The Houston Astros of the American League West

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/A6vHumGCMAAC24T.jpg

for some reason the idea of this team having to go out and find a DH is hilarious to me.

Brian McTaggart ‏@brianmctaggart
Luhnow says Berkman has great history in Houston and if it's a fit won't be hesitant to pursue it. Views him as offensive weapon.

this thread is bullshit where is lAUrEl ANNE dOWNS?

sKRIT oTM

MLB ‏@MLB
#Astros name 27-year-old Harvard graduate David Stearns as their new assistant GM.

this is pretty weird

is the 2013 schedule out yet? want to see how it works

Hey Bill! My 15-year-old son asked me yesterday: If the Houston Astros played 162 games against the 2012 American League All-Star team, how many games would they win? I put the over/under at 20. What do you think?
Asked by: mikeclaw

Answered: 11/16/2012
Well, you probably have as good a chance of getting that one right as I do, but my guess is 30. Let's assume that an American League All-Star team would be a .700 team. A .700 team against a .340 team, the .700 team would win 82% of the time, which would leave 29.5 wins. In order to drive the expectation down to 20 wins, we'd have to assume that the American League All-Star team was a .784 team (127-35). Which is entirely possible.

intriguing

The net result—the 2013 Astros will be playing against tougher competition in the AL West (and against the AL in general), and they should be a somewhat inferior team to the one that won 55 games in 2012. Combine that likelihood with the unbalanced schedule against two playoff teams—Texas and Oakland—and a playoff contender, the Angels, and the prospects for the 2013 Astros is bearish. If they 110 to 115 games, they will sprinkle their losses around the AL Central and AL East, but they will deliver them in bulk to the AL West. They will play 72 games against the A’s, Rangers, Angels and Mariners—18 against each. The net result could be 4 or 6 additional wins each for the four AL West teams, based on the difference between playing the Astros versus a broad mix of AL teams. These additional wins could deliver three teams from the AL West into the playoffs.

Houston’s transition to the AL has serious implications for the AL East. With the win totals for the top three AL West teams likely to rise, the AL East may be sending only the division winner to the postseason. Historically, two AL East teams would be among the four AL clubs in the playoffs. With last year’s expanded wild card, AL East teams had visions of three clubs making the postseason. That seems far less likely today because Houston will give more gifts to the AL West. The offseason has a long way to go, but by April, we may be picking the A’s, Angels and Rangers as playoff favorites, while cautioning the AL East that winning the division may be the only path to October.

http://vincegennaro.mlblogs.com/2012/12/12/the-houston-astros-will-change-everything-in-the-al/

they should be a somewhat inferior team to the one that won 55 games in 2012
they should be a somewhat inferior team to the one that won 55 games in 2012
they should be a somewhat inferior team to the one that won 55 games in 2012

the article above makes the blue jays moves make a lot more sense.

astros made an astros move by trading for dodgers john ely the other day - triple crown winner in the PCL but the definition of a AAAA player.. I wish him well.

the article above makes the blue jays moves make a lot more sense.

i'm not sure i follow

if a playoff spot is down to just one team in the AL East it helps being the best team (at least on paper)

Ah, yes yes. dumb question i guess (currently drinking at work)

carry on. youre doing gods work.

Astros' AL debut vs Rangers is the ESPN opener

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/01/03/rangers-vs-astros-to-kick-off-the-2013-season-in-prime-time

watching that might feel like raucously shouting for blood at the colosseum

ha, from that article: "As usual, the Red Sox and Yankees are totally getting shafted by not being broadcast in prime time. Man."

THE YANKEES AND RED SOX ARE IN EVERY NATIONALLY BROADCAST GAME EVER

The Bad News Bears in Switching Leagues xp

Writer is having a li'l fun there, dawg.

didn't know that El Presidente was their bullpen coach.

omg a 3-1/3 inning save! What year is it?

and...bedard will still take his turn in the rotation.

of course he'll probably tear his labrum, but i really do think the astros are not going to be as awful as people think they're going to be.

struck out 43x in 3 games vs TEX

brETT wALLACE iS 1/14 wITH 11 sTrIKEOUTS

'stros bust out for 16 runs, everyone in the lineup gets a hit except brett wallace 0-4, 4ks

1/21 17ks O_O

a 2-game winning streak, and only 9 Ks tonight.

oUcH

eRiK BeDaRD pitching for HOusTOn	HOU	OAK
C Crisp walked.	0	0
D Norris walked, C Crisp to second.	0	0
C Young walked, C Crisp to third, D Norris to second.	0	0
J Lowrie struck out looking.	0	0
C Crisp scored, D Norris to third, C Young to second on wild pitch by E Bedard.	0	1
J Donaldson walked.	0	1
B Moss singled to right, D Norris and C Young scored, J Donaldson to third.	0	3
N Freiman homered to left, J Donaldson and B Moss scored.	0	6
P Clemens relieved E Bedard.	0	6
M Taylor flied out to center.	0	6

These guys aren't very good

Unreal is that two games in a row where the SP didn't make it out of inning 1? or I guess 2 out of 3? Vicious... this team makes my heart hurt.

