd half of the order. I think that will continue to be a hallmark of this team.
I thought Keuchel was a lock for AL pitcher of the month, but Santana for the Twins actually has better numbers. One less game however. Sale also has really good numbers, except for his 1-2 W-L record.
McHugh still out another month at least. He would be a nice stabilizing piece of rotation of he can return to form. Morton looks fine. Musgrove had a rough month, but should be fine. I think Fiers will pitch better in May, but still he's the weakest link on rotation. Bullpen looks good besides Gustave and Sipp. Sipp was not good last year (may be a little kind). He looks worse this year. On hitting, top of the order has not clicked just yet, but I'm not worried. Gurriel has been crazy good after a slow start. Aoki has slowed down at plate and he doesn't play a premium position. Gattis and McCann are the best bald-bearded backstops.
April went about as good as could be reasonably expected. Still think this team needs a No. 2 starter. Even if McCullers improves (mainly his away game pitching), his health is a concern, and wouldn't be surprised if they put him on an innings limit that precludes using him down the stretch/into the playoffs. That and a lefty reliever to replace Sipp is all this team needs, IMO. Along with Correa, Springer and MarGo to start hitting consistently.
Managing the rotation will be a big question moving forward. Keuchel is the only guy i think approaches 200 IP. If the other guys do (which i doubt), that's great but then you're stuck saying "hope they got something left for the playoffs".
On 200 innings, I could see McCullers doing this if healthy all year. I would much rather worry about if he's got something in tank than whether he'll rebound from injury well or even play. Sadly, I expect the latter as that's a huge if.
I'd probably call for Hinch's firing if LMJ throws 200 IP in the regular season. His career high is 157 IP but last year he only threw 89 innings. Musgrove has a much better chance, having thrown 147 IP last year, but he's not pitching deep enough in games to worry about it.
He's on pace for about 200 innings right now. Astros need to start pulling him after 5 every other start if they want to keep him under 200 healthy innings. If he has injury issues, they need to reduce his pitches even more.
I expect LMJ to take a mid-season "break" as he did in 2015... especially if they have a comfortable division lead.
Keuchel is back. Devenski is awesome. Aoki, McCann, and Reddick are major upgrades. Marisnick looks more comfortable at the plate as well. Probably the three biggest things I took from April.
That seven game whatever you wanna call it was so bad (.074/.194/.074 with a -15 WRC+) that his season slash is still bad (.236/.317/.360).
While Correa is showing signs of climbing out of his black hole, Beltran seems to be falling into one.
That's the beauty of this lineup. Every player has ups and downs throughout the season. Luckily our lineup is 10 or 11 guys deep - there will always be a few guys hitting well enough to carry the slumpers. We haven't had this kind of luxury since when, 1998?
