Brice and Cole should play everyday to see what they can do. Brice seems to be getting used to major league pitching. His OPS is over 800 over the last month. Cole's weird stat lines seems to be holding up in the major leagues also. Small sample size but his numbers seem to be exactly the same as his numbers in the minors. Strikes out a lot by whiffing but somehow makes good things happen when he is not striking out.
worst series to play Brice and Cole every game. same with cam smith. mariners pitching staff is just too good and they barely look like they belong.
Tomorrow Woo v Imai. Woo finally got going in last weeks start against hot Braves 6IP, 1H, 9K. Imai also got his mouth going again week ago after minors start. This time he was b*tching about pitch clock and Astros pitching dep.trying to shove oppo hitters books/weakness down his throat when he thinks he is better off using his own strenghts. Hope this is just another lost in translation case, they change translator once more and they can shut this guys mouth. Either way we better start praying he opts out and goes home to comfort zone. There is not many SP guys these days who can live only by own stuff and they have super stuff with super control and that wont last many years. Imai thinking he can beat MLB hitters regularly just being himself makes me think we stepped in s**t not doing our homework on him before signing.
Walker has to be the first one traded. He's having a great first half so far and Astros have no need for him this or next year. He's proven his worth and we could fetch a prospect or two if given some money out as well.
As bad as we are, we aren't bad enough to rebuild. We can flip this around with some pitching. This a good opportunity to see what we have with the young kids. Brice, Cole, Cam. Cam for me is probably the most frustrating because he's so good other than a swing path problem that was obvious to even me since early last season. I don't get why the coaching staff didn't work with him in the office season. Now he's trying to fix it mid season with the pressure of winning games.
Im curious what the market for hunter brown is RIGHT NOW. I'm very much NOT sold on him being a long term great pitcher for us , and he will get expensive sooner rather than later. Are there teams around the league that like him and would take him ? Do they need to see what he looks like coming back from injury ? I would trade the dude right now and you have the cover of losing to be the reason for selling him. If he comes back and isn't stellar we wont be able to get much for him this deadline , or even this offseason if we sell more . Theoretically If we are selling , I like selling some at the deadline and some in winter meetings. IMO from a negotiation standpoint you are able to get more done in winter meetings because we can have the credible option of retooling and going for wins in 27 ( ofc this all depends on the lockout and how much there IS a season next year ) ( BTW sucks we are dealing with this so soon after we already missed half a season in 2020 ) I'd rather trade Pena and Brown than Paredes and Yordan , even walker . Now with walker , hes off to a hot start and if someone is willing to pay a high price for him then you do it. But I thought , we all thought , this team was going to be pretty good this year ... and many of our pieces have been good . Yordan and Paredes are affordable. The problem is pitching .... but , If you think about our run , not many of our best pitchers were developed in-house . Verlander, Cole , Morton , Grienke were all from trades. 2022 was different and we had more homegrown pitching talent . Right now , our pitching future looks bleak . There isnt a stud in AAA ( like an up and coming Lance ) , but many of our good performers havent been top prospects . Guys like Framber took a couple years to figure out things at the big league level. Now you might read all I've written and think Im crazy for wanting to trade Brown , but we need more rolls of the dice , we can trade him for some future bets . We just need to revamp our entire pitching program. Too many injuries and now multiple years of being reliant on just a few players . We are not a pitching STAFF . I do feel weve taken a step back on the analytical competitive edge we used to hold. We started colton gordon , jason alexander, and Ryan gusto for 13-14 games a piece last year. I feel like Gordon and Alexander could get 10 starts a piece this year too ... which is just mind boggling. Peter Lambert was a good pickup , former 2nd round pick , last year in colorado posted a 4.5 FIP . Makes sense to take a flyer om that guy . We need half a dozen more peter lamberts. I dont want to blame everything on Imai , but Burrows is turning it around a bit. Cmon Tatsuya , play great for us so we can trade you !!
It definitely makes sense to gauge Brown’s value, but most likely teams will need to see him make 3-4 healthy productive starts before they make any kind of offer that might be worth accepting. I would also say that I think Ethan Pecko (AAA) and Bryce Mayer (AA) have pretty high ceilings as starting pitchers.
That's good. One other thing I was thinking about is this tradeoff between development , performance (at MLB level ) , and injury risk. I think we've all heard TINSTAAPP (or something along those lines ) , but obviously it doesnt mean you don't try to develop pitching . However , developing a pitcher is costly and risky. The opportunity cost becomes such that it feels like teams like the astros prioritize looking for older pitchers , MLB ready , who have some interesting data showing an effective pitch or two. We've been focusing our resources on finding the Kai wei tengs and peter Lambert's. The real competitive advantage of the big market teams is they have the ability to do both . Both get ML talent and somehow keep their cupboard full of younger top-tier arm talent . Where it feels like we have to Frankenstein guys like Spencer . One of my main hopes for Dana is being able to hit on some pitchers . The value of having a couple of cost controlled starters is just massive . In fact , in this era of increased pitcher injury and stress , the value of pitching prospects keeps going up IMO. Yes the risk is higher , but so is the value reward . So much of our run(2015-present) was enabled by our pitching prospect depth . Generally we traded it for more proven , lower risk , but less controllable and more expensive MLB production. Even guys like Vince Velasquez and Joe Musgrove are still kicking it around because of their arm talent . Think about how much time the Astros gave Forrest whitley ! I'm just not a big believer in Hunter Brown . I think his results last year were a bit flukey and he's more of a thrower than a pitcher . I think if he's at 94 vs 97 he takes a massive step down whereas a guy like framber is still very good at a lower velocity (was*) I still really like Imai's stuff . It will be a black mark on the astros pitching staff if we cant get some more productive outings out of him . Yes Imai has his own blame , but with his stuff we should be able to put together an somewhat easily executable game plan that leads to a quality start. Right now we are all probably envious of Seattles pitching situation , but they suffered for years to build it up . As much as it sucks to lose , at the very least the Astros gave some interesting decisions coming up
Assuming they clean house this winter, the new FO badly needs to look at how they handle individual player's workload, return to play, and other areas where they can try to reduce injury risk. Obviously a lot of this is driven by factors outside of the org's control, but stuff like having Brown throw 100 pitches in his first start is just mind numbingly stupid.
Good call Last night they were 0-8 with 6Ks Neither are ready to face top pitching, but anyone we could replace them with are no better It’s kind of like Cam, I think he should be sent down. But not because I think we can put someone better out there, I just think he has a better chance of developing if he spends a little time down at SL
I agree to an extent But we rest guys as much as anyone so I’m not sure “workload” is the issue Heck Olson just moved into the top 10 in consecutive games played with over 800 something, and it certainly hasn’t affected his performance There is more than just bad luck in play though
We are at a point that we can’t really consider all the injuries just bad luck, we passed that point while setting a record last year
Take it for what it is worth - but the Astros already are talking to teams about Jeremy Pena. If the Astros get fair value - he will be moved by the deadline. The man isn't even healthy yet and teams want him. Still not a lot of interest in Walker at this point.
Asked about this. The MLB manager and coaching staff will be new. No commitment one way or the other on Brown - some around the Astros think that he may survive. As for the injuries --- the pitching guys place a lot of blame on MLB for not developing a legal spider tact like they claimed they would. Also - the Astros, Rays, Dodgers, Brewers and others have built into the recipe that there will be a lot of pitching injuries. Same with the Pirates. I am sure it will be discussed and addressed, but I do not expect a move away from maximum velocity or the current philosophy.
