The Blog Lives On

This is as big as a Led Zeppelin reunion, or at the very least, my high school band getting back together for coffee.  Ok, maybe it isn't as big as either one of those things, but the point is that the blog is back.

I stopped writing for a number of reasons, but perhaps the biggest reason was a lack of access to Astros games.  If they aren't playing the Rangers, I can't see them.  There is immediate hope on the horizon that I may in fact get to watch the team this year on my MLB.TV subscription.

The second reason I stopped writing was because of graduate school.  I had to write so many research papers that it just sucked every amount of air from the writing balloon.  Well, that is over now as well.

In order to reintroduce this blog to my very few interested parties, I decided to write this post.  This is a fan opinion blog and nothing else.  It is not intended to be a news source.  I am not chasing down any leads.  I am merely reacting to things as I see them.

I have watched baseball for my entire life and have some coaching background.  I also possess an analytics lean, which coincidentally is the name of the dance move made famous by Bill James himself.  The analytics lean means that many of my posts may be stats heavy.

If you would like to read a little more about where my Astros love comes from, read this. 

Game 2

Lucas Harrell was fantastic in this game.  He attacked the strike zone with the confidence of a veteran.  The stadium gun had his fastball at a consistant 92.  He struck out 4, allowed only 3 hits through 7, and, perhaps most importantly, walked no one.

Schafer and Martinez came through with a home run each, while Chris Johnson added a pair of doubles.  Mix that with some timely hitting from Snyder and some Rockies errors and you get a 7-3 Astros win.

The Turning Point:

Let's look deeper at the fourth inning.

In the top half, the Rockies got Carlos Gonzalez to third with one out after a double and a wild pitch.  After giving the appearance of staying back, the infield rushes in.  Troy Tulowitzki ground the ball to Marwin Gonzalez and Gonzalez in out at the plate.  A gutsy call from the coaching staff pays off.  Shortly after this, Tulo is thrown out trying to steal, and the top half ends.

The Astros come up in the bottom half.  Brian Bixler, who got the start over Altuve for some reason, reaches on an error and scores on a J.D. Martinez home run. 

Astros Player of the Game:

It would be incredibly irresponsible not to go with Lucas Harrell in this game.  What a performance by the young man.  Only 4 Rockies reached base in 7 innings and one of those was by fielder's choice.  I hope this is a sign of things to come.

What are you thinking Brad?

Rhiner Cruz entered the game with 2 out in the ninth, which seemed to baffle those around me.  In this case, I see what Mills was doing.  He was bringing in a young pitcher with electric stuff and very little ability to control said staff during a low pressure situation.  So, I will give him pass on that one.

Other Notes:

Chris Johnson stole a base, which might happen one more time this season.

While J.D. Martinez drove in 3 runs, he also grounded into 2 double plays.

I am blown away that a 49 year old with a 79 mph fastball is pitching in the bigs.  Jamie Moyer is a classy individual who loves the game, and I wish him luch this season.

Marwin Gonzalez is an adequate shortstop in the field.  He gets to the balls that you would expect him to and shows a decent arm.  On another note, Troy Tulowitzki is a great shortstop.

Brandon Lyon gave up a home run, but that isn't what concerns me.  Even his outs were hit hard.

Game 1

The game started out with some optimism.  The crowd was jacked up, Wandy got off to a good start, and the Astros scored first on a Carlos Lee single.  Four errors and a Tulowitzki shot later, it was a 5-3 loss in the opener.

The Chris Johnson error in the second didn't lead to a run, but it did force Wandy to work a little more.  Giving big league clubs extra outs is never a good idea.

The Turning Point

The Wandy throwing error is a ball that should have never left his hand.  They were not going to get Fowler on that play no matter what.  Instead of first and second and nobody out instead of second and third with none out.  The Rockies ultimately scored 3 runs on a sac fly, a Helton double, and a timely Cuddyer hit.

