[Official] Spring Training 2024

I'm saying Framber has become a head case again. It was apparent the last part of 2023. Needs a new shrink.

 

LOL

 

By head-case… you mean he’s fallen in love with his sinker that when he gets it up to 98-99mph, has very little sink. That and his ankle injury that was pretty bad, but he toughed it out and played through it (may have been ill-advised… but they really had zero other options at that point, and needed every win he was a part of). So playing through an injury also = head case.

It’s not like he forgot how to throw a baseball and is hitting the backstop ala Rick Ankiel. THAT is the head case scenario that all pitchers are technically at risk of (the baseball pitching version of the thing that can’t be said out loud). His breakdown came out of nowhere, was on a bigger stage being the playoffs, and his team had already given him a 6-0 lead.



But back to Framber… somebody should really break down his mechanics between late 2022 and 2023 and find the pitch selection/sequencing/velocity sweet spot. Of course he does have to accept the advice/coaching and adapt accordingly… and if he’s not mentally processing that, thats a legit head case problem.

 

Yeah it’s disgusting. If he didn’t fall off so hard last year I wouldn’t be worried. But yeah this isn’t exactly breeding a lot of confidence.

 

I'm not worried about Framber yet. He just needs to throw strikes and make sure his breaking stuff actually breaks.

 

Yep. He's always been a bit of a head case, but he's been unraveling more lately these days.

 

I meant with some of the new faces but yea, it’s good to see our vets and Myers produce

 

Last Spring training, we were talking about Dirden. We weren't even talking about JP. Most of the evaluation is made on stuff going on behind the scenes that we don't see.

 

The posters here who complain about how inconsistent Framber is are simply ignorant about baseball

Extremely few have been more consistent

 

How do you dare compare Montero and Abreu in 2023? That's ridiculous.

Abreu after May became one of the best RBI guys in the majors and certainly did not disappoint in the post season.

 

He had a stretch from the end of June to ~mid August when he was pretty terrible. Of course he threw a no-hitter in the middle of it all.

 

Two no hitters (or at least one full and one partial). With absolute garbage games on either side and throughout the whole postseason. It’s incredibly weird for the same guy who set the quality start streak record.

I don’t know what to make of it, but it is hard to trust him until we see him string together some good games.

(I do know Maldy was his catcher for all the garbage, so I’m not at all buying the “pitcher whisperer” stuff.)

 

I don't believe in the Maldy pitcher whisperer either. However, I do have some concerns with the fact that Maldy caught EVERY inning Framber threw in 2023 and in 2022 Maldy caught all but 3 innings Framber threw in 2022.

That concerns me because it will be a significant change for Framber and so far it hasn't looked great in spring training. That was terrible managing on Dusty's part to let Framber only pitch to Maldy... but remember Dusty said we will thank him later for not playing Yainer more last season.

 

I'm still NOT thanking you Musty.

 

To your point yeah- there was so much grab bag and utter garbage last year that I need to see it this year. my concern with him vis a vis getting an extension is that extreme sinker ball pitchers age in dog years. 30 or 31 seems to early for that but I’d be really nervous about giving him a na over type extension. I’d rather Snell the next 2 years than Framber. I don’t know if that’s the consensus opinion or not, but it’s my preference.

 

He is really an under-rated pitcher.

For the Astros in the early 90's he had a season where he had like 70 appearances and 120 innings and an era of under 2:00 .... he was like a 5 time all star.

Really a good career.

 

Was one of the more interesting arms that Luhnow signed in his last draft. JUCO guy, the Astros gave him a pretty big bonus from what I remembered. He is a physically big pitcher, he relies on his fastball which doesn't have upper 90's velocity, but it is very hard to pick up as release point gives hitters fits and he can move it up or down, but it is more effective up in the zone. He has a power slider to compliment the pitch. He has in recent years stopped trying to strike everyone out and just make his pitches.

He has been hurt a lot in his career. He had a bad knee in high school and JUCO. He missed the 2020 and 2021 seasons because of COVID and injury... struggled in 2022 after not pitching for two seasons, and then turned it on in 2023.

He is possibly someone we see in the big leagues if he pitches well. Some positive things being said about him recently.

 

Bummer.

current SP pecking order:
Valdez
Javier
Brown
France
Blanco
Bielak

Arrighetti
Gordon
Kouba
Tamarez

Verlander (late April)
Garcia (July)
McCullers (August)
Urquidy (TBD)

If Verlander or France have any kind of setback it might be time to start looking at Lorenzen or Keuchel or any other living arm waiting for a job.

 

His history of walks is likely what has kept him out of the big leagues.

The ability to me seems to be there...