depressing

Faustus said:

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Walker doing his thing.

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Walking? Or hitting it 105 mph EV right at somebody?

(Not watching the game today and trying to keep up via this thread)

Just saw the final. Glad I couldn't listen or watch today.

W said:

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3 runs on Monday
2 runs on Tuesday
1 run on Wednesday

against the Cardinals 4.07 team ERA

woof

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Came on a meaningless homer in the 9th inning trailing 8-0.
We were fortunate Hunter Brown was dominant last night. This series should have been a Cardinal sweep

Well, on the brighter side of things, Altuve continues to hit like Prime Altuve, with 4 hits in two games to move past Marquis Grissom, Jose Cruz, Willie McGee, and Ron Santo into sole possession of 169th place all-time in hits with 2,255.

Grissom played 17 years from 1989 to 2005, topping out at 207 hits in 1996. He led the league in steals twice (76 and 78).

My boy Cheito played 19 years, 13 of those for the Astros who decided to cut him one year before they got rid of Nolan. They also mixed in cutting Alan Ashby and having him get his own luggage off the team bus in that time frame. Cruz racked up 1,937 hits for the Astros, and hit at least .299 in 7 seasons, including .300 in 1985 when he was 37 years old. He led the league in hits with 189 in 1983 while hitting .318 and could have been MVP on the 1980 NLCS if the Astros had won after he hit .400 with 4 RBI and 8 walks in a 5-game series. The Yankees signed him after he was cut by the Astros and he played sparingly in his final season, but in his second-to-last game ever, he hit a grand slam on the national game of the week.

Willie McGee seemed like he made a deal with the Dark Lord in 1985 when he suddenly led the league in hits (216), triples (18!), and batting average (.353), slugging.503, hitting 10 HR, scoring 114 runs, and stealing 56 bases. He was just 26 years old at the time. In 1989 he had the really weird distinction of winning the NL batting title with the Cardinals after he had been traded to the A's. he had piled up 542 plate appearances already so he qualified for the batting title in the NL and hit .335. He had really nice numbers again 1987 (105 RBI, 59 extra-base hits), but was never close to the player he was in 1985. He slugged .503 that year, and was never higher than .437 the rest of his career. He also played in 11 playoff series, which is really remarkable considering only 2 of those came after the invention of the divisional series. He played in 4 World Series, but only got 1 ring.

Ron Santo is another notch on Jose's belt for passing Hall of Famers. I'm not sure if the clip is on YouTube, but there once was a great rain-delay WGN broadcast where Harry Caray and Steve Stone were each putting together their all-time National League team to pass the time. Harry, maybe 7 beers in, had already listed Ernie Banks, Ryne Sandberg, Billy Williams, and Ron Santo among his starters. When Steve Stone said, "I've got Mike Schmidt at third," Harry acted like Steve was speaking Chinese. Santo led the league in walks four times, in triples once, and in OBP twice, while hitting 30+ HR 3 years in a row in the 60s and topped out at 187 hits in 1963.

Next on Jose's hit list are a bunch of guys who haven't played in 80-100 years or so, including Jimmy Dykes who has 2,256 and played from 1918-1939, Patsy Donovan, who was born in EIGHTEEN SIXTY FIVE in Ireland, and is also at 2,256 after playing from 1890 to 1907, the even older Bid McPhee, who was born in 1859 and died during World War II at age 83. He got to 2,258 hits in a career that ended in 1899, so I'm sure all those stats are way accurate, and Tommy Corcoran, born in 1869 and played from 1890-1907, with 2,259 hits. The next player that anyone has actually heard of is none other than Carlos Lee at 2,273 (18 ahead).

In hindsight I wish we had matched Boston's offer to Bregman with opt outs and made Peredes the first basemen. Then used that Walker money to try and extend Brown or get an outfielder like Tyler O Neill.

This is the third time we have spent big money on an aging veteran that has yet to pan out. It still could but I'm not overly confident he replicates his production in Arizona

Who's the other 2? Abreu and?

Farmer1906 said:

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Who's the other 2? Abreu and?

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Montero and in my hypothetical walker (if it doesn't work out)

We are paying Montero 8.5 mil to pitch for Atlanta after giving him a 3 year deal for the highest AAV of any non closer.

Walker could end up being fine but he's 34 and I'm not overly convinced he replicates his Arizona production

Walker: .154/.267/.215, two extra-base hits
Diaz: .130/.175/.222, three extra-base hits
Smith: .200/.280/.311, two extra-base hits https://t.co/OHu9aClBuV

— Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) April 16, 2025

tjack16 said:

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Farmer1906 said:

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Who's the other 2? Abreu and?

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Montero and in my hypothetical walker (if it doesn't work out)

We are paying Montero 8.5 mil to pitch for Atlanta after giving him a 3 year deal for the highest AAV of any non closer.

Walker could end up being fine but he's 34 and I'm not overly convinced he replicates his Arizona production

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Walker should be fine. His LA is off -- probably due to shortened Spring Training and pressing with a new team.

Exit Velo, Bat Speed, Barrel % and HH% are still there.

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/christian-walker-572233?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb

Yainer on the other hand, his metrics are terrible.

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/yainer-diaz-673237?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb

MAROON said:

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EastCoastAgNc said:

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Through 18 games, the Astros are slashing .216/.300/.317 (.618 OPS). They’ve scored 3 runs or fewer in all but 5 games.

— Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) April 16, 2025

I know we have been instructed not to besmirch the good names of our "hitting" "coaches", but at some point, someone needs to lose their job over this. This is a continued pattern over more than a year. If I were Crane, I'd be looking for some kind of staffing change immediately.

