I thought he would improve at keeping his pitch counts down. He was young, still kinda is. Big strong guy with a lively arm and good stuff. The Astros front office was fooled too, I guess. I think they gave him $65 mil.
Yeah, it's hard to be a solid innings eater type when your control sucks and you're constantly running up high pitch counts. He had a BB/9 of nearly 5 during the 2021 season and we're talking about essentially a 2 pitch mix here that is primarily the fastball. His advanced stats outside of 2022 have never been that good. Take whatever stat you like - xERA, FIP, xFIP, SIERRA - they have been 4+ in every season aside from 2022. I'd love to be wrong but I don't think he will ever have a season even close to what he did in 2022.
No…if you read what I’ve been saying it’s pretty clear my opinion. IMO his 2022 season was a fluke. He’s got a career FIP of 4.14 and regularly runs pitch counts up so he’s not going deep in games either. I don’t think you can count on him being anymore than a 4 or 5 which is fine because Hunter, Imai and Burrows look like they are going to be a solid 1-2-3.
It is hard to say. I personally am not that high on Javier right now, but it is pretty easy to build a case for optimism. He’s been worth 7.6 fwar over 538 ip in his career. That ratio would paint him as ~2.2 fwar over 160 ip, which is the workload he should be able to handle in a season. That would make him roughly one of the ~60 most valuable pitchers in the league in any given season. And there’s probably upside to that because over his career he has been used inconsistently and/or has battled injuries, likely pitching hurt in some spots. His velo is where it needs to be. It looks like he might’ve lost a little bit of spin on his fb since 2022. It seems like he’s gone away from his 4s fb and leaned more on his change and sinker and the results haven’t been as good. But the way the Astros other SP have looked, Houston might have one of the 5 best rotations in the league even if Javier is pretty mediocre.
I don’t disagree with any of this - all I’m saying is you can’t expect him to post anywhere near a 2.54 ERA again. It sounded like Tomstro and I’m sure many others expected him to become a SP1 or a high end SP2 after that 2022 season. If he puts up a high 3 ERA and a fWAR around 2, I’ll be happy.
I'm hoping Meyers doesn't become a Chas clone this year and punt his little bit of trade value before the break. He needs to get on a heater so we can try and sell as high as we can.
Cam isn't winning MVP, but I keep hearing about how Brice should make the team and be the CF, or the Utility... And I keep hearing how Cam needs to be at AAA . . . Now obviously ST sample sizes are tiny, especially to this point But Brice has K'd in 10 of 26 at bats, and not all of those have been against MLB pitching. He has those skills that just scream upside which is why Dana drafted him, but he certainly hasn't showed he can make enough contact at this point to be a viable MLB player We all got really excited last year when he hit 3 HR and drove in 7 runs in two games at Arizona, but outside of those two games he was 4-34 with 20 Ks Now again, ST sample sizes are tiny, but Cam has hit the ball well so far. He also was a guy with an OPS approaching .800 halfway through the year last year and he certainly isn't the first 22 year old to wear down playing everyday at the MLB level Cam and Jake are the two "surest" things we have in the OF right now and everyone wants Cam at AAA and Jake traded Cole is another one quite a few are high on and he makes less contact than Brice. Depending on what Dana does over the next two weeks, our OF could be a K factory
Javier struck out 130 guys in 101 innings in 21 Then struck out 194 in 148 innings in 22 He did that in his age 23 and 24 seasons I don't remember ANY of us complaining about extending him after that two year run Then he throws 6 no hit innings in November in the world series, then 3 1/2 months later he throws 4 dominant innings in the WBC. After throwing the most innings (by far) of his life in 2022, he comes back that soon with the same intensity in the WBC and simply has not been the same since. Now many will argue it's a coincidence, but you can't argue he wasn't the same after that, and a year later is having his elbow reworked At 28 he still has time to come back and be that guy, but whether or not he ever will who knows
Because then we'll get to hear @Tomstro talk about it for the next 3 years? If there's a better CF + better bat available, please trade Meyers. I haven't seen that guy yet, though.
All true… then again, as of 2021 and 2022 there were still concerns about his arm’s ability to tolerate a starting regimen, let alone be an every 4th day starter from day one, and he was bouncing between being a long man or glorified opener. There was early concern on stamina issues and eventually “fitness” issues, well before the elbow got gimpy. (Which now in hindsight, all of that had its roots in the max effort philosophy that the Astros unleashed in earnest starting the covid season). Obviously there’s a reason there was interest on his side to lock in a guaranteed deal vs most young starters contract strategy (see Hunter Brown), however he can still reach his peak here if the arm is sound.
