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Your turn: Astros off-season multiple choice

As a continuation of Dan’s vacation week, where I make you do the work – I am asking you to take an Astros-related multiple-choice quiz. Here we go.

  1. In 2024 Jose Abreu will:
    • Win the AL Comeback player of the year
    • Get traded at mid-season
    • Slog along like 2023 – hitting below his career numbers while still whacking in runs
    • Make the All Star team
  2. The Dusty Baker retirement was due:
    • To Dana Brown winning an internal team power struggle
    • To Dusty getting tired of being questioned by fans, bloggers and sportswriters
    • To Jim Crane realizing his team’s championship window was closing and his manager was pulling down on it
    • To all these factors
  3. The Astros in 2024 will:
    • Be better because they will have fewer injuries
    • Be better due to addition by subtraction in losing Baker and Maldonado
    • Be worse due to getting older at key positions
    • Be worse because budget considerations will hamstring their GM
  4. The Astros’ starting rotation success in 2024 will depend the most on:
  5. The most important Astro in 2024 from a health standpoint due to lack of depth at the position is:
  6. Kyle Tucker is most likely to:
    • Hit 35 Home Runs
    • Steal 40 bases
    • Hit .300
    • Win the MVP
  7. I expect regression in 2024 from:
  8. The player who will improve the most in 2024 will be:
    • Lance McCullers
    • Yainer Diaz
    • Jose Abreu
    • Framber Valdez
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25 responses to “Your turn: Astros off-season multiple choice”

  1. 1. Jose Abreu will not win AL Comeback player of the year (Luis Garcia will); will not get traded; will not slog along; will not make the All Star team but will be better than last year.
    2. Dusty retired due to all the above plus the COVID jab negatively affected his brain.
    3. The 2024 Astros will be better because they will win the World Series.
    4. Starting rotation success will mostly depend on Javier and Framber dominating.
    5. Bregman will have the biggest drop off between himself and his backup (likely Grae Kessinger).
    6. KTuck is most likely to hit 35 HR instead of the other choices.
    7. I expect regression from Dubon since Jake Meyers will play more in CF.
    8. LMJ will improve the most because he will pitch at least one more game than last season.

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  2. #1. In 2024, Jose Abreu will: Be in the running for Comeback Player of the Year.
    #2. Dusty Baker’s retirement was due to D- All these factors.
    #3. The Astros will be better in 2024 because E: Their team, coaches and front office will be in sync and F: they will have a real spring training and no WBC.
    #4. The Astros rotation will return to dominance because of (B) Javier and Valdez.
    More later! Christmas decoration and 75th birthday celebration here. Lots of water under this guy’s bridge.

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  3. 1 – Abreu will be the same dude. I don’t really feel like looking at numbers but I know his pull rate dropped 10%, his o-swing rates went up, and I know my eyes saw a billion foul balls behind 1B. He has just slowed. He can still punish a mistake into the upper deck. He can still lock down and focus in critical spots. But he aint hitting .290+ again.

    2 – All of the above.

    3 – Better. They will be better in places as people get healthier, Yainer plays full time, Chas plays full time, Maldonado being gone. I don’t know that it’s time to get “worse” for most of them. Altuve might, only might, see a small step back at 34. The rest of the “old” guys aren’t that old, sans Verlander, who just needs to be the same guy as last year. Salary restraints are hurting the BP, but the other parts are coming back intact so that should be that. We will see what salary restraints do in 2025 and 2026, because that will decide if the train is leaving town for a decade.

    4 – It depends on all 4 of Javier and Framber returning closer to 2022 form and France and Brown taking a step up, and Urquidy being available.

    5 – They are all important. Alvarez the MOST of the all importants, because he is generational.

    6 – Of those choices – 35 HRs. He might hit .300 but he is prone to weeks long slumps that can drive his average down. Espada’s managing style will have a lot to do with if he can nab 40 bags. As for MVP, in a league with Judge, now Soto, Alvarez, even though it looks like it will lose Ohtani, thats a tough sell. If Aaron Judge (or heck, imagine Mike Trout) plays 150 games, it will take talents like Soto or Alvarez to compete with him.

    7 – None of the above. I really thought most of the players played closer to their floor then ceiling. You could see some regression from Diaz as he adjusts to full time duty but honestly I think once he is relaxed, not pressing, and gets comfortable he is going to develop into the best hitter on a team that isn’t named Alvarez.