Pitchers IP H R ER BB SO HR PC-ST ERA
P Humber 0.1 8 8 8 1 0 1 30-18 6.63
D Keuchel 1.1 5 6 3 2 1 0 52-30 3.86
Totals 1.2 13 14 11 3 1 1 82-48

i don't know how anyone could pick any team other than Houston for the worst in the AL (perhaps all of baseball ever).
― Porto for Pyros (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Thursday, March 28, 2013 12:18 PM (3 weeks ago)

and into the 13th they go in a quest for win # 9

(I really don't think they're as bad as that Tiger team that lost 118 or whatever)

At least they're middle of the pack in runs scored? That's a thing, right?

All they have to do is not lose 19 runs a game and that might translate to ASTROS SUCCESS

2003 Tigers through 40: 9-31, -79 DIFF
2013 Astros through 40: 10-30, -90 DIFF

http://www.bestsportsphotos.com/images/PF/05PenaCarlos02.jpg

http://www.posters.ws/images/842591/carlos_pena_2004_studio_plus_photofile.jpg

smdh

Paredes does not like second basemen.

http://www.baseballnation.com/2013/5/17/4342322/jimmy-paredes-houston-astros-collisions-right-field

So if they continue at this pace and finish with -360 DIFF, would that be some kind of record?

Some Historically Bad Team! They're already just ten wins short of the '62 Mets.

Worst run differentials via Yahoo Answers:

For a season:
1899 Cleveland Spiders 529 runs scored, 1252 runs allowed (-723)

Since 1900:
1932 Red Sox, 566 runs scored, 915 runs allowed (-349)

Recently:
2003 Tigers, 591 runs scored, 928 runs allowed (-337)

(Mets were -331)

alright alright. i might be wrong on this one, so sue me.

I guess what they really needed is to get out of the NL since that's where all the good teams are.

Really nice MLB debut by Jarred Cosart today.

What is an Oberholtzer?

it is bavarian dialect for 'former brave'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFeBp1PDKyg

boras client signing an early extension = brave new world

Altuve and Correa are off to some kind of start.

are the Astros the only team w/ a perpetual thread?

Love Jeff Bagwell's stories but boy everything is special and the franchise is special and this player is special and that player is special and AJ is special and there is no commentary on the actual game and McCullers has been fantastic.

Let's check in with our old buddy Ken Giles! pic.twitter.com/wNWDNmIZE3

— Joe Giglio (@JoeGiglioSports) May 2, 2018

lollll

Astros are already running six games behind their Pythagorean record: 34-11 on paper, 28-17 when they actually play the games. They've outscored their opponents 210-116, almost 2-1. They've only lost once by more than four runs; they've won 13 times by 4+, including wins of 10-0, 10-1, 11-0, 8-0, and 16-2. Yankees and Red Sox, meanwhile, are both a game or two better than their Pythagorean records.

James
Justin Verlander

Jeff Sullivan
Fun fact, building off of that:
Last year the Indians set the all-time record with 31.7 pitching WAR
This year the Astros are on pace for 37.8
They're on pace to beat the record by 19%
lol

Charlie Morton and Gerrit Cole are just on fire. Got to hope they don't peak early this year or catch the injury bug.

That Verlander/Cole combo has been vv unfair to other teams. Morton has been great. And Keuchel hasn’t been at Cy Young level but he’s been extremely good.

http://www.mlb.com/news/astros-rotation-could-rank-among-best-ever/c-277542622

Putting aside how laughably premature this is, you judge greatest-evers not by one season but a cluster of seasons. The Astros have one guy headed for the HOF, another guy who's won a Cy Young, and a Few Starters Having Good Seasons. You can't compare that to the core of the '90s Braves teams, the Orioles at the beginning of the '70s, the Indians of the early '50s, etc.

Throw in the Mets and A's of the early '70s, and also the Phillies for a couple of years after they brought Halladay over.

well if the boundaries of the conversation is which pitching staff was most dominant over the course of one season...

yes, and you're very seldom going to see a staff together as long as Maddux-Glavine-Smoltz cuz, uh, everything's different.

Even when looking at a single season, I'm still inclined to take a step back and look at the pitchers you're talking about. Maybe one day we'll view Cole and McCullers as career stars, but they're far from that now; Morton's a journeyman. That Phillies staff only peaked for one year, but you had Halladay, Lee, Hamels, and Oswalt all together in the same place.

Morton and Cole had good moments with the Pirates but they were also pretty inconsistent. This is way beyond what they did there. No way they can keep this up, but still that is a heck of a start and adding in Morton's playoff heroics on top, quite impressive.

As for Verlander, I think people are overplaying how good he is right now. Power pitchers seem to have a bit of bounce back later in their careers, many pitchers had them. I think part of it is that they re-gain their control which brings back the Ks and cuts down on the walks.

