***** Official Houston Astros 2024-2025 Offseason Thread *****

263,802 Views | 3220 Replies | Last: 2 hrs ago by The Porkchop Express
EastCoastAgNc
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It's probably Mets or a deal elsewhere with a bunch of opt outs
W
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his strikeout rate has ballooned in the past 2 years

128 K's in 2022

172 K's in 2024

(in almost the same number of at-bats)

yikes
EastCoastAgNc
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Another Framber suitor out of the game
EastCoastAgNc
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texasaggie2015
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Really good signing for them. Houston wanted him but didn't want to give him multiple years like he wanted.
Farmer1906
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We have a better version on him in Yordan. They needed another bat and the DH spot for them sucked last year.
TarponChaser
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Farmer1906 said:

We have a better version on him in Yordan. They needed another bat and the DH spot for them sucked last year.


Pederson? Isn't he still a pretty good defensive OF??

I could be misremembering though.
EastCoastAgNc
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Farmer1906
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TarponChaser said:

Farmer1906 said:

We have a better version on him in Yordan. They needed another bat and the DH spot for them sucked last year.


Pederson? Isn't he still a pretty good defensive OF??

I could be misremembering though.


No, he's more like a full time DH that you can stick in a corner once a week at best.
MaxPower
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Farmer1906 said:

We have a better version on him in Yordan. They needed another bat and the DH spot for them sucked last year.
Its the bat we need. I'm telling you the Rangers are a better team on paper right now. Go through their lineup, it's good 1-9.
Quo Vadis?
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25 million a year for a tomato can like Manaea is ridiculous. Dude has had 1 decent year in the last 5.
Farmer1906
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Heim, Carter, & Taveras were all bad last year.
Semien, Jung, Garcia were pretty average.
Langford and Smith were good, not great.
Lowe was a bright spot in their offense and they traded him away for a cheap reliever.
Seager was a beast.

They need a bunch of players to rebound even with the new players to be a potent offense.
MaxPower
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Semien had a higher WAR than Altuve last year.

Garcia, Jung and Heim have a track record of being good offensive players. It seems foolhardy to expect all 3 to continue to be that bad. Carter was only 22 this year and was hurt. He is more talented than any OF we have (no Yordan does not count as an OF).

Maybe our strategy is to hope the Rangers players fell off a cliff rather than just had bad years. Personally I think we should take them seriously and actually address glaring holes in the OF.
AustinCountyAg
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Bobby Jimbo said:

Hypothetically, if Bregman is fine with the Astros initial offer, could we sign him and stick him in LF? If I remember correctly, he was getting playing time in LF in the minors before he was called up to the Astros since we already had Valbuena (RIP) playing 3B. Granted that was a long time ago...
you don't move the reigning gold glove winner to the outfield.
EastCoastAgNc
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tjack16
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EastCoastAgNc said:




Wish we could have pulled that off

Would have been awesome while Javier, LMJ and Garcia recover
Farmer1906
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MaxPower said:

Semien had a higher WAR than Altuve last year.

Garcia, Jung and Heim have a track record of being good offensive players. It seems foolhardy to expect all 3 to continue to be that bad. Carter was only 22 this year and was hurt. He is more talented than any OF we have (no Yordan does not count as an OF).

Maybe our strategy is to hope the Rangers players fell off a cliff rather than just had bad years. Personally I think we should take them seriously and actually address glaring holes in the OF.


Offensively Altuve is trending down and still ran circles around Semien.

Heim had one slightly above avg offensively year in his career. 2024 is what he is.

Jung had a good rookie year and took a step back in his sophomore year. Where have we seen that before. He might be good, he might be avg.

Garcia will probably bounce back but let's not act like he's special.

You seem to take the rose colored view on their players but don't share the same view when it comes to guys like Chas or Pena.

Their offense was below avg / bottom 1/3 of the league last year. They need Burger and Joc plus a bunch of bounce back years to catch up offensively.
W
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Marcus Semien continued his career trend of good year / bad year...last year

.699 OPS and OPS+ 100 = not good

next year is his age 34 season
MaxPower
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No, I have some hope Chas will be much better than last year but you need 3 OF. Jake and Dubon are who they are, which is really bad offensive players. I don't see how you can roll with both of those two starting.

