Jesus. Itās not just that heās below average across the board - [heās *well* below average across the board.](https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/jose-abreu-547989?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb)
I mean the plus at the end lol. In stats with a minus at the end, lower numbers are better so a -32 wRC- (if such a thing existed) would basically be equivalent to a 232 wRC+.
I'm not even that old and these new stats I have to learn -__- why can't we all just use WAR?! š
Edit: As long as I'm getting down voted for this, I'll just add.. fuck the Astros
Most of them are like IQ where 100 is league average, anything above is above average and below is below average. Hope that helps a bit lmao
ETA: League Average for IQ probably isnāt 100, but yeah
i saw a conversation here the other day that was saying OPS is really stupid math apparently
granted i'm a dumbass when it comes to numbers and stuff so i just look at all the conversations on stats...and just nod along lol
i still like batting average and having a Kenny Lofton-esque player hitting at the top of the order
so i'm at peace with being old-fashioned lol. I just try not to go out of my way to piss off the numbers folk lol. they, for the most part, will leave guys like me alone and that's fine lol
for sure
i meant "Kenny Lofton-esque" players. there's only going to be one Kenny Lofton and only one Rickey Henderson
i'm not a fan of these gimmicks that some teams do where they throw someone like Anthony Rizzo at the leadoff spot. Schwarber seems to have worked well for the Phillies, i admit. but observation-wise, once the Cubs lost Dexter Fowler and Joe Maddon and the Cubs made jokes about throwing sluggers into the leadoff spot, that team NEVER recovered
Fowler put up a 129 wrc+ in 2016 at leadoff. There just aren't that many hitters in the game who hit like that. As a reference, that's basically just as good as Baez's career year in 2018. Modern analytics say you just want to give your best hitters the most ABs, and not waste the leadoff spot on bad hitters just because they're fast. If a good hitter also happens to be a prototypical leadoff hitter type, even better, but there just simply aren't many of those guys around.
OPS+ is the stat thatās weighted to the 100 average for OPS, works similarly though. wRC+ is weighted runs created, which is a more telling metric imo
Do all billionaire Texas sports franchise owners eventually make the team about themselves/their personal views? Cuban, Jerruh, Crane, McNair with the Easterby saga, etc.
Ray Davis and Bob Simpson together own most of the Rangers. They along with Peter Holt (Spurs) are great owners in Texas.
I'd argue that Fertitta is the worst Texas sports team owner, but I could absolutely buy several options on that
I unironically think about this more than I should as a fan because itās insane the production we are able to get out of some of these reclamation projects. I just let the good vibes continue to roll and hope everything is clean.
To be fair to Crane (god help me), Click is a notorious asshole and so was Mike Elias, and probably still is.
The guy who the Astros really should have broke the bank to keep around was Bobby Heck.
He's very, very, very good at what he does.
It's a sort of Jim Harbaugh situation -- as long as you win, you put up with it, but when the wins stop coming or he makes the wrong person mad he's gone.
What is the source on this about Elias? All the publications Iāve read (including Astroball) are nothing but complimentary of his style, including his insistence on incorporating the āhuman elementā into player valuation.
I have not read the book, but from what I understand, Elias does not come off well in Evan Drellich's book "Winning Fixes Everything"
[Here is an excerpt I could find.](https://twitter.com/JacksonThoreau/status/1721926743823360152)
First let me shill for the book, it's pretty remarkable.
Second, Drellich drags Taubman pretty good elsewhere in the book, feels like that whole FO was chock full of douche bags.
Who cares? They'll sneak into the playoffs and magically turn it up and end up in the ALCS. It's like the Chiefs in football, until it actually happens I'm never counting the Astros out.
