The organization knew the same as us that Hunter Brown was the only known quantity in this rotation, not just for quality but also quantity of starts. The team was "always" gonna need 6 or 7 starters even in an absolute best case scenario, and best case scenarios never happen, there will always be a few injuries Burrows has pitched into some bad luck, and I think he'll be passable by years end. Arrighetti has been good. LMJ, Javier, Imai and Weiss have all been dogs**t. Crane, or Brown, or whoever chose to gamble a lot with the rotation instead of investing in another known quantity, and the the gamble looks like an epic fail right now. I think Espada sucks like everybody else, but he didn't assemble this pitching staff.
Imai is the problem. McCullers and Javier were known risks. Weiss was a $2.5M flier. Imai was a $50M contract. They should have spent that money on a more stabilizing force. It’s especially compounded by the fact that Imai has required them to be in a 6 man rotation. His mental meltdown has caused the entire staff to implode, moreso than Hunter Brown getting hurt or any other factor. They gambled on potentially getting an ace for a discount, and they lost. I don’t understand why they’ve managed the roster this way. They needed 6 SP since Imai is on the IL for only a short time. The rotation should be Arrighetti, Burrows, Lambert, McCullers, Bolton, and Gordon. When Imai comes back, Gordon goes down. Gordon is not good but he can be counted on to throw 4+ competitive innings each time out which more than can be said for Weiss or any bulk RP. They’ve also done a very poor job of accommodating the 7 man bullpen by not ensuring they have 2 fresh arms at all times, even if that means optioning Blubaugh or Weiss or even Teng for 10 days at a time. You’ve GOT to have 3 rested arms for EVERY game.
You've mentioned three bad signings on his watch. What were the *good* signings? What draft picks have surprised in a good way? I feel like the hope on signing Brown was that (1) he was a good talent evaluator on the minor league level, and he'd be a plus drafter, and (2) that he'd follow the Atlanta model of locking up our talent on team-friendly deals. I've seen no evidence of either being true. Again, draft results still pending, but three+ years in I haven't been impressed. And the rotation this year is absolutely godawful in ways that should have been somewhat predictable. Add that in to the outright lying and/or mismanagement we've seen regarding injuries, and I've had enough. I don't want him in charge of the inevitable rebuild.
I don't disagree on results, but I think the logic was defensible. From the start of the off-season to the end, Dana Brown targeted pitching, pitching, and more pitching. He didn't have much money or expendable prospects to work with, and he spent it all on pitching. I guess he could have given up a draft pick to sign Micheal King instead of Imai, but I am not sure that alone would make a difference for the team. King missed 3 months last year with a shoulder injury, and was no guarantee to stabilize the rotation. Given the dearth of resources to spend on pitching, the volume of high risk/reward options made some sense, especially with Brown expected to stabilize the top of rotation. Short of forcing a trade of Paredes for the best pitcher he could get I'm not sure strategically what Brown could have done better. If this team was going to be a playoff contender, they needed a 2nd difference maker behind Brown, and Imai was arguably a better gamble than spending most of the available budget on someone like Chris Bassit or Justin Verlander.
Keep in mind also that, last year, the offense was the absolute trainwreck. They didn't have the luxury of trading Paredes for pitching given all the unknowns on offense too. The hallmark of the Astros has been to turn run-of-the-mill pitchers into good ones, and good ones into great ones. It's what allowed them to constantly rebuild their pitching staff and save so much money that could be used elsewhere. If that is no longer something the Astros can do, there's nothing Dana Brown can really do to fix the team - the entire basis of the the Astros dynasty is broken at that point and the model no longer works. That was their one unique trait - without it, they have no structural advantage over any of the other 29 teams in baseball.
Valid point, there weren’t a ton of good options. It was reasonable for Brown to go with the “throw a bunch of **** up against the wall and see what sticks”. But unfortunately they went thru a LOT of options before anything stuck. If they’d had Arrighetti and Lambert in the rotation from the start I don’t think the situation would be nearly as dire. And of course all of that was compounded by Hunter Brown’s injury. The main beef I have is that it seems pretty clear that the Astros dramatically underestimated the impact of having to deploy a 6 man rotation to accommodate Imai. Overusing bullpen arms was entirely predictable knowing that, and Dana Brown should have mitigated that risk by acquiring a lot more optionable/durable/legit bullpen arms and by being much more aggressive in ensuring there were always fresh arms in the bullpen.
We called up Brown and Blanco in late 22, 3 full seasons and some change ago. Spencer Arrighetti is the only draft/international signing our farm has produced for us since then, and he's still not proven despite his great start. If you aren't producing talent in house you aren't staying relevant. We haven't been doing that, free agent/scrap heap pickups are all just band aids and that bill was gonna come due eventually.
I'm not sure that Imai had any impact on how many starters they had in rotation. They seemed to plan on going to a 6 man rotation because of the lack of off days early in the schedule before everything went to hell. They carried 5 arms capable of going multiple innings in the OD pen in Weiss, Blubaugh, Teng, Muñoz and Roa. Hunter starting the season throwing 102 pitches in less than 5 innings set the tone for needing a lot of innings from the pen. Imo Dana did a great job recognizing the needs of this team; ironically it's been the scouting of the players to fill those needs that let them down so far. They seem to be lucky no one else took a chance on Lambert when they went with Roa to start the season.
The entire plan of having starters who can't provide length, and then relying on multiple bulk guys to bridge the gap that better starting pitching might provide, seems to be a misread. A pitching staff constructed in that way was doomed to fail from conception.
Time to give Pecko a chance. Arrighetti/Lambert/Burrows/Pecko/LMJ should be starting until Hunter/Imai make it back. Teng should be the closer along with King. I cant stand how Espada uses his pitching staff.
Slowly putting together a rotation. Arrighetti 4-0 1.96 era Lambert 2-2 2.40 era Just need 3 more guys to step up. Burrows 1-4 5.97 era McCullers 2-2 6.32 era Imai 1-0 7.27 era Bolton 0-1 4.63 era
I think Burrows will put it together. They really do need either Imai to step up or Pecko to join the rotation until Hunter makes it back. (if he makes it back) I've got very little faith in LMJ and even less in Bolton.
