Why are the Astros 15-24?

The frustration of watching a team flounder which was expected to flourish has set in with the Houston Astros’s fans. This is not going to be a bash Carlos Gomez (though he has earned it) post. No, this is just a summary of the major failings of the team up to this point in the season.

Offensive Inconsistency – They have scored the 8th most runs/game in the American League, which is smack dab in the middle of the teams. The problem is that they tend to go through true hitting droughts as they have scored 3 runs or less in 17 of the 39 games to date and they are 2-15 in those games. The high flying Bosox have only ten times scored three runs or less in a game. It is hard to be consistent when you have to give so many ABs to players like Jason Castro, Luis Valbuena, Carlos Gomez, and Preston Tucker who are struggling to get to or stay above .200 and any ABs to Jake Marisnick and Eric Kratz, who have struggled with the .100 mark. Note Tucker is heading down and Kratz out as of this writing.

Very Bad Starting Pitching – Even after a spurt of decent starts on the recent homestand – the starters are still 14 out of 15 in ERA in the AL at 5.09. When you go from 2nd best ERA in 2015 to second worst in 2016, you have lost the solid foundation that the 2015 season was built upon. To date about 1/2 of the games have been started by a pitcher with a 4.65 ERA or higher. Last season 153 of the 162 games were started by pitchers with ERAs 4.50 or lower and 114 games were started by pitchers with ERAs under 4.00. Dallas Keuchel has a 5.58 ERA, a 2-5 record and four games where he has allowed 5 runs or more. Last year his ERA was never higher than 2.51 any time during the season, he did not lose his 5th game until July 26 and he gave up 5 or more runs in only 3 games all season!!

Unreliable Bullpen – The bullpen has been improving overall after a horrid home run filled start. However, it still is not solid with a one run lead and the game on the line. It seems like every time the team is ready to go on a little run, the bullpen coughs up a late inning lead. And it does not help when the fielders can’t catch a fly ball – see the note below.

Bad fundamentals – The team has been consistent in one area and that has been in the area of being a low baseball IQ team. Whether being thrown out or picked off, failing with situational hitting or bad fielding (e.g. Letting three flyballs / popups drop in the last two games in Boston) the team seems to have a bonehead play or two every game.

Questionable Management Decisions – It has been noted that A.J.Hinch has been making some questionable decisions with a short bench late in games, specifically with using a pinch hitter like White and then immediately pinch running for him. There have been problems with the lineup, with the use of certain players who are in a death spiral slump and with righty-lefty matchups that don’t make sense. In some cases it is hard to fault him, such as over-using Will Harris when he is the only sure thing out of the bullpen. The overall feeling is that Hinch is being out-managed, which exacerbates a tough situation.

Inadequate Coaching – Whether waving players into obvious outs, or not assuring that they have sun glasses on playing in sun-drenched Fenway Park or not being able to coach up hitters or pitchers – this year’s version of the coaching staff is a disaster.

The Front Office Stinks – What else can you say? They made no moves to improve the 1B, 3B, DH and C black holes in the lineup, other than bringing up Tyler White. They traded away the farm for a not ready for prime time set-up man (so far) in Ken Giles. The strong farm system they were developing has been weakened with trades and has obvious holes at OF and C. The tandem pitching system has been a double whammy that does not seem to develop starters with stamina or relief pitchers ready for the big time. Maybe the June draft will help them redeem themselves a bit, but don’t count on it.

OK – your turn to moan and complain, but one basic question – what should they do now?

 

 

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361 responses to “Why are the Astros 15-24?”

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  1. There is only one correct course of action for them to take. Make the right organizational moves to help the team, like the ones they made yesterday and today, and wait another month and see where the team is in the standings and then make the proper personnel moves over the following six weeks to prepare for 2017.
    Internally, as an owner, start checking out resumes for the position of GM Consult the baseball people you have surrounded yourself with on what kind of GM this team needs and how much money they will have to work with.
    If the 2016 teams ends up under .500, there will be zero chance of filling the stands next season if the organization keeps the same decision makers and coaching staff.

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    • DITTO! 2016 is the time to do what you can to eliminate all the dead weight, position your self for 2017. Get baseball people in FO!

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  2. One thing that I also blame on A.J. Hinch is that I was not seeing “consequences” being meted out for bonehead play. In fact it seemed like he was often making excuses for over-aggressive base running and hitting. I don’t mean calling the players out, but maybe sitting them down for a game. Of course, if he knew that the players were only doing what had been passed to them through the coaches – then not punishing them makes sense. Then he is to blame for not reining in his coaches or himself.