Pena has been league average 3 years in a row, not sure why anyone thinks he will suddenly become a good offensive player. He feasts off lefties and is consistently terrible against righties. If a team needs an out in a big situation against him, just make sure you have a righty in there. That's probably more frustrating for fans, it makes him easy to gameplan for other teams.
Farmer1906
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Maybe we're not as far as I thought. Chas, Jake, and Dubon can be starting Ofers vs LHP. We need 1-2 more options to platoon with that group.

Pena is league average. Kind of similar to Jung with a little less pop. Young. Huge splits. Solid D. Too many K.

We just need to build a team where Pena & Jake were in the 8-9 hole vs RHP and 6-7 hole vs LHP.
Wabs
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I was kinda hoping to not see Chas or Meyers again. But I guess it's going to happen. Not alot of options since it appears no team is interested in them. We desperately need to dump Pressly and use the money for a couple of cheap platoon options in the OF.
txags92
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MaxPower said:

No, I have some hope Chas will be much better than last year but you need 3 OF. Jake and Dubon are who they are, which is really bad offensive players. I don't see how you can roll with both of those two starting.

Pena has been league average 3 years in a row, not sure why anyone thinks he will suddenly become a good offensive player. He feasts off lefties and is consistently terrible against righties. If a team needs an out in a big situation against him, just make sure you have a righty in there. That's probably more frustrating for fans, it makes him easy to gameplan for other teams.
Pena needs to spend the offseason taking batting practice with right handers throwing nothing but sliders into the opposite batter's box. Have the field crew install a galvanized fence post about 4 inches outside the strike zone on that side and let him swing at the pitches he thinks are strikes. I figure a few hundred reps of his hands ringing like a bell after whacking that fence post will cure him of thinking he can pull those kinds of pitches into the Crawford boxes.
Farmer1906
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Believe it or not, he's gotten much better at that pitch. But I think his issue now if that he's so worried about not being fooled on the slider that he doesn't punish the 4 seamers anymore.
GigEmMortis
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AustinCountyAg said:

Bobby Jimbo said:

Hypothetically, if Bregman is fine with the Astros initial offer, could we sign him and stick him in LF? If I remember correctly, he was getting playing time in LF in the minors before he was called up to the Astros since we already had Valbuena (RIP) playing 3B. Granted that was a long time ago...
you don't move the reigning gold glove winner to the outfield.
Yep, this is the answer.

It won't happen, but in the spirit of hypotheticals, if Bregman were to come back at 3B, you could stick Yordan in LF a little more often and have Paredes DH to get both bats in the lineup.

Again, won't happen, but that's the approach I would take instead of putting Bregman in LF
EastCoastAgNc
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Steve playing the deferred money game
EastCoastAgNc
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The Porkchop Express
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The Rangers are probably closer to the 90 win version of their team than the 78 win version of their team. IIRc they had a couple of bad injuries early. Even if you split the difference of the last two years, they are an 84-win team, and it's not like the Astros are that much better on paper right now.
Deluxe
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Bregman to 2B. Altuve completes his Biggio arc and plays CF for a few years. Problem solved
txags92
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Deluxe said:

Bregman to 2B. Altuve completes his Biggio arc and plays CF for a few years. Problem solved
Except the one of being over the Luxury Tax threshold.
MaxPower
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Deluxe said:

Bregman to 2B. Altuve completes his Biggio arc and plays CF for a few years. Problem solved
Altuve's already bad defense will become an increasing problem. He's almost certainly your DH whenever Yordan walks for his half billion. The worst thing about him being short is we can't put him at 1B
Wabs
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txags92 said:

Deluxe said:

Bregman to 2B. Altuve completes his Biggio arc and plays CF for a few years. Problem solved
Except the one of being over the Luxury Tax threshold.
It ain't my money
EastCoastAgNc
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Deluxe said:

Bregman to 2B. Altuve completes his Biggio arc and plays CF for a few years. Problem solved

Right because if he can't throw it from second to first, he'll be great in center, better than pool noodle arm Meyers.
EastCoastAgNc
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redline248
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Farmer1906 said:

Believe it or not, he's gotten much better at that pitch. But I think his issue now if that he's so worried about not being fooled on the slider that he doesn't punish the 4 seamers anymore.
His wRC+ went up from '23 to '24, but his BB% went down and his K% went up. Now, that could be attributed to the overall aggressive style by all the Astros, last year, since the coaches have talked about it this offseason.

Maybe this year he can find the in between to be ok-to-good vs sliders and go back to hammering the fastball.
redline248
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EastCoastAgNc said:


Steve playing the deferred money game
Who needs to save for retirement when you can get this kind of deal
 
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