american league so ass the only teams above 0.500 are....... Yankees, Rays, and....... Spoiler Athletics injuries are up across the board and teams can't put together a consistent lineup/pitching staff
Great win . About Altuve. Luckily Houston has soft media and don't have Philly, NY or Boston fan base. Otherwise there would have been rumblings about these terrible AB's no matter how crucial sit. Is it that Altuve has known a while that season is lost and is on whatever gear or has he forgotten that being more selective in the box will result as more pitches to hit in zone and much needed walks for team? If it's the latter, is it Joe's or hitting coaches job to gently kick Altuve's a*s to wake him up and remind him what they agreed on? When Altuve is taking AB's like these I don't see any reason to include him in hitter meetings because he's not receiving anything now. With Joe it feels when plan works he's touting great plan but when we are not sticking to it we are good and agressive nothing to see here.
At some point so many guys are hurt that for every new injured player there is a guy coming back. Astros may have finally crossed that tipping point. Pena will likely be back in about 10 days. All 3 rehabbing pitchers had their velo last night. Pearson and Imai couldn’t avoid walks.
Imai couldn’t find the zone for his life in his last outing. He needs to fix that before coming back.
He’s going to have to fix it on the fly. Houston cannot afford to have multiple bullpen games another turn thru its rotation. They’ve already dramatically increased the odds of several of their RP getting hurt just by how overused they’ve already been.
I've been a little more hesitant because of how weak our division, and the AL, are this year, but I've finally reached the point of believing our season is a total lost cause. Let's call it what it is. The injuries have wrecked us. Our lineup has the potential to be truly elite, but the injuries there have (so far) likely capped them at being *merely* top 5-10 in the league. And it's simply not enough to overcome the pitching injuries. The pitching injuries have a snowball effect that we're really only just now truly starting to see the results from. Everybody who's scheduled to be a FA in the next 1-2 years should be on the trade block, with the exception of Yordan. Pena, Brown, Paredes, Walker, Abreu (assuming he regains form and value) all need to be on the block and traded. I'm just spitballing, but between those names, you should be able to comfortably get a bare minimum of 3 top 100 prospects (one in the top 25, one in the top 50 range, and another back 50 would seem realistic?), plus some other lottery type of prospects. Maybe you're even able to leverage one of them into a MLB quality SP, who knows. An influx of young talent into the farm system (on top of guys like K. Alvarez and Neyens), significant $ freed up in FA to maneuver a bit, a new manager who is clearly able to steer this ship (unlike the likeable but directionless Espada) and you might be back to a competitive team already next season or '28 at the latest. You don't need a full teardown like back in 2012, but you have to trade off the valuable assets. You just have to. And for the love of god, please bring in an entirely new training and strength/conditioning staff. No more promoting from within. I fully acknowledge that random fluke seasons can happen, but 2-3 years in a row of outlier injury luck shouldn't result in just maintaining the status quo on that side of the operation.
I know it’s an easy cop out but I think this is heavily on the pitch clock. I don’t think it’s just a coincidence.
Sugar Land probables Wed- Ullola Thu- Gordon Fri- Pecko Pecko is still the guy I want to see up but I don't understand why he is not being built up in pitches or days between starts. He has thrown 52, 51, and 52 pitches in his last 3 starts. I would hope he is up to 75+ by now. This will be 6 days since he pitched last. In fact, he has been pitching every Friday. I could understand if it was Tuesday, since AAA is off Mondays, but Friday's makes no sense. They need another starter. I know they want to bring Imai back. They stated they hoped he only needed 1 rehab start and has had 2 now. But he sure doesn't look ready. Maybe they try Pearson soon. I know that was discussed but he, arguably, looks worse than Imai. Something's gotta give. At some point they need to give the youngsters a shot over the retreads.
The Stros are 4 games out of 1st place on May 6th, their pitching staff has been decimated by injuries and the lineup is missing their C/LF/CF/3B/SS. Many of these hurt guys will be back soon and some posters are wanting to throw in the towel on the season. I just dont get it. I'm just glad that Dana didn't trade away Parades.
Moves I want to see: Option Yainer Diaz when he’s healthy. Let him try to repair his swing/approach in AAA. This team will be fine with Vazquez and Salazar. Start gauging interest in everyone except Altuve, Yordan, McCullers, and Correa. Keep prices very high on non-rentals but be prepared to move everyone except those 4 guys if the right trade comes along. Increase playing time for Dezenzo, Shewmake, Cole, and Matthews. Allen should never play over Shewmake. I want to see what Dezenzo and Cole can do with 200+ pa of regular playing time; use the lost season to find out what you have with those young hitters. Option Cam Smith if he doesn’t get hot in the next 3 weeks. Get that extra year of control. Move to a 5 man rotation. Tell Imai if he refuses to pitch, a grievance will be filed to void his contract. The rotation should be Arrighetti, Burrows, Imai, Lambert, and McCullers. The 6 man rotation is KILLING the bullpen. Abreu, Okert, and King are strictly single inning leverage RP and should NEVER pitcher more than 1 inning. DFA or trade Okert when Hader returns. Trade or DFA De Los Santos. The remainder of the bullpen should be main up of FRESH, optionable, multi-inning arms. Sousa, Teng, Blubaugh, Murray, Gordon, Alexander, Weiss, and Ullola should be moved up and down as needed to keep an abundance of fresh arms in the pen. DO NOT, under ANY circumstances, trade ANY prospects from below AA. If by some miracle the team is within 5 games of the division near the deadline, use upper level arms (namely Ethan Pecko, Miguel Ullola, and Bryce Mayer) and money to try and add what is needed.
What you just described is a complete tear down. Do you really want to go through another five years of 100 loss ball? Brown and Alvarez need to be paid and retained. I think we have guys in the pipeline that can replace Paredes and Pena (Correa maybe for 1 year or get that guy back in the trade). Crane needs to get over the long contract stuff, if the Astros are ever going to get back to the ACL. Home grown Aces like Brown, don’t come around very often and Alvarez may be the best hitter in all of baseball.
Oh, trust me, I fully agree they SHOULD have extended Brown when they had a chance. But that ship has sailed. Any extension now would require a commitment Crane clearly won't ever do, nor should he. The history of mega contracts like the one Brown likely gets if he stays healthy/productive leading up to his free agency has virtually never worked out well for the team long-term. Dealing with the reality of the current situation, apart from Yordan, Brown is your most valuable asset and should net a massive haul that can set up the future. It wouldn't be a full tear down like 2012-2013, those teams had far less major league talent to work with. If you ace a couple of trades this deadline/offseason then you're set up pretty well moving forward.
I can go along with most of this. I'm more along the lines of lets stand pat try to get fairly healthy and see which way this team should go at the deadline. Of course if a team like the Red Sox offered Tolle for Parades before the deadline you make that deal. Why dont they bring up Murray to be the 3-4 ip guy until Imai is ready?