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It sure seems like when guys join the astros their offensive numbers go down. Now it might just be due to such a small sample of guys but I'm trying to recall someone who came in and improved

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Carlos Beltran in 2004. That's it

MAROON said:

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EastCoastAgNc said:

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Through 18 games, the Astros are slashing .216/.300/.317 (.618 OPS). They’ve scored 3 runs or fewer in all but 5 games.

— Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) April 16, 2025

I know we have been instructed not to besmirch the good names of our "hitting" "coaches", but at some point, someone needs to lose their job over this. This is a continued pattern over more than a year. If I were Crane, I'd be looking for some kind of staffing change immediately.

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It sure seems like when guys join the astros their offensive numbers go down. Now it might just be due to such a small sample of guys but I'm trying to recall someone who came in and improved

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Brantley is the only one I can think of who either stayed at their peak or got better… but he was also under Lunhow and the analytics guys regime.

It also seemed like we had the magic touch with pitchers too (Morton, Cole, Pressly, etc from 2017-2022)

MAROON said:

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EastCoastAgNc said:

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Through 18 games, the Astros are slashing .216/.300/.317 (.618 OPS). They’ve scored 3 runs or fewer in all but 5 games.

— Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) April 16, 2025

I know we have been instructed not to besmirch the good names of our "hitting" "coaches", but at some point, someone needs to lose their job over this. This is a continued pattern over more than a year. If I were Crane, I'd be looking for some kind of staffing change immediately.

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It sure seems like when guys join the astros their offensive numbers go down. Now it might just be due to such a small sample of guys but I'm trying to recall someone who came in and improved

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It is playing so many games with the batter's eye at Daikan that drops their stats.

It's too early to give up on Walker. If he weren't replacing the disaster that is Abreu we wouldn't even be thinking about it.

I think this will be an above average team by the end of the year but it's not a title contender. It's one thing to have that type of team with a young, talented farm. It's another thing when you realize there's not much talent coming in to replace guys who under perform or get hurt. That's why I agree with you, we need to be taking a long-term approach and be opportunistic. A lot of teams take advantage of desperate clubs at the trade deadline. We need to become one of those clubs this year. Dana should be out scouting other farm systems finding his targets now.

Ag_07 said:

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I think it's the fact that we're replacing guys like Springer, Correa, Bregman with lesser talent.

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Ok, but why do those "lesser talents" come here from other teams and almost immediately get worse?

If Alvarez, Walker, and Diaz get their **** together and post .800 ops and greater like they should be capable of (or close to it), the team starts looking a heck of a lot better then it is right now and is a contender

EastCoastAgNc said:

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Through 18 games, the Astros are slashing .216/.300/.317 (.618 OPS). They’ve scored 3 runs or fewer in all but 5 games.

— Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) April 16, 2025

I know we have been instructed not to besmirch the good names of our "hitting" "coaches", but at some point, someone needs to lose their job over this. This is a continued pattern over more than a year. If I were Crane, I'd be looking for some kind of staffing change immediately.

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Crane is counting his money stros are still a huge draw he doesn't care as long as the park is sold out

Heineken-Ashi said:

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I was 100% on board with trading Tucker. Had to do it to get something for him. Call it "learning from the Bregman mistake" where we should have traded him a season or two ago.

I was 100% on board with moving on and not paying Bregman.

I liked the Walker pickup at 1B.

I knew my expectations going into this year - drop off overall but hope we make the playoffs on dominant pitching. But I don't understand where some of you thought this team would end up. Just look at the HEB commercials. Dubon is the best we can do. Cam Smith might be a future star. But he was in college last year. He wasn't ready and only made the team because we traded away any outfield prospect with marginal value for rental pieces over the last 2 years. Dezenzo? Dezenzass my dude. Did yall really think Paredes would be the savior? You know.. he actually kind of is.. but replacing Bregman with a quality bat doesn't make up for the fact that we have some combo of Dubon, Meyers, Brendan freaking Rogers, McCormick, Dezenzo, and a rookie who should be in AAA gaining experience.. having to play every single day. These aren't talented up and comers aside from Smith. That's nearly half the lineup taken up by defensive late inning replacements and pinch baserunners. Even with Yainer NOT struggling, he is still guaranteed to GIDP and kill enough rallies while throwing nobody out ever to cost us multiple games.

This offensive roster has significant holes. One player doesn't fix this. Lucky for us, we have nothing in the farm outside of Cam Smith to look to.

This is why trading Framber is a MUST. I would even think about trading 1-2 other guys like Hader, Caratini, Walker, and Abreu if we can get something that is better than what we have in the current farm. We will not be competing for World Series in the foreseeable future without being smart now. Tucker was the first smart move. Not signing Bregman was the 2nd. We still have time with the Altuve and Yordan combo. But that time will be meaningless unless we upgrade the offense. And if we sit on this farm and watch our aging core get wasted, you can go ahead and get ready for the fire sale in a couple years. But this time, I don't think there's a 5'4 generational player beating down our doors to try out.

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I almost totally agree with this other than saying I think replacing Tucker and Bregman with what we thought we might get out of Paredes and Walker based on recent past performance, enhanced by hitting in Daikan should have been a close match with maybe a slight dropoff. Having McCormick and Diaz rebound from last year and having Pena and Yordan hit like their normal numbers, we should have been a good offensive ball club. Not having anybody else step up behind Yordan has put the weight of the world on his bat and teams are throwing him nothing but trash because they don't fear anybody behind him. Having no left handers in the lineup besides Yordan and allowing a steady diet of RHP hasn't done anybody any favors either, although we showed nothing getting 2 hits in 5 innings against a LHP today either.

I am totally with you on aggressively shopping the guys you mentioned for prospects and maybe a LHH OF. We are nowhere near being ready to face off against the top teams in the playoffs this year if we even manage to get there.