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  3. What can they do now? Not a lot of choices. The only thing I can think of is trade Gomez and cash to the Brewers for Alex Pressley. Maybe that will help clubhouse. I am not insinuating that Gomez is a bad guy in clubhouse. But maybe the other guys are affected because they feel bad for him for his poor performance and for the rancor he gets from fans. That can’t be fun for anybody on team. Alternatively, it would send a message to entire team that non-performance will not be tolerated. The players want to win. And it will probably make Gomez happy too. Second, the hitting philosophy from the top down needs to change. More emphasis on contact and have a better balance of contact and power in lineup. This is probably not as si ole as fire the hitting coach. Team construction is responsibility of the GM and his computer guys. If they are unable to change approach and keep using the same “process”, it will be difficult to spect different results. Third, some tweaking of pitching philosophy is also warranted. Need more variety in the looks and pitch sequencing of the starting rotation. LMJ may help that. I feel like other teams have used their computers to analyze our results and can predict what we are going to do in certain situations. Need more “outside the motherboard” thinking and input to make it harder to predict how we might pitch a certain hitter. Reduce the use of the shift. I am all on board for using it for some hitters with extreme tendencies such as Fielder or Ortiz. But using it on every single hitter Is excessive and might be distracting because players are focusing on where they are supposed to stand rather than fundamentals of fielding. It also creates a multitude of different fielding and throwing angles to master. Success also depends upon pitchers hitting their spot. And lastly, quit “marketing” players physical appearance. Does it really matter how tall, short they or their beard may be? I would rather see the recognition come from their skill. And lastly, since it’s Baseball, have a well prepared stress reduction plan in place.

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  4. On an unrelated note – former Astro Jimmy Paredes was picked up on waivers by the Blue Jays from the Orioles and Robbie Grossman opted out of a minor league contract with the Indians and is a free agent….

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    • I wonder why they waived him? He had a good year last year.

      Matt Dominguez is with the Blue Jays; not sure if he is with the MLB club right now or not, but he does have 7 ABs in the majors this season.

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      • On mlbtraderumors they pointed out Paredes was great the first half of 2015 and bad the second half. They also pointed out that the O’s were so uncertain about his fielding that at one point they had Steve Pearce (who had never played 2B) move over there instead of Paredes. This season he got hurt and basically replaced by better options.

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  5. I cannot understand bringing Kemp up. Springer needs to be placed in Center Field and a corner outfielder brought up. No, I do not have anybody in mind. I look at the minors and I have to shake my head… what happened to our outfield depth? Daz Cameron is the number five prospect in the system…really? He is in the Quad Cities outfield rotation or is he still in Florida?

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    • If you are looking at bringing up an OF from AAA or AA – it would have to be either Kemp at AAA (.298 BA / .410 OBP/ .815 OPS or Derek Fisher at AA (.248/.354/..858). I think they picked the guy who is closer to mlb ready, but he does not have corner OF power.
      If they were thinking outside the box they would bring up Alex Bregman and hand him an OF glove and tell him to learn LF on the fly.

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      • Dan, remember when we were youngsters, the centerfield position had the power… Willie Mays, Jimmy Wynn, Mickey Mantle…

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    • Daz is slashing .143/.221/.442 for the Quad Cities River Bandits. He has 0 HRs, 6 RBIs, 33 Ks and 8 BBs over 21 game. In other words, he is not on the fast track to anywhere right now.

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    • Little Brother Tucker, on the other hand, is slashing .328/.403/.851, with 10 EBHs [1 HR] and 17 RBI. He has struck out 28 times and walked 16. He is likely to at least see Lancaster before the end of the year.

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      • You beat me to the KTuck there Mr. Bill… was just about to post that. Also notice he has stolen 16 of 19 bases already which is enough to tell you he is just slightly faster than PTuck.

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    • Sarge, I have been a Tony Kemp fan for a long time. But I don’t like this move, at this time, under these circumstances. I think there is a major problem in the Astros MLB clubhouse, and I hate to see Tony [or Tyler White, for that matter] subjected to it as a first MLB experience. I assume that after the first day in Chicago, Tony will be relegated to the bench and to pinch run duties, because Hinch hates rookies. If he can handle that level of rejection, he’ll get a chance occasionally in left field in a Sunday get-a-way game, with Rasmus [also a lefty] moving to CF. He will probably also be given some chances to pinch run. As soon as Luhnow can pick up some old, worn out guy like Grossman off the scrap heap, he’ll probably be back sent back to Fresno.

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      • Hinch did not look good in the after game interview – his eyes looked bad like he had a 3 week old baby at home and was getting minimal sleep. Maybe he will figure out he better like somebody new, because somebody old ain’t working.

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      • I am a little surprised that Tony got the call as opposed to Eury Perez. Tony has a lot more ‘sparkplug’ in him, but Eury has major league experience [73 games between 2012 through 2015], and that is all A.J. Hinch seems to value. Eury’s BA is .282 [just 16 points below Tony’s], but his OBP is abysmal at .291. That kind of OBP would fit the Astros historical standard a whole lot better than Tony’s .410.

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    • I’m not sure Kemp plays CF. Rasmus is a much better defender in CF. Kemp isn’t even really an OFer he has only recently been converted. There are questions surrounding his arm and instincts. My guess is when he is in the lineup, which won’t be as much as you think, it will be in LF.

