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ChipalattAwards for September

For the OCD/ anal of heart – these are the awards for September plus one day in October. So, sue me.

It is not a surprise to those fans who lived through the Astros’ bipolar ending to the season that they went 13-14 in the last month plus one day of the season. The individual players were similarly a bit up and down, as you will see in the charts below. But we are here to mostly honor those who did well.

Here is a quick stat chart of the Astros’ pitchers in the month of September(ish).

Name Gm W L Svs IP ERA WHIP HR Ks/9 IP BAA OBPA OPSA BAbip IR/ IS
Framber Valdez 5 3 2 0 30.1 3.86 1.290 3 1.2 .225 .318 .697 .297 N/A
Justin Verlander 6 3 2 0 39 3.69 1.026 7 7.8 .223 .256 .675 .241 N/A
Cristian Javier 6 1 3 0 30.2 4.11 1.076 4 11.7 .198 .266 .618 .261 N/A
Hunter Brown 6 1 4 0 22.2 8.74 1.544 8 10.3 .253 .354 .913 .269 0/0
J.P. France 4 1 1 0 20.1 5.75 1.721 4 6.6 .286 .380 .861 .300 N/A
Jose Urquidy 5 1 0 0 16.1 5.51 1.163 4 5 .200 .294 .761 .170 0/0
Ryan Pressly 8 1 1 2 8.1 5.40 1.680 1 11.9 .242 .350 .714 .318 2/0
Hector Neris 12 0 1 0 12.1 0.73 0.892 0 10.2 .143 .229 .396 .207 6/0
Bryan Abreu 11 0 0 1 11 0.00 .636 0 11.5 .114 .180 .322 .182 2/1
Rafael Montero 12 1 0 0 10.2 4.22 1.781 1 10.1 .326 .380 .837 .424 6/3
Phil Maton 13 1 0 0 11.2 0.77 0.943 1 10.0 .195 .255 .572 .241 4/7
Ryne Stanek 5 0 0 0 4.0 4.50 0.750 2 6.8 .200 .200 .800 .100 0/0
Kendall Graveman 9 1 0 0 7.1 2.45 2.046 1 8.6 .345 .441 .958 .429 0/0
Bennett Sousa 5 0 0 0 6.1 0.00 0.158 0 11.4 .050 .050 .100 .083 5/0
Parker Mushinski 2 0 0 0 1.1 13.50 2.250 1 6.8 .429 .500 1.500 .400 0/0
Joel Kuhnel 5 0 0 0 7.2 1.17 0.913 1 2.3 .192 .276 .584 .174 0/1

Note – I added the IR (Inherited runners) / IS (Inherited runners who scored) stat for the relievers.

Starting Pitcher of the Month – Justin Verlander – Just a little ahead of Framber as he threw the most innings, and had the best ERA and WHIP among the starters.  

Runner-up – Framber Valdez – Just a small step behind JV as he had one less start down the steretch and just a tad higher in ERA and slash against (BA/OBP/OPS)

Last Month – Same as September – Justin Verlander – Starting Pitcher of the Month / Framber Valdez – Runner-up

Relief Pitcher of the Month – Bryan Abreu / Hector Neris – Abreu of course had a 0.00 ERA and most of his stats were a tad better than Neris’ – but Neris gets the tie for coming in twice with the bases loaded and not allowing a run, while Abreu let one of his two inherited runners to score. Both were nails this month.

Runner-up.   Phil Maton – After floundering a bit the last few months, Maton came back when the Astros really needed help and had an excellent month across the board.

Last Month – Bryan Abreu – Relief Pitcher of the Month / Ryne Stanek – Runner-up

Here is a quick stat chart of the Astros’ position players in the month of September(ish).

