Drama and absolute dislike by much of baseball.
Ok, Walt. What is the 26-man roster tonight?
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Luhnow had a gift to promote his brand, no question
Hold on…I read many times back in the day that offense cannot compensate for defense.
Not that I disagree, but has this changed?
eta: Final Jeopardy question today is perfect for OWA, I’ll post it somewhere in a minute
I hadn’t followed Jake Meyers career trajectory until very recently. He seems to have come out of nowhere this year. Like something clicked for him during the long layoff last year and he became a better hitter. All due respect to Chas but if Meyers is the real deal, as his AAA stats and the trading of Straw suggest, then I expect him to get a solid chance to be the next regular in CF.
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Not compensate, offset.
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Look, I may not be a big fan of the Straw trade but make no mistake, the Astros are unequivocally a better team today than they were a week ago. Overall Click did a great job and when you line up all the outs vs all the ins, he got alot for what he gave up. Now let’s go fucking win this thing!
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With the Astros’ lineup at full strength, Straw was never going to get a chance to steal a lot of bases unless he got on base in front of Maldonado or Castro. Nowadays, teams are hesitant to try and steal bases with their best hitters up.
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I can’t help but think that the Straw/Maton deal was done while they were working the phones to see if they could add a CF as well, knowing that even if they couldn’t get another outfielder, they had a pretty good plan B in McCormick/Meyers.
Click completely overhauled this team’s glaring weakness and didn’t give up too much to do it. There’s a lot of Fat Kid Summer to this season’s trade deadline with a number of GMs making huge cannonball splashes, but Astros fans should be pretty happy with what Click was able to do.
Now go win the whole damn thing.
The fucking Doger built a team of individual achievers. On paper they look so sexy. Fuck them. The hottest team playing the best ball on the fireld wins it. Not the team with the highest payroll and the most pricks.
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Other than the bullpen, the Astros were in a position where they were trying to improve at the margins for the postseason. While I would have liked another starting pitcher with Garcia approaching an innings limit, and Urquidy still working his way back from shoulder discomfort, it’s not like the Astros desperately needed a starting pitcher like San Diego did, and they got absolutely no help today.
Click upgraded the bullpen by giving up Toro, Austin Pruitt and a minor league outifielder in Bryan De La Cruz, and we will see if Strom can work his magic with Phil Maton. All in all, I’m pleased with what he was able to accomplish this week.
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Anything can happen in a short series, and there is no guarantee the Dodgers pass the Giants over the next 60 games, so they still may find themselves in a one-game playoff with the Padres.
The Giants getting Kris Bryant is a huge addition, too.
He was an arrogant asshole to his peers. That is a curse, not a gift.
FWIW… I just took a peek at Maton’s Statcast numbers. Spin rates on his slider and curveball both hover around 2900… he has some nasty stuff.
Just a question. Do those numbers hold after the sticky stuff crack down??
I’m not familiar enough with the database to pull that info.
Edit: Figured it out… his spin rates have actually increased about 100 RPM since the crack down.
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I wonder how much input Strom had in the trades. Did he give Click a list of guys that he really thought he could improve and Click worked off that list?
I have no doubt he was very involved.
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I bet they gave Strom a list of guys they were looking at and asked his opinion on each one
At this point why would you not trust the Stros?