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    • I cannot understand it, either. Why expose Kemp to this, especially when the team is in a funk and there are still four veteran outfielders on the team? This would have been the perfect time to bring up Eury Perez. He’s a veteran who has played well in AAA and could come up and try to help as a backup OF.
      Why start Kemp’s clock now, when you could wait a month longer and clear all the veterans out at the deadline and then bring him up and play him full time for the rest of the year? Perez is not the future, but he could help now and actually hang around and be a presence on the club for the rest of the year for the younger players.
      Instead, Kemp gets to join the team and see how Gomez is doing it. That’s a great mentoring job!

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      • I guess we will see whether Kemp in the next couple months:
        – Goes for face paint and an insanely long mullet
        – Grows a quasi-Mohawk
        – Starts swinging out of his shoes, can’t hit a fastball and calls other OFs off of fly balls that he doesn’t catch

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  6. Dan, Luhnow reminds me of the famous sexologist Dr. Ruth. She analyiized intellectually everything concerning sex. If you remember her she was a frumpy type that probably never experienced the act herself. It was left to the great George Carlin in one of his great performances to put her in perspective. He said: Have you ever seen anybody who wanted to F*** Dr. Ruth.

    I don’ t mind technology to analyze baseball, but it has to be balanced by some real baseball common sense. We are lacking common baseball sense from the front office, coaching staff and the players are adrift to give way to their worst instincts.

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  7. The Astros are 15 and 24 due to the fact that the club built by our GM has big holes in it. The same GM has no real ready talent in the upper minor league system to get help from right now. Third base is a problem. So is the outfield. The backstop position too. At least right now, first base remains a problem. And then there is the pitching. One year ago today, the organization was much better off, even with the holes we had then. We had more AAA and AA talent. There was a real sense of cohesiveness on the 25 man roster. Our GM has made all of the moves. Yes indeed, he should get credit for his successes. But I don’t want a three or even a four tool GM. I want a five tool GM. I want a GM that can grow the minor league system, make smart trades for major league talent and put 25 intelligent baseball players on the roster to work with. That is not the case today. That’s why Hinch still gets a pass from me. Luhnow does not though. His effectiveness has peaked. I do not see any quick recovery at this point. It makes no sense to replace Hinch at this point. And canning Luhnow during the season will not solve our issues. We’ve got to tweak with guys like Kemp, who hopefully can give us a .350 OPS. He’s not the answer though. We’ve got to hope that the rotation is again led by Dallas Keuchel and that LMC provides a big boost. We’ve got to hope that Giles gets his former game back and anchors the pen. And we’ve got to hope that pretty much every guy on the roster, maybe with the exceptions or Altuve and Harris, can turn their own games up a notch or two. Tall order.

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    • Good stuff Dave, 5 years and we are regressing big time see ya Jeffy. We may have a good game now and then ,win a couple in a row, maybe even a series, but overall this organization is in deep deep dodo

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    • The only argument I would make is that while canning Luhnow doesn’t make you better, it stops him from making you worse.

      I heard he was considering an offer for Correa that includes a pair of 26 year old AA relievers, Texeira, and a brand new iMac with sabermetrics v2.0 installed already.

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      • Steven, I can’t argue your point. If Luhnow was to be gone tomorrow, I’d be pleased.

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  8. Not going to pile on Gomez here (especially the day after he took responsibility for his performance, and admitting you have a problem is Step One to recovery), so moving on…

    With Kemp up, that gives us Rasmus, Gomez, Springer, Kemp, and Marisnick. Do we NEED five OFs, especially considering Marwin can also play LF? Kemp’s best position is 2B, which we are set at for the next 10 years. I guess this makes Marisnick strictly a pinch runner/defensive replacement, which is probably the best use for him, but the limited at bats will basically end any chance he as of ever becoming serviceable with the bat. Is this prep for possibly cutting Gomez over the next month?

    With Tucker down finally and Gattis now being the back up C…who is the DH? Does Gattis play DH when Castro starts? What if Castro gets hurt in a game? Do we move Gattis over and sacrifice our DH for the rest of the game (as a lifelong NL fan, I’m not 100% sure how that works)?

    These questions pretty much sum up the reason why we are 15-24. Our roster is very poorly constructed, so if poor in-game substitutions occur, we REALLY feel the pinch then.

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      • Move Gattis to SS…he’d make so many errors, every pitcher’s ERA would drop a full point after a week.

        Seriously, though, that’s kind of scary.

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      • I don’t think he makes any errors because he doesn’t get close enough to anything to touch it and get charged with an error. Opponents batting averages raise .300 points though.

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    • Based on Hinch’s history, I suspect Gomez gets put in the DH role, Marisnick to center, Rasmus to left, and Springer to right. When Gonzales gets his ankle healed up, he takes 1B full-time [except get-a-way games] and White goes to the bench or to Fresno. No way Hinch lets either Kemp or White play regularly.