Name ABs Runs Dbls HRs RBIs BBs Ks BA OBP OPS BAbip
Martin Maldonado 58 6 2 4 8 5 23 .207 .270 .718 .258
Jose Abreu 97 16 6 7 28 8 23 .237 .299 .835 .235
Jose Altuve 109 19 5 7 17 7 21 .306 .364 .911 .325
Jeremy Pena 104 14 6 0 5 6 21 .289 .327 .674 .361
Alex Bregman 103 17 5 3 8 16 8 .243 .353 .751 .237
Chas McCormick 79 8 3 3 10 6 19 .241 .310 .703 .281
Kyle Tucker 94 18 7 3 15 13 19 .245 .336 .858 .270
Yordan Alvarez 92 16 6 8 20 19 18 .294 .441 1.060 .284
Yainer Diaz 51 10 4 4 11 1 18 .294 .333 .941 .379
Mauricio Dubon 66 11 3 3 9 3 12 .303 .333 .849 .333
Jake Meyers 17 2 0 1 1 0 3 .177 .177 .529 .154
Jon Singleton 11 0 0 0 1 0 2 .182 .167 .349 .200
Michael Brantley 46 6 1 2 5 2 1 .283 .306 .741 .250

Positional Player of the Month – (Tie) Jose Altuve / Yordan Alvarez – Yordan won the MLB Player of the month and an argument can be made to give him this honor alone. But Altuve is so critical to the offense and was excellent without missing time. They both were coming on at the same time, which hopefully bodes well for the playoffs.

Runner-up – Jose Abreu – He only hit .237 BA for the month, but that 28 RBIs cannot be ignored. He had a lot of critical runs knocked in, including the ones that won the first two games in Arizona at the end of the season.

Last Month – Jose Altuve – Positional Player of the Month / Alex Bregman/ Kyle Tucker tied for Runner-up.

Special Recognition – Mauricio Dubon – Even with reduced playing time, his .303 BA/ .333 OBP/ 849 OPS slash was strong, and he had a big hand in the few games the Astros did take from the Royals and A’s.

Biggest Surprise (Positive) – Bennett Sousa – 5 appearances and 6.1 innings of scoreless pitching for the late season call-up, who is not eligible for the playoff roster.  

Runner-up  – Joel Kuhnel – like Sousa, is not being used in high-leverage situations but gave the team good performances in limited usage this month.

Last Month – Biggest Surprise (Positive) was Rafael Montero / Michael Brantley was Runner-up.

Biggest Disappointment – Hunter Brown – Almost giving up a run an inning while giving up 8 HRs in only 22.2 innings equaled a real crash and burn for the young man. Is this tied to him pitching more innings than ever before?

Runner-up – Ryan Pressly – Is he pitching through something? His ERA in the last three months has been – 4.15 in July, 4.15 in August, and 5.40 in September. Can he channel the guy who pitched scoreless for the whole playoffs in 2022, or will Bryan Abreu pitch more and more impactful innings?

Last Month – Biggest Disappointment was Jose Abreu / Cristian Javier was Runner-up.

Some Comments on September

  • One of the weird stories continues to be Jeremy Pena. He had a nice .289 BA in September. But he has gone 73 games, more than 300 plate appearances and 77 hits without a home run. This is a hitter who had 10 home runs in his first 77 games this season and 22 HRs in 136 games last season. What’s going on? After seeing him interviewed in the locker room during Sunday’s celebration, he certainly was displaying plenty of his gun show. It is just strange.
  • I wonder what is the most RBIs produced with the worst batting average in a month? Jose Abreu bringing home 28 runners with a .237 BA is beyond bizarre. Usually when a player gets 25+ RBIs, it is in a month where they are hitting well above the .300 BA mark.
  • As much as I love what Yainer Diaz brings offensively, he has to work on a plate approach that brought him 1 walk and 18 Ks in only 51 ABs.
  • Maybe it is because he sat out some games this month, and maybe it is because he was pitched around so often, but Yordan Alvarez had the quietest AL Player of the Month in September of any Astro I can recall.
  • Alex Bregman, with 16 walks and 8 Ks in a month where he only hit .243, is just odd. He always has been very tough to K and good at taking walks, but should he be swinging a bit more, or should he be popping up less?
  • Hunter Brown and J.P. France are entering the playoffs after a poor September. I would add Jose Urquidy to the list, but his season-saving last start showed that maybe he is entering the playoffs on the up-swing.
  • How the heck does Kendall Graveman get a 2.45 ERA while allowing an ungodly 2.046 WHIP for the month? Well, it helps when Neris comes in with the bases loaded and saves your butt and your ERA.