Let's look a little deeper at the inning a little deeper.  With second and third and no one out, Carlos Gonzalez hit a comebacker to the pitcher that kept the runners stuck in their current spots.  If Wandy eats the bunt from Fowler, this ball could have been a double play or at worst a force out at second.  I also accept the fact that Wandy might have thrown the ball to Schafer in center, but bear with me.  Tulowitzki hit a fly ball to right that scored a run, but hypothetically would have ended the inning had the comebacker to Wandy been a double play.

Fast forward to the eighth.  Eric Young enters the game as a pinch runner and steals second.  From where I was sitting, he looked out, but I have been assured that he was safe.

He proceeds to get hung up on a ball in the dirt.  Jason Castro decides to throw the ball behind the runner, which was the wrong move even if Marwin Gonzalez would have caught it.  Young would have still made third.  It is basic baseball fundamentals that when you have a runner frozen, you force him to commit to a location by running at him.  It was a poor decision that cost the team.  I am sure that Jason Castro knew it was a mistake as soon as he let the ball go.

Errors destroy Major League Baseball teams.

Hey Brad.  What are you thinking?

Why was Fernando Abad in against Troy Tulowitzki in the eighth?  I wondered to myself if Mills had forgotten that he is supposed to manage the game to the end.  This game was still in the balance.  It was not a solid loss at this point.

Fernando Abad is the last lefty that you want to face a right handed power bat like Tulo in a game situation.  Abad allowed an astronomical 4.82 HR/9 verses RH hitters last season according the Fangraphs, so naturally he did what the stats said that he very well might do.

Astros Player of the Game:

The first player of the game award goes to Carlos Lee.  He had 2 of the Astros 5 hits, hit his first HR of the season, and a 2 out RBI in the first.

Other Notes:

Altuve drew a walk, which puts him one quarter of the way to last season's total.

You down with OBP?

Before we get started, I would like to say that I did not watch Moneyball last night.

Much as been made this spring about Jose Altuve and his apparent struggles in the area of plate discipline.  After all, he walked a measly 5 times in 234 plate appearances, which is an astoundingly low number.  That's about 1 walk every 47 plate appearances.

On base percentage wasn't just an issue for Altuve, but it was a team wide issue.  The league average OBP hangs around .325.  This includes the greatest hitters in the game as well as the worst hitters.

The Astros had 7 players who were above average if we are using the .325 number.  Those players were Carlos Lee, Hunter Pence, Michael Bourn, Matt Downs, Brian Bogusevic, JB Shuck, and Brett Wallace.

Looking a little deeper you see that 2 of those players were traded, because they were valuable pieces.  Wallace had 2 months that were above average.  He had a tremendous April with an OBP of .458 and a strong June, where is OBP was .360 despite an average of .230.  The rest of his year was below average and got worse as his plate appearances decreased.

Heading into this season, we are looking at having an everyday lineup that returns 2 OBPs higher than the league average.  Carlos Lee at first and probably Bogusevic in right.  No, Jed Lowrie was not above average last year.  Although, he sported a .389 OBP in 2010.

For a point of reference, the Cardinals return 6 and added a seventh player with an above average OBP.  The Rangers also return 7.  Those were your league champs last year for a reason.

A look at the OBP standings for 2011 reveals that the Astros finished 23rd in the league in the category and many of the teams above them actually hit for a lower team batting average.  By the way, you will find the teams that either made or sniffed the playoffs near the top with an exception of the Braves, who finished below the Astros.

What's the big deal?

You can't score unless you get on base.

There are certainly some possible explanations for the low numbers.

1.  We have a lot of young players, who are still learning how to have a big league approach.  I would say that this is true except that 3 of our team leaders are either rookies or players with less than 2 full years of experience.