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      • To paraphrase the old Life cereal commercials to an extreme level…

        “Mikey freaking HATES it’

        In all seriousness…okay, move Gomez to DH and have Marisnick start in CF until Gonzalez is 100% ready, and if Marisnick bombs by that point, send him down and bring someone else up.

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      • Marisnick has no business on any major league roster until the days comes when he hits.

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  9. Sorry, I know we’re not bashing Gomez today, but he needs to sit for at least a week. If that doesn’t straighten out his head then he needs to be released.

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  12. It’s in the pitching. The offense was strike out prone, streaky, and inconsistent last year. Being 2-15 when you score 3 or less runs is a damnation of the pitching staff, which won some 3-2 and 2-1 games last year, but this year that’s 6-1 or 6-2.

    The manager is the same as last year. He is putting the same guys in the same spots but they are failing this year when they succeeded last year. Two things have to change if we are going to claw back into this – the pitchers have to start giving more 7 inning/2 run jobs, less 5 inning/4 jobs for one. Our version of what I assumed would be the big 3 – Keuchel, McHugh, and McCullers, need to grab this staff by the horn and go out and lead by example. They need to start giving quality starts and putting the ball in the hands of relievers with fewer outs needed – which will make the bullpen look a lot better.

    The second idea for me is mostly conjecture, but I would say stop developing your pitchers in a mold. Not to get into politics, but to get into politics – It kind of reminds me the way the Federal Government makes cookie cutter rules like the Affordable Care Act and say here, this will work for EVERYONE, and while it works for some, it doesn’t really work for everyone. Their philosophy to developing pitching seems to be something like a computer says no one under the age of 21 should throw more than 80 pitches in a game, so we are going tandem. And the computer says that hitters at this level hit .240 on pitches in the upper part of the zone and .250 in the lower, so all pitchers need to adjust their style to match that. They completely forget that each pitcher is an individual, and he has certain things that make him good at what he does, that got him there, and they should be honing in on that particular skill.

    To add a third, I would stop Luhnow from trading, EVER. He has gotten fleeced at every corner. Conger for a catcher that was actually better than Conger, and we had to throw in a not to bad pitcher to boot. Gomez? Really? Him failing a physical for New York wasn’t a sign? The worst is the VV trade, if VV was 6-2 here we would be within striking distance and have better overall attitudes about the state of affairs instead of watching Giles (who IMO is a victim of the computer saying pitch up) blow games.

    This team needs to figure out how to move on from Fister, Feldman, Gomez and Val-no-bueno contracts. They need to bring up Reed, play White some at 3B with Moran, put Kemp in LF, move Rasmus to CF and commit yourselves back to the original plan. If I could move Rasmus too I would but I don’t know how many teams want a .230 guy with a 30%+ K rate for 16 mil, but maybe by June an injury happens to makes him bearable, plus he is so much better than any other option that he might be worth keeping.

    End rant.

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    • Conger is batting .186 for TB, too. Who did we get when we traded him to them?

      Rasmus is streaky, but at least he’s been drawing walks even when he isn’t hitting.

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    • Many times I agree with your rants, but I think you’re way off here. Moran and Reed are not ready and Reed is still on the DL. I would see where they are at the deadline and, if it’s clear we’re not getting back in the race, then sell off the veterans who won’t be here past 2017 (Rasmus, Gregerson, Neshek, Feldman, Fister, Castro, VB and Gomez). At that point I would look to bring up Reed, Moran and Musgrove.

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      • Well way off maybe harsh, lets go with a little off.

        Ready is open to interpretation. Will they immediately outperform the people they replace? I think so. News from the minors is something you really have to go look for so I leave that to Bill and Pro to tell us. I knew he was on the DL but I don’t know for what. Point is, they outperform Valbuena and the DH role as we get it now even if they don’t perform as well as they would with another year in the cooker, and the goal is to get better. I would let them both in the door now and let them continue to grow as major leaguers.

        I’m all for selling off those veterans, I understand why the team will wait until the deadline – because that’s when most interest will be there – it just sucks as a fan that we have to continue to watch these guys through another half season of baseball – I’m not getting any younger.

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      • From today going forward I don’t think Moran out-performs VB. VB is showing signs of life and it’s likely Moran will have that adjustment period going from AAA to the majors. I wouldn’t even consider Moran for VB right now until he shows more consistency in AAA and gets that still very high K rate down.

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      • I don’t understand what signs of life are. This guys major league batting averages, in order, since 2008 – .245, .250, .193, .209, .219, .218, .249, .224, and .208. He has a lifetime batting average of .227. What is he coming around too, .210? Really? I was fine with .224 and 25 HR last year at that price, but he is at 6.1 mil now and coming around to .210. If this was a 24 year old in his second year, got it, adjustments, coming around. We know what this guy is. He has been showing it for 7 years. If I can get a bowl of pork in beans in a trade to get someone to take his salary, he would be gone.

