The Houston Astros of the American League West

Kosch
Astros have 63 hits the last 4 games...Can you do a post on the historicness (I made that word up) of their current wRC+ of 122?

Jeff Sullivan
Firstly, here's a post from July https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-astros-lineup-has-been-something-historic/

So the gap between the Astros and the next-best team -- after eliminating pitchers -- is 10 points. That's one of the larger gaps ever

By z-scores, the Astros are 2.8 standard deviations better than the mean

Only better lineup: the 1976 Reds, at +2.9 standard deviations

If the Astros can somehow lift their team wRC+ to 124 over the weekend, then they'd be the best ever, by this measure

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DMRmEH4W0AAM4Ld.jpg

from sports illustrated, 1966

i mean, you've read The Boys of Summer, right? A lot of strange stuff got said on the field, in the locker room and the press box, even after integration.

oh, i don't at all doubt that stuff was (and still is) said. more struck by the blithe reporting of it

AL MVP Jose Altuve nearing 5-year, 50-million extension (beginning 2020) with the Astroshttps://t.co/vY88Sx6c8u

— Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) March 16, 2018

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?