As usual, it is your turn to comment. Any awards you disagree with? Any new ones you want to award?

 

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22 responses to “ChipalattAwards for September”

  1. I think the lineup is set for the playoffs. Yainer will not be a part of it. Going into next season I expect him to start 110 games behind the plate, but maybe the Astros bring in a more experienced backup and we see 90-100 behind the plate and another 20 or so at DH.

    His approach is a part of the package. He hit .321 in the minors using it, but those guys were more prone to mistakes. The book is out there on him, you saw it in his last start as he flailed at 3 pitches out of the zone with the bases juiced. It’s why he won’t hit .321 in the majors (yet). You can never make the definitive statement that he WILL get better, but I feel better about him improving than I do say a Corey Julks or Jake Meyers. Bat to ball can’t be underestimated. He can barrel a ball better than most guys.

    He is better at getting the barrel of the bat to the spot he wants with violence than Bregman, Pena, McCormick, most guys. He is probably on par in that skillset with Tucker and Altuve. Of course he is behind Alvarez in that, but that’s why Yordan is Yordan, there are only 3 or 4 hitters in all of baseball like Yordan. Diaz just can’t handle prepitch and or read a pitch on par with most of those guys yet. Yet. I think he has superstar written on him, but there is no doubt he needs to learn to spend some time in a film room learning what guys are going to try to do with him and how he can alter his approach to that. Altuve had to learn that on the fly, he wasn’t going to learn it from Colby Rasmus, but Diaz is surrounded by guys who have sound approaches – he can learn as much by watching how they prepare – and I for one can’t wait to look back on his first 5 years and see the growth.

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  2. Dan, I agree with your awards, but I have Framber at 36 Ks in 30.1 innings for a 10.6 K/9 rate.

    Hunter pitched the last inning of the last game and did well. I think he will be used as a reliever in the postseason.

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    • You are right about Framber’s K’s – Astro Nut – I will discipline my paid assistant who researches and types in all the data. (Picture Dan beating himself up like he is starring in the movie Fight Club).

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  3. Your comment on Kendall Graveman is well noted. I just have never been impressed by him. Personally I’d rather have Ryne Stanek. Trade him to another team for next year because he ain’t worth $8MM. Give Bennett Sousa and Joel Kuhnel a shot at it.

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    • I agree on Graveman.  One can look at the 2.42 ERA and be impressed,  but that does not mean a whole lot for a pitcher, especially a reliever who also sports a 1.52 WHIP.  His career WHIP is 1.33.  He’s a hazard, unless some analytically inclined individual can convince me otherwise with a batch of secret stats that won’t confuse me.

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  4. .294/.333/.608/.941

    I have to stick up for Yainer.  That’s quite a line for any guy, any month.  He does it mostly as a DH, something he never had to do in the minors.  Never had a chance to get in a daily groove, and still put up great rookie stats.

    He’ll be resting this month, but he’s our secret weapon if Maldy goes down with any injury at any point.  He’s the best back up catcher in MLB that nobody knows anything about.

    Steven it’s funny that you mentioned him not hitting .321 (yet).  But for the record, he hit .324 as a catcher in 52 games this year with a .353 OBP, a .648 SLG and a 1.001 OPS.  Incredible stats.  I know, he’ll struggle at times going forward, but he’ll continue to get better at hitting lefties and he’ll get more selective as he matures.  We’re going to have so much fun watching Yainer as he transitions into a full time role.