        Colin Moran’s career LOW in the minors is .288 outside his rookie ball year – which was a short season. If you think he won’t hit better then .208, or whatever VB gives, I would have to disagree. Will he hit .288 in the majors? Probably not right away. Will he be better if he stews another year in the minors at least, yea. I’m not even sure he will be a major league caliber third baseman, but he looks like a better option than Val-no-bueno. I’m not even sure what strikeouts you are talking about, are you really quoting a 23% in short sample this year, the only year he has been above 19%, as your source for “he is striking out too much?” I would rather have Moran hitting .260-.270 with a 21-23% K rate than VB hit .210 with the same K rate.

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      • Steven,

        You’re a fairly smart individual and I’m sure your familiar with the term “progression to the mean” or “regression to the mean”. Projections is the closest we have to see where VB will finish the year. ZIPS projects VB to hit .233 with a .326 OBP and .411 slugging. Steamer projects .230 batting avg with a .323 OBP and .402 slugging. Currently, he is hitting .208 with a .306 OBP and .340 slugging. Thus, it is a fairly good assumption that he will improve in all these categories. In addition, they project his K% to be 21.6-21.8%. Currently, he is at 24.2%, so for the rest of the season he is projected to have a K% slightly below 20%.

        If Moran has a 23.5% K% in AAA it is fairly safe to assume this is going to increase in the major leagues, probably somewhere in the high 20s. He’s not ready and I don’t want to miss out on VB’s improved stats going forward because, all indications are, he will out-perform Moran for the rest of this season.

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      • I would also like to point out that Moran has an unsustainable BABIP of .359 in AAA and a BB% of 6.6%, which will probably decrease in the major leagues. VB has a BABIP at .270 and his BB% is right at 12%, which is near his career average. He also provides much better defense than Moran at 3B.

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      • From May 2nd to today VB is hitting .239 with a .327 OBP, .457 slugging, K% of 18.2% and BB% of 10.9%. His wOBA is .340 and his wRC+ is 116 along with an ISO of .217. These are very respectable numbers and close to what we can expect going forward. Other than possibly having a higher batting average I don’t see Moran coming close to matching these numbers and we know his defense will be worse. I can’t stress enough that bringing up Moran for VB at this time would be a mistake.

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      • We will just have to disagree that you will see .239 going forward, especially since he has a .227 lifetime average. When did .239 become good? As for his BABIP, he has been a forever bad BABIP guy, BABIP isn’t always luck and it doesn’t always regress/progress back to league norm, sometimes it indicates that a guy is just not good at squaring up pitches, and VB is not. Again, Moran has never been above 19% in the minors in his K rate, and you think his BABIP is near unsustainable when he is a guy that has proven he can be a high BABIP guy – again never below .323 (and .365 last year in 400+ PA).

        I’m not saying Moran is a future allstar, or that he is an answer long term, unless his power comes later – but he IS better than VB. He squares the ball up better. VB’s defense is good but that isn’t enough to overcome his horrendous hitting. I know he has been better lately, but they are all major leaguers because they are capable of short spurts. Carter can be the best run producer in baseball in any given week. It’s not about a week, it’s about 6 months of it. VB has had 7 years to show us what he is, we know.

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  13. I went to TCB and couldn’t stand the amount of positivity towards the roster moves. I come here and you are all convinced Hinch is trying to end the careers of youngsters while MLB are purposely trying to lose games?

    Here’s the deal:
    1. SEA just got swept by ANA. Division is anyone’s game.
    2. Kemp is a high character guy (not to be confused with the high characters we’ve seen). He will not be corrupted by what you perceive to be a toxic environment. He has unbound enthusiasm and (reportedly) one of the best work ethics you will find. It’s a shame he played at Vandy or I would really say nice things about him.
    3. Correa got cold but is showing signs that an eruption is coming
    4. Altuve is still amazing
    5. Springer is erupting
    6. Gomez is pressing. He will get better…probably not 2013 level, but we don’t need him to be that good.
    7. The team fought back from big, early deficits. Am I the only one who saw that?!?!? That would never have happened in the Mills or Porter years. They did not give up.
    8. The bullpen got shellacked and needs some rest to regroup. Dan, how much better than the league is the Red Sox offense again?

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    • Until Keuchel is Keuchel, McHugh is McHugh, McCullers is pitching well – none of it matters. Unless Correa, Springer and Altuve have a plan to average 10 runs a game, they are going to find it difficult to put together a win streak.

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      • That leads to the 15 million dollar question…what do you think is causing Dallas’s bad start? I haven’t seen any games he’s pitched yet so far this year, so I haven’t noticed anything different myself. Does it look mechanical?

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      • Exactly. And here’s hoping they can get there. That is why so many scouts are in love with “stuff”. When league adjusts to the velocity, pitcher can adjust with more finesse. A pitcher that relies on finesse cannot usually add a few miles per hour.

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      • I agree – the pitching will have to improve to give us a shot.