2.  Low averages means lower OBP.  Yes, most of the time.  This is especially true when a player has no plate discipline.  Anyone remember that Jeff Keppinger was hitting .307 when he was traded?  Anyone know that his OBP was only .320 during that time?  Clint Barmes hit .244 with an OBP of .312.  When you look at average, Keppinger seems far superior at putting the team in a position to score.  Granted, Kep did have a stronger slugging.  Jimmy Wynn once had an OBP of .436 while hitting .269.  He had 148 walks.  That stat amazed me, and I had to work it into this post somewhere.

3.  Pitchers are more aggressive because we lack power.  Our slugging in 2011 was 24th in MLB and that includes the statistics of Pence and Bourn.  It only got worse from there.  This has to be true though.  Why wouldn't a pitcher attach a lineup that hasn't shown much ability to hit with power.

4.  We have a player development problem.  Maybe plate discipline and working counts aren't emphasized on the farm like they should be.  It could possibly be the players we are bringing into the system.   They may have never been strong in the area of pitch selection.  If this is the case, expect it to change.  Take a look at the numbers for the Cardinals.

For the Astros to be successful on offense, they must get on base more.  It is that plain and simple.  So, how do we turn that statistic around?  That's for another post.

Astros Overreaction from the Weekend

The Astros are 2-0 in Spring Training and thus telling Bud Selig where he can shove it.  This team is poised to shock the world!

I hope you are catching my sarcasm, but a quick search of twitter will lead you to some reactions such as this.  A 2-0 start in Spring Training is nice, but it is not telling of what is to come.

There have been some encouraging signs especially on the offensive side of the ball.  Chris Johnson and J.D. Martinez appear to be locked in early.  Fernando Martinez has made good contact.  His home run today was clearly wind aided, but I like his opposite field approach.  I am not ready to plug him in the two hole and turn him loose, but he had a nice game today.

Another clear conclusion that we can draw is that our prospects suck, right?  No, that's not right.

Our top three offensive prospects in camp went 0-5 with 5 strikeouts.  I urge you to refrain from declaring these guys a bust based on today.  Going into this weekend, Singleton, DeShields, and Springer had a combined 0 at bats against Major League talent.  Singleton struck out against Lidge and Drew Storen.  You could see it on Singleton's face after the K.  You could tell that he was just owned by a big league slider.

Springer went down to Ryan Mattheus, who isn't a household name, but as a rookie last season posted a 2.81 ERA in 35 appearances. Springer also was introduced to one of the better setup men in baseball in Tyler Clippard.

DeShields was blown away by a legit closer in Drew Storen.

Brett Wallace continues to be overmatched by left handers.  I know there is push from folks on the twitter for Mills to allow Wallace to play against left handers on a more regular basis in order to build his confidence.  The argument has merit, but at some point, a guy is what he is.  The argument is especially accurate when your right handed option is Jason Michaels.

The Astros offense did what it is supposed to do to a pitcher who can't find his spots.  Tom Gorzelanny was all over the place.  He issued 4 free passes in 1 inning of work, and when he wasn't walking people, he was leaving the ball up.  He doesn't have the stuff to get away with that when he is in mid-season form much less in the second week of camp.

On another bright offensive note, J.D. Martinez has the kind of swing that can hit at any level.  Its the type of swing that doesn't have a huge amount of holes.  Its quick, compact, and powerful.  Its see the ball and hit the ball.  

Let's focus on J.A. Happ for just a moment.

Happ's performance wasn't all that encouraging or disappointing.  He was clearly working on his fastball, as it seemed to be the only pitch that he threw.  It appeared to be moving a little bit more than I remember from last year.  It looked to have a little more cut to it.  I will need to go find some video and check it out.

He was missing his spots, but most pitchers are still trying to get their feel.  I don't think that you can read too much into the stat line today.  He was clearly working on something.

In closing, we must take everything that we see for the first couple of weeks in stride.  We still know very little about how this thing will play out. 

Myers to Close

The blown save struck early and often for the 2011 Astros.  Opening day seemed to be a foreshadowing of what was to come.  I remember watching one game where the Astros relievers blew four saves in one game.  