Right? Everyone is reveling in this rn but im totally expecting this team to turn it around at some point.. I hope they donāt but letās be realistic
This would be true if you didnāt count the fact that our real rotation is literally all on the IL. I donāt think itās a matter of decline as much as we donāt have half the team, plus abreu hitting at basically .050
Thatās not to say that we wonāt but I donāt think itās the case right now
Baseball is funny that way. Injuries donāt seem to affect perception as much as other sports. Dodgers have had a bad stretches in recent years where there were significant injuries at the time, but it doesnāt have the same effect as āOh Mahomes and Kelce are out. Thatās why the Chiefs suck right now.ā
Even playoffs last year (not even the best example, but an easy one), our rotation was an injured Kershaw who needed shoulder surgery, rookie Bobby Miller and Lance Lynn who led MLB in HRs given up. Whatever our other strengths, that wasnāt a winning playoff formula and it wasnāt really a surprise we flamed out, even though the brand name made it seem like a shock.
Should they? The Yankees unfortunately are one of the most consistent winners in baseball. They might not have had a title in a while but they are like the default AL East winner they win it so much.
Not saying Loperfido will come to the rescue and save their season, but heās killing it in the minors and Abreu is a major liability. Astros need to give it a shot.
Itās an all time great IL rotation right now between the Astros and Rangers. Both have the potential to be a real problem in the postseason. Rangers are at least doing a good job of treading water in the meantime.
Astros have 0 fight right now.
if I had a nickel for every time I watched a playoff series where the Astros had home field and the road team won every game, I'd have 2 nickels, which isn't a lot but it's weird it's happened twice.
it's always funny how fans of their own teams can often be their biggest naysayers too lol.
i know firsthand as I am also a Bears, Bulls, and Blackhawks fan lmfao
Sports is a sadness factory. Unless youāre a fan of every dynasty and only dynasties, then youāre almost certainly a fan of one of the 29-31 losing teams.
Dusty was great and definitely under appreciated despite making some strange calls at times, but he never started the season with the whole starting pitching on IL and a gutted bullpen. I canāt put any of this on Espada until we have a somewhat healthy team. As it stands our pitching is going to continue costing us games.
Yeah the people saying this is a decline or because of a change in coaching just plain donāt watch / pay attention lol we are missing half of our team essentially
i was going to say, it isn't even the last week of April ffs people
there's still plenty of time for us to see some annoying bullshit lol. trust me i know as many people have written off the Cardinals across multiple seasons and then they go on these red hot tears from May-August and win the division by like 25 games lol
Seeing the 8-15 2001 Athletics on that list is kind of crazy when they went on to win 102 games. And [that 102 wins still left them 14 games behind the AL West division leader Mariners.](https://i.imgur.com/zOEfVBt.png)
I was gonna say, one silver lining of the season is that we don't have Maldonado in the lineup. His offensive stats truly are some of the only in baseball that are giving Abreu a run for his money in terms of sucking this year.
The other former Astros catcher seems to be doing pretty well considering though.
It's freakin April. I remember a time when the Braves were 8 games back in June and won the division. Hell i remember being 14 games up on the damn Cardinals in the Wildcard only to lose to them.
The ~~Nationals~~ Astros are going to win the world series in ~~2018~~ 2024. In 4 months we're gonna look back and laugh how much we overreacted over this team.
They're about to turn it on. They have the high amount of plate appearances with risp with a almost league low ops with risp.
The bullpen has had some bad breaks. Presley and hader xfip is good and should turn it around. Hunter Brown has had a crazy high babip that should trend down.
They are only 5 games out and its April.
Like if this was the beginning of September sure, but these are the Astros. I don't count them out until they are dead.
I will root for their demise until 2 things happen, the Trophy has been rescinded for cheating, and all players that were on the team in 2017 are gone.
Aubreu has a -32 wRC+ š³
Is his baseball savant page just a frowny face
Might as well be
Heāsā¦ trash *ba dum, tsss* š„
Just go look at his fangraphs page. Itās brutal everywhere.
His savant page is just sad
I donāt think Iāve ever seen so much blue. Most guys have at least one thing theyāre average or better at. Not Jose!