        Keuchel’s control and command isn’t there. He is taking a little off his fastball – either to help himself locate or perhaps due to fatigue or another undisclosed factor.

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  14. This team lacks toughness, especially the manager. For lack of a better term Hinch is a ‘Nancy’, no offense to our resident Nance. I watch Banister and the Rangers mix it up with the Blue Jays and every time there is an altercation involving the Rangers Jeff Banister is right in the middle fighting for his players. Our manager issues a public apology to the opposing manager when one of our guys throws inside to A-Rod. Our players get thrown at and we never retaliate. Our manager is weak and it trickles down to the players. The opposition has no respect for us and we have no fight in our team. The Rangers may be hated by many, but they’re tough and will run through a wall for their manager. Hinch is a nice guy, but not a good manager and I strongly believe if Jeff Banister managed the Astros we’d have a much better record.

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      • It stinks, but they’re better than us in every conceivable way. Better owner, GM, manager, coaches, players and farm system. They’re going to be our daddies for several more years and I hate it.

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  15. WOW……soo much to chew on here today. Pardon me while I try to digest the posts from firing the manager…to firing the GM (I agree with this one) to dumping most of the starting rotation. I gotta stew on this for a while. DAAAANG.

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    • I may be in the minority, but I don’t think Hinch is the problem, and like Devin said, I think with another manager we might not have even came back from the deficits. He’s made some poor decisions, true, but he can only work with what he’s got.

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      • I think it is an organization-wide problem, Billy. Hinch is only a part of it, but I think he has to shoulder a portion of the responsibility because ultimately it is his job to [a] bring out the best in the players he is given; [b] play the guys who are performing and sit the guys who are not. He has not done either of those things.

        Hinch seems like a guy who is loyal, to a fault, to certain players with whom he feels a strong attachment [Gattis, Valbuena, Carter, Conger, Marisnick, and Villar last year; Gattis, Valbuena, Gomez, Marisnick, & Kratz this year]. But it sure looks based on history [PTuck, Velasquez, Feliz, White] that he has a a ‘good-old boy club’ mentality that makes it very hard on first- and second-time call-ups to get any real chance. When he is told in no uncertain terms he has to play a rookie [Correa, McCullers] because the guy was a high draft pick, and the ‘money’ hope of the franchise’, he reluctantly does so. Anyone else, however, gets the life squeezed out of them under his ‘good-old boy club’ approach.

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  16. Oh by the way, Eric Kratz got DFA’D today. You remember who the Reds got from him? Yeah….that would be Dan Strait who is having a pretty dang good season so far……6 innings 0 runs yesterday.

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    • Actually, it was the Padres and they thought so highly of Straily that they DFA’d 2 days after getting him from us. Straily is not a good pitcher and he won’t be missed.

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      • He’s not a bad pitcher and you can argue we already miss him. If Stassi hadn’t been hurt in ST we aren’t having this conversation though. Luhnow panicked and traded instead of picking up someone equally as bad for nothing…although the 40 man implications still would have been there.

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      • I think Tim is right about Straily and I think I think Devin is right about Luhnow’s acquisition of Kratz being a panic move. I didn’t mind Luhnow getting rid of Straily, because we actually needed room on the 40-man for someone and he was the obvious guy to get rid of. I just think it should have been Heineman that should have been called up. Even if Heineman had been not very good, I certainly was right about Kratz. He was every bit as bad at the plate as Conger was behind it. Really, Really bad.

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      • Don’t know Tim. After looking over our pitching staff, there’s a slight possibility he may be missed. We traded Straily for a catcher that got about two hits in six weeks of baseball. Why couldn’t we have used Heineman?

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      • Kratz was not the answer. Getting rid of Straily was inevitable due to 40-man roster issues as mentioned by Devin and OP1. This is all I’m saying. I doubt we could’ve gotten anything of value for Dan Straily.

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      • I had forgotten, but we already had Alfredo Gonzalez on the 40 man roster. Yes, he is a project, but Kratz was overmatched and ineffective.

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      • Kratz is and was awful, but Straily was either getting released or traded. So, trading him for Kratz shouldn’t really be a consideration because he was gone either way.

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  18. Does it all go back to not being able to identify pitchers that can be developed under our pitching philosophy? Are we choosing the wrong ones to keep or not developing them after we get them? Can the computer tell the difference between who to keep and who to get rid of? Look at ones acquired that didn’t cut it. Peacock, Owens, and Strailly come to mind. We were told they were good and look where they are now.

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    • Clemens, Alex White, Ely, Buchanan, David Martinez, Jose Cisneros, Luis Cruz, Mark Appel, Owens, Straily, Tropeano, Foltynewicz, Cosart, Oberholzer, Peacock, Vincent Velazquez, Thurman, Mengden, Hader Eshelman. Every one of those guys were pitchers that this organization invested in who won’t ever really pitch for us for any length of time. We were supposed to develop them and we didn’t. McCullers, Keuchel and Devenski are the only ones who have pitched for us. I don’t include McHugh because he wasn’t young and had already gone through other teams systems.
      Keuchel is the only sure thing because I have my doubts about Devenski as a starter and LMJ has only been with the club for two thirds of a season.

