Abad is pitching in the Caribbean (has that been renamed yet?) Series right now. He’s a lot beefier than he was as an Astro, but aren’t we all?
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Look, he really needs to look out for the security of his descendants in the 23rd century, c’mon you can’t blame the guy.
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Bregman got arrogant and greedy, thinking he could easily get more money/years than what Houston offered. He misjudged himself and now can’t get an offer any better than Houston’s offer. I’m guessing arrogance will win and he won’t be able to admit that he was wrong. It would not surprise me if he signs a short deal for a high yearly salary somewhere else and try free agency again next year. He didn’t exactly do a whole lot last year to show that he deserves a big pay raise.
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Whatever we decide, I hope it is apparent that the Stros need a new formula for winning baseball games. My preference is to overload the offense with timely more selective hitting (Arraez) and to use the power we have with Yordan, Yainer, Walker & Paredes intelligently. The more base runners on in front of them, the more likely we are to have big innings. Not sure we should be trying to grind out 1 run wins this season - didn’t work well last season. Think we are two hitters away (Arraez) in LF or 2nd and RF replacement for Chaz imo.
A team’s record in one-run games is at best indicative of luck, and at worst it’s simply self-explanatory. Half of the 18 teams that were .500+ in one-run games, and six of the top ten, missed the postseason. The 9th and 12th best teams (Rockies and Marlins) both lost 100+ games. There’s also not a lot of correlation between low scorers (the “grinders” as it were) and high scorers. The Dodgers and Yankees (two of MLB’s three 800-run teams) were 10th and 17th, while the Rays (MLB’s second-worst offense) were 4th.
This is one of those stats that kinda just happens, yet people keep trying to ascribe some meaning to it. For a while it was the trendy “manager stat”; remember how Jeff Bannister was supposed to be some god-tier manager because the Rangers were 36-11 in one-run games in 2016? Oops.
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Luck really is the best way to describe record in 1 run games. In 2023 the Padres were historically bad in 1 run games and they missed the postseason, last year they were fine and made it. This is despite most of their other numbers being mostly the same. So much in a game of baseball is just pure randomness. Maybe if a team, that kept mostly the same roster, for a 5 year run was great in 1 run games every year you could attribute it to something that team does. But mostly the stat can just wildly swing from one year to the next with no explanation whatsoever
I don’t buy for a second this crap about winning close games simply being a matter of luck. The Astros’ record in 1-run games sucked because they gave up a lot of runs late in games.
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Yep
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Wagner is going into the HOF as an Astro
Billy Wagner wants Houston Astros cap on Hall of Fame plaque
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Glad that’s his preference, but what else would it be?
There were people who thought he might be a blank cap guy
Yeah, that would make absolutely no sense. Wagner played more seasons with the Astros than all other teams combined. It’s not like he was pretty evenly split between multiple teams like Maddux or McGriff. I’m not sure the HoF would have even let him be a no logo guy. He was an Astro. Period.
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I agree but ever since Halladay went in as a Phillie, nothing is guaranteed
Halladay is one of those who went in teamless, but I agree he should have been a BJ. Well, he shouldn’t have gone in at all, but that’s another discussion.
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Can’t wait for Verlander to go in as a Met.
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Jack Flaherty to Detroit on a one-year deal for $25M with a player option for another year at $10M. It’s being called a two-year/$35M deal, but let’s be real, it’s a one-year contract with a $10M insurance policy in case of injury.
Fair, it isn’t always luck. But it often is, and I still think the overall stat is junk. I would rather assign value to the situations in which those runs are given up (e.g. saves, “close and late”, high leverage), not what the run differential is at the end of the game.
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The baseball community has long been in need of a better word than “luck” for “non-predictive outcome.”
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We could only be so lucky.
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Hasn’t “luck” worked for 150 years or so?