Verlander looked cooked 2-3 years ago.

looks like he's rebounded for real. his velocity has gotten back to where it used to be basically. that usually helps

The Astros have allowed 126 runs through 50 games, which are the fewest in the Major Leagues since 1920 (live ball era). The previous record of 128 was set by the Indians in 1968.

— Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) May 23, 2018

Kevin:
Are the Astros lack of luck unprecedented? Don’t think I’ve seen a team 7 games worse than their pythag this early in the season before.

Jay Jaffe:
I don’t have any historical data to support or refute that, but their 4-12 record in one-run games and the Mariners’ 18-9 record in same is the big reason why Seattle is a game ahead in the AL West despite a run differential that’s nearly 100 runs smaller (+118 to +21)

um, it's not "luck" when you have a shitty bullpen

huh, I guess their bullpen doesn't suck. retracted

Released 25 years ago today.

lol, wrong thread.

(aside from some sporadic sketchiness from Giles, the Astros bullpen is awesome fwiw... they have 2 legit starters stashed in there in case of emergency).

Keuchel has been poor to outright terrible for the last month+.

Fresno manager Rodney Linares, Fresno hitting coach Darryl Robinson, Buies Creek manager Morgan Ensberg and Corpus Christi developmental coach Mycal Jones aren't being retained by the Astros for 2019.

— Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) September 18, 2018

these teams all did very well this year and linares in particular seems to be a rising managerial star?

for an organization that's been so successful over the last few years, luhnow seems to can a lot of people -- think he's fired a bunch of scouts as well

your cheatin' Stros

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-astros-were-caught-doing-something/

How Many Kemps

Reddick with the #astros catch of the year pic.twitter.com/fAxRevByLI

— Houston Sports Talk Podcast (@HSTPodcast) May 10, 2019

It's early and this won't last and all of the qualifiers you choose to apply here, however, were one so inclined you could look at the best-ever wRC+ leaderboards and..

129 -- @astros, 2019
126 -- NYY, 1927
124 -- NYY, 1930 & 31
122 -- @astros, 2017
120 -- CIN, 1976 (+3 others)

— Mike Petriello (@mike_petriello) May 10, 2019

How stacked is this Astros team? If the top six Astros weren’t allowed to bat and instead of replacing them with minor leaguers, the team filled in the missing plate appearances with the remaining players’ 2019 lines, the team would project to score roughly 4.5 runs a game after accounting for park factors. With the team’s great pitching (3.53 runs per game allowed), their Pythagorean winning percentage would be .611. The hobbled Astros would have the fifth-best Pythagorean winning percentage in baseball. Want it in BaseRuns? That still works out to a .610 expected winning percentage, fourth-best in baseball.

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-astros-are-ludicrous/

it's Yordan Alvarez

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/26934612/astros-call-minor-league-hr-leader-alvarez

Houston's offense:

https://www.mlb.com/news/astros-have-historically-good-offense-in-2019

Most hitters with at least a 130 OPS+ in 250+ PA
1) 2019 Astros: 7
2-T) 1993 Tigers: 6
2-T) 1987 Tigers: 6
16 teams tied with 5, including 2019 Yankees

(The seven: Altuve, Brantley, Bregman, Gurriel, Springer, Correa, and Alvarez.)

team wRC+ is now 124, tied for second-best ever behind the '27 yankees

(Had no recollection of that '93 Tigers team as being especially noteworthy, and when you look at them, it's somewhat misleading in that they had a bunch of guys just clear the 130+ mark--two guys were at exactly 130+, and their leader was at 138+. The Astros, by contrast, have four guys in the 130-139 range, Springer at 148+, Bregman at 159+, and Alvarez at 174+ in half-a-season.)

Winning 11-0 after three tonight; they've outscored the Mariners and A's 32-1 over 12 innings.

two home runs for this year's AL rookie of the year!

alvarez the second player ever to reach houston’s top deck in right

i’ll buy you a beer if you can guess the first

Albert Pujols off Brad Lidge. I'll take a pilsner please.

that was in left

The only other player to do so prior to Alvarez was former Met Jeromy Burnitz back in 2000.

(yes i cheated)

dang Jeromy Burnitz hit 315 home runs.

i'm trying to imagine where that puts him on the alltime list. In the 60s or 70s?

lol, i should've known: 130th

No guarantee at all that they'll win everything--the best team on paper rarely does--but with that offense + Verlander/Cole/Greinke (Miley would be the #1 starter for more than a few teams), and Osuna (good enough), they look '70 Orioles/'75 Reds/'98 Yankees good right now.

Run diff:

The #Astros have had quite the spike in recent days 👀👀👀 pic.twitter.com/CCL1gD3IAk

— Daren Willman (@darenw) September 10, 2019

howbout the '54 Indians?

'84 Tigers and '86 Mets, for sure. I don't know...I'm probably contradicting myself, but to be included in this group, winning the Series seems important.