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      • Wow! That is a lot of pitching – 20. Wasn’t there also a guy with a name like Rasputin too? Sad…and Wojo and Peacock can probably be added to the list pretty soon. And should JA Happ be added to the list? Another question I have is “How many prospects obtained in the purge of ML players in order to tank for draft picks are still in organization?” Nobody from the Wandy trade I don’t think. Musgrove and Devenski came from the Happ/Lyons/Myers trades. Any others left? Quite frankly we were pretty much a last place team with those guys when we traded them so I’m not sure how much we really moved up the draft board. But I guess Mr. Crane saved some money and Uncle Jeff was able to re-invest that in Gomez, Valbuena, Fister, Feldman, Albers, and Crain (who never threw a pitch for us so that makes the Albers deal look good in comparison). Thinking about this makes me want to cry a pitcher instead of a river.

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  19. I’m curious to know what Nolan thinks of the tandem pitching. I wonder if he has voiced concern, or if he thinks it’s not that big of a deal….or what he thinks this team needs right now. Think he has anything to say about it?

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  20. Something nice tonight was CC’s 8-0 shutout of San Antonio. Bregman had another huge night at the plate including his 8th home run. Brian Holmes threw 5 shutout innings but threw a ton of pitches.
    Lancaster has 19 runs and 23 hits through six innings tonight, but the six innings of shutout pitching by Rogelio Armenderos was really, really special. 4 hits, no walks and 9 Ks! Only went six innings but had a game score of 73. Still 19-0 in the middle of the 8th.

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    • The other news on that game were Vasquez and Hyde collision. I hope they both will be ok…..they really tangled up out there. Hyde was able to walk off with help, but Vasquez was taken off on a stretcher.

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    • See my rant above to Steven. Moran should not be brought up to Houston at this time. He’s not ready, but he’s getting there.

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      • Tim, when you step up and give opinions, sometimes you have to eat crow. I have grilled a ton of crows in the last two years. But, let’s keep trying, because I still think we have as good of a chance to be right as Luhnow does.

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      • It makes enough sense. If Moran does not get it done over the next couple of months, then we’ll see Bregman.

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    • There is a logjam there already. The 40 man roster is the real hurdle for both Moran and Bregman. I do think Moran is closer – there just isn’t much dropoff in his game as the competition increases, but Bergman’s 9 k in 100+ AB makes me a bit more excited about him.

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      • I don’t think there is that much of a difference between AA and AAA. The stats seem to bear out that Bregman is further along than Moran as far as being major league ready. I like Moran, but his numbers so far this year don’t translate well to the major leagues. He is improving and that is a good sign, but he needs more time to continue to show this improvement will continue.

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      • I think they don’t want to interrupt Bregman. I don’t think it’s desperation because I don’t think they are very high on Moran, and I am not either. I don’t even think they are sure Bregman ends up at 3B.

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  22. Moran has to be added to the 40-man after the season. Bregman does not. I’m just sayin’. I think Moran comes up in September. If Valbuena gets traded, he might be up before September.

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  23. To show you how clubs protect their players, the Fresno Grizzlies’ post game write up would not even mention who dropped the fly ball in LF with two outs and the bases loaded in the bottom of the sixth inning last night.
    Hauschild appeared to have kept his shutout when he coaxed the hitter to fly out to LF, but Jon Kemmer dropped the ball, all three runs scored and that was it for the Grizzlies, who only got three hits on the night. Final was 4-1.

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    • Well I am so glad to see that we have trained our OFs in the minors to approach fly balls just like the guys do at the big level. And with the same result.

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  24. With Tucker not arriving yet, Reed on the DL, Moran being held out of the lineup and Kemp on his way to join the Astros, that lineup for Fresno last night was brutal. The box score was a revelation as to why the top Astros farm team is way below .500 for the year. Take a look at those batting averages.

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  26. Yep, that explains why he wasn’t in the lineup last night. If he’s been called up, somebody is going to have to go from the 40-man and the 25 man.

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  28. Moran (UNC) faced off against Rodon (NCSU) for two years of ACC play. I’m assuming Valbuena gets the start at third to confusedly wave the bat around tonight though.

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      • Should be interesting. I wonder if Kemp and Moran have faced Rodon a number of times in college. Hinch might get Moran into that lineup tonight because he saw Moran hit lefties real well in spring training.

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  29. Have they reported who is getting sent down? If it’s Marisnick then Kemp will definitely be in the OF. I wonder if they’re going to DFA Gomez.

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  30. You would think it would have to be an OF and they could send Jake down easier than giving up on Gomez. But it would not be a surprise to see Gomez gone. If they swallowed most of his salary could they get anything for Gomez in a trade?

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  31. They could send Jake down but that does not solve the 40-man issue. Somebody would have to go from the 40-man.