    8 – Framber. It can’t be this bad can it?

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    • The one thing we don’t know about Jose Abreu is if the slower bat was all due to age or due to the back problems that he did not bring up until he was well into the season.

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      • I’m an empirical guy at heart. I know what my eyes saw, and the data supports it.

        The back could be an issue. I think the more likely issue at 36 was slowing of his eyes. After his DL stint he was basically the same hitter with a little more power.

        I hope everyone that is on the “it was just his back train” was right. The Astros would be better for it.

        Either way, he does still have the ability to focus up. He hits better with RISP than he does any other time. Time will tell.

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    • The only answer I’d quibble on is Tucker. It’s really up to him whether he wants to shoot for a .300 season, 35 HR, or 40 SB. I think his quest for HR last year cost him about 30 points on his batting average down the stretch, but what we saw early in the season was him taking pitches to LF for easy singles. Heck, if he does that he could aim for .300 and 40 SB.

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  4. 1. none of the above. I think we’ll see a bit more quality from Abreu, but he won’t play in as many games and he probably will not have the same RBI producing position in the line up. And that’s good on both accounts.

    2. To all of those factors to a degree, but I’m not sure if Brown won a power struggle. As it went, Crane decided to take a passive approach because he did not want to end up with Baker spewing more rhetoric than he already had. We know where the national media support would have gone. That passive approach might have cost us a World Series win.

    3. Can I go with all of the above on this one? But I must add that the Astros will be far better at the catcher position.

    4. Easy: Javier and Valdez. Whether or not it will happen remains to be seem.

    5. Bregman, but from strictly a health standpoint, Alvarez and Altuve tie.

    6. I’ll go 35 and 35 for Tucker. Too many other MVP possibilities out there though.

    7. I think I have to go with JP France. Unless he finds a K pitch, I think we’ve seen his best, but he sure is a gamer.

    8. Most improved for me will be Hunter Brown. I realize he was not a selection to choose from, but he already looks like a heck of a pitcher. I think it’s there.

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  5. 5. The answer is Yordan. There is nobody in the organization who replaces his bat in the middle of this order.
    6. Tucker is most likely to hit 35 HRs.
    7. I expect regression from JP France. Come on, man, prove me wrong!
    8. Most improved will be Jose Abreu.

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  6. A little Christmas blessing. Alex Verdugo, new Yankee, put up a 100 OPS+ for the Sox in 2023. On his career, he’s got a 105 OPS+. Our guy Chas put up a 130 in 2023 and is 117 for his career. Verdugo made 6.3 million in 2023. Chas got 752K. Hopefully he’ll still prove to be a bargain in 2024 at 3 plus million. He deserves every penny of it.

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    • You know, it’s contracts like this that tend to leave a bad taste in my mouth. Especially towards the flagship teams that spend like there are no tax constraints.

      This stuff causes the lower tier teams to throw up their hands and give up. A bad day for major league baseball compliments of the LA Dodgers.

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      • If I’m still around, it will be interesting to see what he can still do late in that contract. Is he a DH and a late inning reliever?

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      • I think this contract will make Ohtani even richer than Vlod Zelenski. TBH (and I know it’s not really sportsmanlike but it is what it is) it would bring a smile to my face if this 700 million only buys one or two years outta the guy before something tragic happens. Dodgers deserve it.
        But at least he’s out of the AL. That part is good…..

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  8. Good morning,

    Dan, I hope you’re having great vacation!

    Seems the deferred nature of a significant part of the Ohtani contract, as much as 20 to 30 million a year, will get the Dodgers off the hook from having to pay tax on a good portion of that 70 million per year.

    MLB wants big market teams to spend big money on big names (international big names are even better) and have their teams in the post season annually to keep the ratings up. MLB does not want another Arizona/Dallas World Series again anytime soon. The focus for MLB becomes less and less on competitive balance. I would not be surprised to see the Yankees announce a long term Soto deal well before the 2023 season even starts. And Yamamoto? I think he’ll go to the Dodger too.

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  9. In the span of a week, the Saudis paid Jon Rahm $500 million to leave the PGA tour and join the alternate tour, while the Dodgers gave $700 million to one player to come play for them for the final 10 years of his career.
    Will this make professional baseball or professional golf more popular with their fans across the world? Will it make them spend more money? Who knows.

