If they only kept Bregman, Alvarez, Tucker, James, and Whitley, targeted only prospects ranked in the 30-100 range, and ate all remaining salary on every player: Springer for 1 Top 100 prospect Gurriel, Reddick and money for 1 Top 100 prospect Altuve and money for 4 Top 100 prospects Correa for 2 Top 100 prospects Brantley, Marisnick, Diaz and money for 1 Top 100 prospect Verlander and money for 3 Top 100 prospects Greinke and money for 3 Top 100 prospects Sanchez, Biagini, and Peacock 1 Top 100 prospect Pressly, Osuna, and Devenski for 2 Top 100 prospects That’s 18. Add in Bregman, Alvarez, Tucker, Whitley, and James gets the total young star players to 23. They could package several groups of young 2nd tier prospects (Urquidy, Framber, Cionel, Straw, etc.) and get 2-3 more to make a full roster of Top 100 guys.
Did anybody - *ANY*body - not expect Snake Diggit to dive head-first into this discussion?, LOL... Trade the entire Astros' roster? HOLD MY CALLS!
And they might've had Cole not gotten hurt. It was a weird road trip - rain delay/double headers; Cole bailing on his start moments before it; errors galore....... It really could've/should've been a 6-0 trip...
Agree. One bad outing here and there, and he's still far more electric than Osuna. Better K and BB numbers, nastier movement on his pitches. Screams shutdown and invokes confidence that Osuna can't. As stated, Osuna relies on finesse and the right contact for outs moreso than Pressly, whose stuff screams "elite closer".
It could of been 6-0 for sure, but something happens along the way in baseball, it is a long season and injuries and match ups and flukes all figure into it. There is a reason winning more than 60-65% of your games is extremely hard, for even elite teams. Like you said........ the double header, the odd late scratch of Cole and the lost focus..... it happens.
Pretty spot on, and obviously the bottom feeders tend to get more focused when we come to town and we lose a bit of focus, going through motions, you could see some of that play out, and we still had a chance to put away two of those games as bad as we played.....
Dallas Keuchel is pissed that Jeff Luhnow isn’t doing anything about it. He’s just, like, sitting there. Beyond disappointed is an understatement.
yaup! there is no way we can throw joe smith, rondon or devo out in a playoff game (unless its a blowout) I think our best hope is that Peacock can come back strong in the bullpen, McHugh stays relatively good, 1 of the Toronto guys takes up a spot and then we have Presley and Osuna round into shape
I think people just have unrealistic expectations. The Yankees have a bunch of good relievers, but their best starter has an ERA worse than Rondon. The Dodgers have 1 good guy in their bullpen and then the rest are Rondon's or worse. It's just how baseball in - no one has 6 or 7 elite relievers. The Astros have an elite pitching trio of all-star starters and Osuna/Pressly/Harris at the top of their bullpen, and combined, that's better than anyone else in baseball. Combine that with the deepest lineup in baseball, and you end up with the best team in baseball. Not really much more you can expect than that. EDIT: Cleveland is the one team with comparable or better pitching, but their offense is a huge step down.
Devo has been a concern for years. In a playoff series we will see Harris, Pressly, Osuna.... and possibly Smith for a particular batter or Peacock for an inning or Sanchez........ we also very well could see Verlander, Greinke, Cole or Miley come in late in a series too. At the end of the day, it would always be nice to have another arm in the pen that is really good....... what we have is good enough for the playoffs.... there is also a real possibility that at least one of our big 3 go 7-8 innings in a game or two and saves the pen..... we will also be likely running the other teams pitchers into the ground.
The biggest thing by far the Astros need to have is health going into the playoffs. That's really it. Top seed or 2nd seed doesn't really matter. Not like we gain some edge against Rays/Indians as opposed to Twins/Indians. Home field in baseball is virtually useless. Over the course of a long season pitchers are gonna have their bad outings and hitters will have their slumps. But talent is there, just need to be available in October.
I wouldn't consider Minute Maid in the playoffs virtually useless and I would prefer that extra game in the WS being there, especially with Alvarez
Starter goes 6. Sanchez, Peacock, Smith, or Harris gets the 7th based on matchups. Pressly 8th. Osuna 9th. Biagini and James will be extra arms for low leverage. All good as long as Pressly and Osuna and the 4 starters are good to go.
And, the bottom feeders are still MLB teams. All the bottom feeding teams take a series from the top teams every year, it's not like they NEVER win a series against a good team, they just can't do it consistently... that's what makes them bottom feeders.
Best solution is have a bullpen by-committee. We have way too many IPads in the dugouts that our opponents know what to expect. Hinch needs to mix it so that there is no blueprint on how to hit Pressly, or Osuna. Everyone knows who is our 8th and 9th inning pitchers.