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  32. Well this is interesting. Can’t wait to see how this plays out. Don’t see them just letting Gomez walk. But I can’t think of any other explanation.
    Can they put someone on the 40 man if they place Gonzo on the DL?

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    • No, Sandy, they would have to put Marwin on the 60-day DL to get him off the 40-man.
      They would have to release a person from the MLB team(Gomez?) or send someone down to the minors(Jake?) and release a player from the 40-man who is currently in the minors, such as Peacock or Chapman.

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  33. Wishing all the best to Kemp and Moran. But this smells like a panic move to appease the masses. Unrealistic expectations are hard to live up to and puts a lot of pressure on these young ‘uns. While I think they can certainly do as well as some others in the line up, I can’t help but fear this is a little early for both of them and may not be the best timing for their future development. I hope I am wrong and they hit the ground hitting and help give themselves and the team a huge and badly needed boost.

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  34. If they release someone from the 40 man (and it is not Gomez) guys like Aplin, Duffy, Fontana, Wojo, Chapman and Peacock – and maybe Alfredo Gonzalez would be high on the list.

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  35. Last night in the 8-0 win for Corpus Christi, Mott Hyde and Danry Vasquez collided on a popup to the outfield. Both players had to leave the game and the Hooks didn’t have a backup infielder available. Catcher Roberto Pena went to 2B and turned a 6-4-3 double play to end the game.
    Still have not heard anything on Vasquez, who left in an ambulance. From what I heard it was Hyde’s head hitting Vasquez’s leg after Hyde made a sensational catch on the popup. Hope it is nothing serious.

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  37. MLB Trade rumors says Marisnick was sent down, but I’ve not seen anything on it yet. That’s a shame that Freddie Gonzalez was fired. He had very little to work with, and he’s a good manager. Not at all the same problem here…..we have a VERY talented team, and non of us can figure out why they are under performing. I’m gonna watch how Moran and Kemp hit in the next few weeks. I don’t understand why guys get up here and all of a sudden they can’t hit.

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    • Becky, I read the article on MLBTR and I think the writer was talking about Marisnick’s demotion a few weeks ago and was not aware of the fact Jake was back with the club. If Jake had been sent down today, I think we would have seen a separate MLBTR article on him.
      Marisnick’s demotion still would not satisfy the 40-man situation either. I don’t think the Astros have made a corresponding move, yet. I think Luhnow is working the phones, trying to find a place to move a player to. If he isn’t successful at that, somebody will be DFA’d.

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  39. Off topic. Did anyone catch Brad Ausmus’ epic wroth rant? Took his shirt off, folded it and put it down. That’s leaving it all on the field.

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    • He covered the plate with his shirt, meaning that his hitters were getting robbed with pitches that weren’t strikes because the umpire could not find the plate and was calling strikes that weren’t strikes.

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  41. You look at your 40-man roster and decide who is #40. Moran added, Wojo exits. Wojo’s stats just not good. Walk rate up, K rate down, too many fly balls and too many pitchers that are going to need to start at AAA.

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  42. Remember that yesterday was an off day. Just like old times. A new catcher, a new infielder, a new outfielder.
    Now we get to face a first place team on the road. They have my attention.

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  44. You may never see me write these words again – but in defense of Gomez, they did go out to look at him when he seemed to have an awkward slide back into 2nd base on Sunday. Don’t know if that was it, but didn’t he have the same thing last season?

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  45. Gomez going on the DL may be a stroke of genius. Gets him out of the lineup and allows him to go on a rehab assignment on his return. IIRC rehabs can be for as many as 20 games. If he tears it up then the decision to bring him back will be easy. If he stinks on the rehab then just keep him buried there and see if someone will give us a crate of sunflower seeds for him.

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    • I was going to say this exact thing. He is out of options so he can’t be sent down when healthy, but he can go on a rehab assignment. This injury allows him a mental break and hey some ABs in the minors down the road. It could be the perfect recipe to get his confidence back or simply fish and cut bait with him. It is the best thing that could’ve happened.

      Also, didn’t he get drilled in the ribs with a pitch on Sunday? Maybe this is the impetus to his bruised ribs.

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    • Interesting article, Sandy – it makes sense he needs to set a new trigger to his swing, because he is late on almost every fastball thrown to him. Whether it is due to age or to injuries, no way of knowing. Someone called into the radio station and mentioned Derek Bell’s name. Bell was a valuable and at times very good player who simply hit the wall at 30 years old. Maybe that is Gomez, maybe not. He needs to find another way it seems like.

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  49. Let’s see how much we can screw these two guys up…..since White was gang busters when HE came up, only to see his batting average take a nose dive in just a few weeks. Something ain’t right in Tinsel town. I guess I’m saying, if your gonna make some fairly drastic moves…..why not keep going an replace the hitting coach and te base running coach. Heck, I’ll even throw Tim in there for consideration for the new hitting coach, and Old Pro can replace the pitching coach!! What ha think!!!

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