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    • They are Dave. No doubt. I am not sure what causes the differences between say pinch hit or DH AB’s vice ABs when he is in the lineup. When I can’t find a reason that satisfies my desire to see everything on the stratus of empirical I tend to shrug it off. Maybe he gets up for games where he can focus on multiple aspects of it. Maybe he gets out of his own way inside his headspace if he has multiple things to worry about in between at bats then sit and wait for his next AB. Or maybe its just sample, and maybe next year he hits .262 as a catcher and .324 as a DH. The baseball stat book is littered with guys who have stretches where they hit .360 with RISP followed by a season or two where they .220 with RISP before going back to hitting .360 with RISP.

      I just shrug. I can only figure out what I can figure out.

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      • Even someone as good a hitter as a Yordan Alvarez hits better when playing LF than as a DH.
        This year it is .310 BA vs. .284 BA
        For his career it is .326 BA vs. .282 BA

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  5. That’s what makes Yordan a remarkable hitter.  He puts up numbers regardless of where you put him.

    If I had to give an opinion on why Diaz is not very successful as a DH, I think he’s always played baseball, the whole game, from the time he was a kid.  I don’t know how he joined the Indian organization at the age of 18 and never DH’ed once in his entire minor league career.  Maybe our soft spoken guy simply refused, something could not pull off once he got to the bigs.   

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    • I think when he started getting DH time he was pressing. He wanted to prove he belonged in the lineup knowing that when Yordan was healthy he would be returned to the bench. It kind of got to the “I need to do something with every pitch” mentality.

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  6. I’m going with Jose Abreu for player of the month. 28 RBIs in September with everything on the line? Over and over again this month I saw him pick up his teammates after they left the runners on base. He was awesome. The stat I saw over and over was him with the highest BA in the league with 2 outs and RISP.
    He got better and better on defense as he got more and more in tune with this team and his value was never so great as it was providing all the offense in the first two games of the Arizona series, when nobody else on the team hit anything.
    Without Abreu, the Astros would be outside looking in at the MLB playoffs. That is how close we came to not making it. He was the September hero on this team.

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    • Very true OP. The criticism towards him definitely died down some in August and September. There is an argument (and empirical evidence to support) that he is part of the reason we dropped 16 games in the standing from last year but especially in that final series we might be playing a WC round right now or even watching the Mariners play a WC round without him.

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  8. All four Wild Cards end in two games.

    The Phillies and their fans are going to give Atlanta a heck of a series.

    Arizona is a fun team to watch when they are playing well.  But I don’t think they are all that solid.

    One run in two games for the Jays.  Someone is getting fired.

    The Rangers bounced back once again.  They’ve got some fortitude.

    If the Astros can win at home, we’ll be playing for awhile.

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  9. Hunter should be used as only a reliever this playoff run.

    When I look at the splits per inning they are a little different than I thought. The 5th inning was his strongest inning this year (3.43 ERA), but it’s followed by the 1st, where he also records his highest K/9 by far. It should be of no surprise to anyone that watched him pitch this year that the 3rd inning is where he routinely gets whacked (7.85 ERA). First inning, .220 BAA, second, .257, third inning an ooooooooof .347.

    This is the same guy we saw last year, we just never saw him in those short 20 innings have to worry about a 3rd inning and the top of the order seeing him a second time. If you can get the same thing this year as last in the playoffs, if you know he can walk out there in the 5th and and mow down 3 hitters, and you don’t try to get a 6th because the 5th went well, that is a HUGE plus. The question is, how much is Baker actually paying attention to this, or does his 1975 brain say, oh, starting pitcher, I should be able to get 3?

    If you want a primary culprit to point out in the home/road crazy splits this year, without Brown going 4-9 with an over 6 ERA at home we probably play at least .500 ball at home.

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    • I see Brown as having the most value to the team as kind of a flex guy. The last couple postseasons we’ve seen teams run out of starts and basically go with bullpen days. Brown should be ready to come into a game in the 4th inning and should also be ready to pick up a start knowing they’re not letting him go more than 3-4 innings.

