Friday night, the Astros lost another fairly lethargic effort. Yes, they gave up six runs, but they might have used different pitchers (or not used Enyel De Los Santos) if the offense had more life in it. Peter Lambert had his zillionth solid start in a row that did not end up in a win – no wins since July 11!!
The Astros-Braves series feels a lot like the Astros-Rays series. One team is mediocre and the other is very good and the hill is too steep to climb.
The Rangers won again last night and are back in a tie with the Astros, which tilts the tiebreaker in the Astros’ favor.
But does it matter?
Is there any one of us that thinks if this team slinks in the backdoor of the playoffs with likely the worst record of any playoff team, ever, that it will do anything significant in those playoffs?
Chip sent me this link.
Astros GM opening comes with uncomfortable Bagwell question
It is beyond belief, really, that a team that, in a recent stretch, went to the ALCS seven straight times, went to four World Series, and held two championship parades has an undesirable general manager.
If this is true and certainly it seems to be, this is all on Owner Jim Crane. He has allowed a shadow group led by Jeff Bagwell (or maybe numbering only Jeff Bagwell) to look over the shoulders of the front office, likely over-ride decisions and definitely have the inside track to the owner’s ear.
At this point, the only reasonable thing to happen is to put Bagwell in the GM job and allow him to fail to show the owner this is not the way to run a ballclub.
The Astros are likely to fall short of the 2026 playoffs or if they do make it in, likely to be back at home very quickly. But the long-term running of the team seems to have hit a Jerry Jones-sized boulder at this point and may make the fans long for the days of Jeff Luhnow and the great Astros Renaissance.
23 responses to “Astros’ 2026: Where are they going? And does it matter?”
Since Crane is obviously not going to pay for a new Pena contract, I feel that he should be traded this off season. Do I feel that Crane and “Look at the back of his baseball card Bagwell”, are qualified to process a good trade? No! I would like a trade for players with analytics that predict a productive future.
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All true Larry…
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All true Larry…
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We’ve had this discussion on a smaller scale. The best candidates for a GM job will politely take a pass on the Astro opportunity and wait on a job that does not include a version of Bagwell hanging around.
And I’m guessing Bagwell is smart enough to know that he’s got a good thing going as it is. GM? He’ll get himself fired, but Dan, I’m getting old. We’d have to wait three of four more years.
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daveb – my comment about Bags was a little tongue in cheek – but would you rather have him for 3-4 yrs as GM screwing things up or screwing up for a decade in the ear of Crane?
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You know Dan, if I’m still around in ten years, I’m not sure if I’ll care much when I’m 81.
But seriously, the owner, the same guy that allowed this organization to become an almost decade long juggernaut has gone and screwed up everything he let get built. Bagwell is poison, but Crane is an historically successful businessman. We’ve got to give him the credit for building it. But we’ve got to recognize him for destroying it too. He’s listened to the wrong people. He’s made his own bad decisions. Our run is over. And I don’t think this owner knows how to reverse all the damage done. So I guess the short answer is that I really don’t care all that much, even now. This is our third year of mediocrity. The entire organization needs a rebuild, not just some tweaking. And I don’t think Jim Crane is the man to fix it.
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I’ve been longing for the days of “days of Jeff Luhnow and the great Astros Renaissance” for over three years already. I was never in on the Dana Brown thing.
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Welcome Ricky!
I was wondering who might feel like you do – those who never bought into Brown. Were you ok with Click due to his results (even if it was with Luhnow’s players)?
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Yes. Click was more or less an extension of Luhnow in the sense they relied on analytics and objectivity. Nothing wrong with the subjective eye test. Just seems that after Click, Crane abandoned that for more of the subjective part. Hence hiring Brown because of his scouting background and reputation for “spotting” talent. You need the proper mix of the two approaches of course. Probably both Luhnow and Click balanced all that better. Anyway, my impression was that Brown was too heavy on the subjective part. Maybe it was just that his bosses were. I have no idea. Plus, I would guess that both Luhnow and Click were probably better at roster buidling in the sense of allocating dollars in the proper ratios to maintain enough competitiveness. I.e., almost impossible to beleive they would have handed those contracts to Montero and Jose Abreu. Clearly that was laziness on the part of Crane and Bagwell.
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click should have been allowed to stay. Bagwell/crane were probably behind that move. Why is de los Santos still here. And we’re stuck with Imani till next year. I’m almost wishing for a lockout so we can retool, readjust, and come up with a decent plan for the future.
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Z – I think you may be right about Click – it is an odd deal to win the championship and immediately let your GM go – I know they offered him a one year contract but it was the equivalent of saying we don’t need you anymore.
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add Bryan king to the list of Losers in the Bullpen.
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Z,
King, like Okert and De Los Santos, all were over used. Let’s not start calling guys Losers with a capital T because they lost the ability to perform.
They were sent out to the mound and tried to do their work and failed. It was not due to a lack of effort. If you want, I think you can put Imai into that category, but that conversation is for another day. I hope Blubaugh makes it through this last week of the season without injury.
We have lot’s of guys that simply can’t perform as they used to. We need a first baseman, a second baseman and an entire outfield. Are those guys all Losers? No. They’re either too old and have played their best baseball or were put in a position they never should have been put in.
We need a bullpen. We need starters. It’s a long road ahead. And if somehow this overmatched group, trying to play beyond their depth reaches the post season, well, count me as one of the unenthusiastic. I don’t want to see any further injuries. Under these circumstances, I don’t see where reaching the post season would be much of a victory. But I do want to see if our owner will see the light this winter. I doubt it though.