The blown save is a bit of a strange stat in that a reliever that clearly has no intent to finish the game can be given a blown save if he loses the lead at any point during the game.  Since the hold stat was made up, shouldn't we be calling those blown holds.  That's not the point of this post, but that is just a personal beef I have with the blown save.

Now back to the task at hand.  Brad Mills announced that Brett Myers will be closing games this season.

I am not a subsriber to saving your ace reliever until the ninth inning, but if you can tell me who the Astros lights out reliever is, I will tell you when he should pitch.  My point is that we don't have much in the way of bullpen pitchers.  We have a few hard throwing guys with potential that are going to have to find a way to get the outs necessary to turn the game over to Myers.

Myers is not new to closing games.  He closed out games in 2007 for the Phillies when Tom Gordon went down with an injury.  He compiled 21 saves.

My initial reaction was to take a look at Brett's 2007 season on Baseball Reference.  His line for that year didn't seem very impressive.  He pitched in 68.2 innings, had an ERA 4.33, a WHIP of 1.282, walked 27, and had a BB/9 rate of 3.4.  He had a 10 plus strikeout per nine rate.

After looking at the stats a little deeper we find that Myers was much more effective as a reliever that season.  

Myers started three games, pitched 15.1 innnings, allowed 16 ER, a staggering 5.4 walks per nine, and an ERA of 9.39.  That is 15.1 innings of his total 68.2 innings.  I teach math for a living.  However, you don't need to teach math to understand the impact that statistics like this will have on final numbers.

Side note:  I hate walks.  Free baserunners, especially with no one out, have a way of coming back to bite you.  I especially hate walks from relievers in high leverage situations.

Let's look at Myers the reliever from 2007.

Myers was moved to relief after a second straight terrible start in 2007 after injuries decimated the Phillies bullpen.  He pitched 53.1 innings, allowed 17 ER, a much improved 3 walks per nine, and an ERA of 2.88.

If Myers the closer of 2012 can replicate those numbers, that gives a solid back end of the bullpen.

I also believe that this is a value building move from the front office.  Brett's value as a starter is known to teams around the league.  He is inconsistent and has been for most of his career.  His value as a reliever is still a big of an unknown.

Relievers pitch on a completely different schedule than starters do, and that might just be what jump starts Myers.  He just might be an medium starter, but he also may be an elite relief pitcher.  If he does perform as the closer, contenders are always looking for relief help.

What other impacts does this move have?

This means that Zach Duke, Livan Hernandez, Kyle Weiland, Jordan Lyles, and possibly Paul Clemens are fighting for two rotation spots instead of one assuming that Wandy, Norris, and Happ have three of the spots nailed down.

In conclusion, I like this move.  It is thinking outside of the box, which is something that we have been needing around here lately.  Myers has closed before, which makes him one of our most experienced relief pitchers.  What is a little sad is that he only has one year of relief under his belt.  We will see how it works out, but I suspect that if it does, Brett Myers will be pitching for somone else come July.

Assessing the Catchers

Spring Training games start in a week, and most positions on the field are up for grabs.  We will look at each position, and I will make some predictions about what I think we will see on opening day and beyond.

Today we will look at the catchers that are in camp.

What's important in a catcher?  A catchers defense, ability to stop the running game, and handling of the pitching staff are the most important aspects of catching.  Many offensively challenged catchers have long big league careers, because they have mastered the the defensive side of things.  Brad Ausmus is a perfect example of this.  I remember the calls for Mitch Meluskey in 2000, because he presented more of an offensive threat than Brad.  We all know how that worked out.

Rene Garcia

Rene Garcia is a product of the 2008 draft, which is same draft that landed Jason Castro in the first round.  He is only 21 years old.  When one looks at Rene Garcia's stats on Baseball Cube or FanGraphs, we see a player that has struggled offensively since rookie ball.  He peaked at .295 in rookie league and hovers around .240 most others.  We aren't loooking at an offensive threat.  He doesn't hit for average or for power.