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    • Baseball had a good 2023, at least as far as attendance went. I still think plenty of teams are talented enough to knock off loaded clubs like the Dodgers going forward. Plenty of us will be rooting for that to happen. And we’ll be rooting against MLB for encouraging 700 million dollar contracts too.

      Golf had a bad year. A bunch of guys decided to got paid just for showing up. Winning seems to have become secondary in the LIV camp. That game might just self destruct.

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      • As a golfer it frustrates me to see the money being thrown around to play in LIV. I won’t watch it. I tried once and thought it was about as boring as it could be. A lot of people think golf is boring to watch but I’m not one of them.
        As for baseball, I’m still an Astro fan as I will always be one. I hate to see us lose good players but unfortunately it has become all about the money. The question I ask is how much is enough? I guess we pretty much have our answer with the Ohtani deal and others. We are going to devolve into a society that has only has those who are wealthy and those who are not. It’s a pretty sad commentary on the state of society.
        The television revenues are what keeps these teams afloat. I’m so tired of seeing the same commercials over and over again because they seem to have massive amounts of money to throw out there. And you know who pays for it? Us, the consumers of the products who pay in much higher prices. Yes, State Farm, Progressive, and Geico, I’m looking at you as well as others.

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    • It’s yet another mind-boggling contract in the world of sports. We, the fans, don’t really know how Ohtani’s elbow was repaired, but it was apparently done by one of the Dodgers’ doctors. I’m skeptical. It could be interesting to see whether he throws more innings than LMJ in 2025. There are reportedly no opt-outs and a huge amount of the contract is deferred to allow the Dodgers to compete now. I’d like to know the actual numbers and what MLB thinks about it. Maybe the Dodgers know something about the luxury tax getting hiked soon or are anticipating a reworking of the rules, but paying money to players who aren’t even on your team can be a killer for a franchise.

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  10. Ohtani’s contract seems in insane.

    Mark Cuban paid 285M for the Mavs. 23 years later he sold it for 3.5B. He probably owes a big chunk of that increase in valuation to Dirk, who made this franchise a winner for almost 2 decades. The Dodgers may simply be putting future valuation on this line in addition to what this player will mean to immediate revenues in ticket sales, advertising, and jerseys.

    The Meyers in CF everyday statements from Brown are probably linked to a few different things – one – he is the best defensive option on the roster. Two – they are on the salary cap, and they have not crossed yet, thanks to the Verlander acquisition. Three – they are probably a better team if Dubon is free to be the true utility guy.

    Would you be happy with Meyers if he can hit .250 from the 9th hole, maybe push his BB/K ratio below 3:1, draw 40 walks, have league average OBP, and be a plus defender with a little power? Of course. Are we ready for the inevitable slump where he goes 3-40 in a two week period and we look up to find him batting .227 in July? Likely. To be honest this team might be better off going with Julks again in LF and putting McCormick in CF, but Julks has more team control in where he plays. As a fan, I can’t control anything but root for the kid. At 28 he should be in his best physically, it’s just the mental battle, confidence, and how he handles struggle.

    And he could take a lesson from Frenchy – Dubon came to camp 13 lbs heavier. That size put about 1.5MPH average more on his exit velocity. That EV led to harder hit balls that found gaps and improved his LD rate. That led to a hitting revival. Mauricio is not winning many awards, but a utility guy that can play all over the place, make contact and hit .270 with a little power, speed, etc., is a luxury. Not everyone can do that, or they all would. Maybe Meyers can find a little bit of it.

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    • Steven,

      Sure I’d take .250, or better yet a .325-.350 OBP from Jake. And one other reason Brown might be prepared to go with Jake initially is that he’s hoping someone in AAA distinguishes himself early in the season and ends up playing an active role in the outfield come summer.

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  11. Looking bat at Dubon’s stats his 2021 and 2022 years were trending downward. Then in 2023 he revives his stats significantly by improving his BA, SLG, OPB, and OPS. As mentioned he put on 13lbs and that I’m sure was a contributing factor. But there is the intangible of other factors. As Steven said, others (Jake) could get some of whatever Dubon was doing. I hope he continues his improvement.

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