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I admit that I was just a little bit PO’d at those “overused” pitchers but it’s like almost reaching for the golden ring and having it moved so you can’t get it. Same goes for those players who can’t get a timely hit. That’s probably even more frustrating. If we get in it’ll more than likely be a one and done. I was listening to Chandler Rome last night when my internet decided to die but enough to see how he and many others trace this fiasco back to Crane, Bagwell, Brown debacle. He and others have openly said (to put it in a nutshell) how poorly ownership and management have failed the team and fans. Specifically, the comment from a National League GM stating who would in their right mind would take the Astro GM job knowing how the not so dynamic duo operate. No we don’t expect to win the WS every year but since 2022 this team has been on a downhill trend ending up where we are now. Maybe a change is coming for next year and the future but not until there’s a change in operating philosophy.
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Z, I think we all feel about the same. The experts around the league, those of us that follow the Astros closely, guys like Rome, everyone. Crane has allowed this organization to fall apart. Unfortunately, as long as he’s at the helm, I don’t a fix coming.
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Why do the Dodgers, Yankees, and Red Sox keep developing impact players but we cannot? One of my linked articles last night was complaining the Astros spent $120M on first base and four years later the problem isn’t fixed. That’s just it, though. Pete Alonso looked cooked at 29 and destined to be on the fast track to retirement. He bounces back and posts probably his best two seasons at 30 and 31. I think he gets $23M this year and then the Orioles are on the hook for four more years at about $30M each. Who wants to take bets that he’s keeping an .800 OPS beyond next year? The Walker contract is bad in that we had other areas where the team needed to spend money. The Abreu contract was bad because people like Steven are smarter than our owner when it comes to projecting future performance and some of us are too busy looking at the back of the baseball card.
Why does it matter? It matters because you only get so many opportunities. The rotation is running on fumes. The bullpen is running on the memory of fumes they had a few weeks ago. Carlos Correa is not walking through that door. It’s easy to say they should just pack it in and try to reload through some intelligent moves this offseason, but (ignoring possible strike and work stoppage) the Mariners can’t be this bad again next year. The Rangers have some decent arms coming up through the system. The Angels may become relevant after being sold. Houston has…Jose Altuve and Yordan Alvarez. Try to sneak into the playoffs and see if they can find a little magic. What’s going to influence the next GM hiring is whether Crane is keeping with the idea of a patchwork team or wants to go fire sale again.
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Devin, we’re getting so little help from the minor leagues. We don’t have any infielders, no outfielders, obviously no pitching. Has Jim Crane trimmed the minor league developmental budgets? Scouting? Drafting? This is the kind of stuff we don’t ever hear about. But as you ask, how do other successful clubs with low draft picks keep pumping out prospects that ultimately have a positive impact in the Majors? We can’t keep blaming it on those four lost draft picks forever.
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Dave writes, “How do other successful clubs with low draft picks keep pumping out prospects that ultimately have a positive impact in the Majors?” Recall that I mentioned this same question a couple of weeks ago specifically naming the Dodgers. Obviously, our scouting group is not very competent and have not been for a few years now.
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Sarge, what I’m really wondering is if Crane has cut corners and shaved the minor league budget down?
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I’m no genius. But I work for free.
“Abreu is the best fit for what this team does. He makes more contact than Rizzo. Last year was either a down year or the beginning of a decline. There was zero decline in line drive rates, exit velocity, swing rates, contact rates, unlike Yuli who did see decline in some of those. So I think the 15 HR was like, just a year. But you want to talk being on the field. Abreu is the king of available. 110 K’s seems like a lot until you look at 679 PAs where he was once again among the league leaders in.”
I wrote that on November 14, 2022, about 14 days before he was signed. I obviously thought it was a good idea. The problem is I didn’t look at enough, or know enough. There were various stat nerd articles you could see on fangraphs and the such that were pointing out some very advanced metrics over the last 2 months of his 2021 season that were downright ugly.
My biggest issue was always their inaction. I remember writing about the sunken cost fallacy and why are we still playing this guy. He was actually costing us games.
If the Astros want to hire someone, well, I’m available. But I would go get Keith Law, who forewarned the decline before it happened.
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Thoughts
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Man, that’s a bad injury with terrible timing to happen to Bregman. With a solid pen, the Cubs might make as run. I find myself appreciating good baseball teams these days. I think I can watch the post season with the Astros absent.
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Have our Chipalatta faithful wandered over to the NFL? I would be hard to blame anyone.
Guys, the Astros are all tied up again, just a few wins away from a division title. Once again, they control their own destiny. Hard to say exactly what happened last night, but it looked a bit like the M’s have mailed it in.
I didn’t even know that Javier left after two innings with an injury. I thought it was another planned bullpen game. Whatever, it worked.
And then I noticed that Pena had led off the game with a single, and instead of waiting around on first so that Yordan would not be intentionally walked, he promptly stole second, forcing the issue. And then Yordan was not walked and drove in his first run of the night with a base hit. Go figure.
Of course, the Astros then loaded the bases with nobody out and got nothing more. Typically that would have set the tempo for an Astro game against the Mariners, but not last night.
After months on the shelf, we lost Brice Matthews while he laid out for a fly ball. And that grass looked so nice and soft out there compared to the slow pitch outfields some of us played on all over Houston for so many years. And Varsho has a sore wrist. I kind of hope it stays that way, through Sunday anyway. So we lost three guys and got a win. Can we give the baseball gods three guys a night in exchange for a win?
These are easy games to watch. Go to bed with a book. Wake up and cue up the condensed game without checking the score first. Then read the box score and drink the coffee.
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