What does he do?

Gathering information on Garcia has been a challenge, but what I have found is that he has a good arm and is quick behind the plate.  I am looking forward to seeing more of him.

Realistically he will start 2012 in Corpus Christi or back in Lancaster to start the season.

Chris Wallace

I want to believe in Chris Wallace.   He is a product of Cypress Fairbanks High and the University of Houston.  Its great when local kids get the call from the hometown team.  He comes in ranked as our number 30 prospect according to Baseball America.  He is my dark horse for being a very capable catcher in the big leagues.

Chris has some power when he makes contact.  The problem is that he strikes out a lot.  He struck out in 30% of his at bats at AA last season according to FanGraphs.  He is getting on the older side for a prospect.

I have very little to go on in regards to his defense.  From what I read in Baseball America and hear from those that have seen him, he is a capable catcher with his arm being his greatest weakness.

He will start the year in AA which will allow me to see him first hand whn the Hooks come through Frisco.  I suspect that we will be seeing Chris at Minute Maid in September.

Now let's move to some players that I have seen on a more regular basis.

Carlos Corporan

When I saw Carlos last year for the first time, I thought to myself that this is not a major league catcher.  His getting to the bigs was an indictment of the Astros farm system for their lack of organizational depth at the catching position.  He was the fourth man up after a ton of injuries.

I still contend that he is not a big league catcher in either aspect of the game.

On defense, he threw out only 17% of baserunners.  That's enough about his defense.

On offense, he hit .188 with on OBP of .253.  Those kind of offensive struggles are only acceptable for a catcher who throws out everything that even twitches on the bases.

He will start the season in either Corpus, OKC, or with his release papers.  I say he sticks around for depth.  Someone has to catch at the AAA level.

Humberto Quintero

I have always liked Q, but he took a big step back last year behind the dish.  He gave up a career high 48 stolen bases and only threw out 23%.  His caught stealing numbers have dropped in the last couple of years.  It could be the product of a younger pitching staff that has trouble holding runners, but I don't believe that is the only reason.

My theory for the decline goes as follows.  Until the last two years, Quintero has not been heavily relied upon as the catcher.  In 2011, he played in 77 games, and he played in 87 in 2010.  Those are the most that he is ever played in once season.  His previous career high was 59 games.

More games means more wear and tear and a larger sample size.  I think we are seeing what he is at the age of 32.  He is a decent back up catcher.

He will be on the Major League roster for opening day, but he might end up being the odd man out when Jason Castro is ready to return to the bigs and if Chris Snyder holds down his spot.

Jason Castro

The 2008 first round pick has been struggling to stay healthy over the last year.  His bat didn't deliver in his first stint in 2010, but he showed amazing ability behind the dish as a rookie.  It was quite impressive how he handled the pitching staff, blocked balls, and threw out baserunners.

I still believe that he is our catcher of the future, but I think he starts this season off in AA or AAA in order to work out some of the kinks of being out so long, but I think he is an early season call up.

Chris Snyder

Snyder was signed as a free agent from the Pirates where he was relegated to backup duty.  His season ended early when he had surgery to fix a herniated disk in his back.  Let's not pretend that he was putting Johnny Bench like stats before the injury.  He throws out around 30% of baserunners in most seasons.  He threw out 23% last year in a relatively small sample size to Quintero's.

He has shown that he can hit for power over the course of his career, but he has struggled to stay on the field for the last couple of seasons.  It is unrealistic to expect him to the everyday guy.

His defensive stats are similar to Quintero's.  He isn't going to hit for an incredibly high average, but he might run into one and deposit the ball in the Crawford Boxes, which is why I give Snyder the edge over Quintero.

I believe that, if Castro isn't ready, Snyder will be the opening day catcher.  I still think that Castro will ultimately get the majority of the games behind the plate.