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      • I get the feeling. He was a starter. You have hopes that if Urquidy started game 4 and gave up 3 runs in the 2nd that with the faster hook you have as a manager in the playoffs that you can get Hunter out there and hope for 3 innings of keeping you in it.

        It’s just not what the analytics suggest. They tell us outs 1-3 he is good (.220 BAA). That outs 4-6 he is average (.257). And outs 7-9, he is atrocious (.347). Those splits don’t exist for France, he is remarkably consistent from outs 1-15. Brown has spent the year hitting the proverbial wall second time through.

        To me, France is that guy you described. Brown should just be looked at as a 1 inning shutdown guy the way you are going to use Abreu and Neris. It’s one more of those. Accentuate his strength, hide his weakness. That’s the manager’s job in the playoffs. And what you do, as a people person, you call him in the office, you say to him hey kid, I need you. I can’t bridge the gap from the starter to Pressly the way I could last year. I need you to go out there and give me the confidence that the 7th inning is on lockdown. Let it go at 99, because I’m not gonna ask 2 from you. We think you have the best stuff on this team, and to win we are going to need that available every night instead of 4 innings once. That’s how you handle his ego.

        If Baker trots him out there in a game 4 start, or puts him in a multi-inning situation, then like looking at Diaz, or Chas, or even just playing Maldy as much as he has regardless of the back up, that he is paying no attention to what analytics are telling him, and like they did in 1975 when he played he is managing with his “gut.” Now his gut has gained something, for sure, but I am not convinced that the gain is knowledge that is stetching that belt a little.

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    • Brown is a potential luxury for us in the pen. Steven, I’m with you. 3 outs. He’ll throw 99 like he did last year. I think he’s done starting for the year.

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  10. I have been a fan for all 61 years, but I never expected this version of the Astros to even make it into the playoffs, much less win (albeit on a technically) the West. I will consider anything this rag-tag group somehow accomplishes from here on out to merely be the cherry on top.

    We lost 4 of 6 to the Twins in the regular season, and we don’t match up well against them particularly well. Ah, but then again, based on 2023 performances, we wouldn’t match up well against the A’s, the Royals, or the M’s, either. The Twins are hot offensively and defensively, and have some un-hittable pitchers; our offense and defense were meh all year and virtually cratered at the end – and have ZERO unhittable pitchers.

    I bill this series as “Balboa vs. Creed, the Baseball Version”. One of these teams will think it’s a show; the other will think its a fight. Let’s shake hands already, and see which is going to play the part of Apollo and which is just gusty enough to play the role of Rocky. Who’s Feeling Strong Now?

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    • Mr. Bill, I have no idea what to expect from the Astros playing at Minute Maid. However having watched the teams in the Wild Card round, all are flawed in some way(s). The Astros are too, but I think they belong in the ALDS. And if they can turn a page and win at home, we’ll play for awhile.

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  11. Mr. Bill, a couple of things that might help you feel a bit more optimistic.

    I’d much rather have Justin Verlander than Joe Ryan (tentative) as my starter tomorrow night. Ryan’s ERA in his last 15 games is 5.84. Is he gassed? No Twins pitcher yet for game 2, but if we get the non freakout version of Framber, he’ll match up.

    As far as bats go on the season, we’ve got an offensive advantage at DH, RF, CF, LF, 3B and 2B. SS is pretty much a push. C is our black hole. 1B also goes to the Twins, but if Abreu continues his September into October, we’ll be happy.

    The pens are pretty darn evenly matched. The similarity of stats is striking.

    Defensively, Maldy needs to hold his own. We’re screwed at the plate, but it is what it is. Altuve needs to make the plays he gets to. And we can’t give up any unearned runs. Any.

    And this can’t be stressed to much. The Astros have to play winning baseball at home! We can’t give up that advantage.

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  12. Correction. Bailey Ober will start tomorrow night for the Twins. Had a great first half, not so great second half but it looks like his brief trip down to AAA in late August corrected whatever issues he had. He pitched well in September. He’s the 6’9″ guy.

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