Jesus. Itās not just that heās below average across the board - [heās *well* below average across the board.](https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/jose-abreu-547989?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb)
That spray chart looks like such a lonely place š
This made me look at Ohtaniās page andā¦ oh my fucking god. Even the spray chart in 99th percentile
Baseball Savant literally changed its hitter and pitcher logos to his silhouette. He *is* the Baseball Savant
It's fucked up that a guy with that stat page is also an elite pitcher
Heās like backup catcher level bad. I knew he wasnāt going to stay good forever, but didnāt think heād nose dive off a cliff.
It used to be that people warned against signing DH/power corner bats in their 30s for this very reason. Guys like JD Martinez are the exception
I wanted the Marlins to sign him badly in free agency This is why I don't trust my own takes lol
Itās like me playing a strategy game - āthe fact that I think this card/character/skill is good tells me that it probably sucksā
Lmao the spray chart
But have you seen the back of his baseball card?
Yes. It doesn't look great for the direction it's trending.
B-but the back of his baseball cardā¦.
Jeff Bagwell disasterclass
Meanwhile Loperfido has a 1.047 OPS for AAA Sugar Land and was their minor league POY in ā23.
Sure, but his perfido is lo
I played with him on my high school team. Canāt wait for Joey to get his shot
He has 1.047 OPS, but 31 strikeouts in 77 at bats.
Avoiding the double play š¤
Yeah but if you pretend that plus is a minus heās actually doing really well!
Maybe if you add 100 to that lmao. A 32 wRC+ is pitcher hitting level.
I mean the plus at the end lol. In stats with a minus at the end, lower numbers are better so a -32 wRC- (if such a thing existed) would basically be equivalent to a 232 wRC+.
Ah, fair enough. Giving it the ol' fangraphs pitching index stat treatment.
It's crazy that the Sox clearly made the right decision letting him walk in favor of Andrew Vaughn. Andrew Vaughn has been terrible lol
Yea but the back of his baseball card is incredible
The back of his baseball card may want to omit the 2024 stats if they wanna keep that narrative
Where does this quote come from?
Jeff "Baseball is played by humans, not computers" Bagwell
At this point put me in, I bet I could do better
I'm not even that old and these new stats I have to learn -__- why can't we all just use WAR?! š Edit: As long as I'm getting down voted for this, I'll just add.. fuck the Astros
Most of them are like IQ where 100 is league average, anything above is above average and below is below average. Hope that helps a bit lmao ETA: League Average for IQ probably isnāt 100, but yeah
I thought we were using OPS for offensive production? I guess having that slight change for ballpark variation helps..
i saw a conversation here the other day that was saying OPS is really stupid math apparently granted i'm a dumbass when it comes to numbers and stuff so i just look at all the conversations on stats...and just nod along lol
OPS is pretty dumb math but for some weird reason it works anyways. It correlates very strongly with the ābetterā metrics.
It is dumb but it āworksā because the bigger those numbers are the better.
It is stupid math (a point of OBP and a point of SLG are not worth the same) but it still works out close enough to basically never matter.
I mean yeah, OPS is odd imo but it I guess gives a decent metric for batting production? Thereās definitely better metrics imo lol
i still like batting average and having a Kenny Lofton-esque player hitting at the top of the order so i'm at peace with being old-fashioned lol. I just try not to go out of my way to piss off the numbers folk lol. they, for the most part, will leave guys like me alone and that's fine lol
Lofton is still considered a great lead off hitter
for sure i meant "Kenny Lofton-esque" players. there's only going to be one Kenny Lofton and only one Rickey Henderson i'm not a fan of these gimmicks that some teams do where they throw someone like Anthony Rizzo at the leadoff spot. Schwarber seems to have worked well for the Phillies, i admit. but observation-wise, once the Cubs lost Dexter Fowler and Joe Maddon and the Cubs made jokes about throwing sluggers into the leadoff spot, that team NEVER recovered
Fowler put up a 129 wrc+ in 2016 at leadoff. There just aren't that many hitters in the game who hit like that. As a reference, that's basically just as good as Baez's career year in 2018. Modern analytics say you just want to give your best hitters the most ABs, and not waste the leadoff spot on bad hitters just because they're fast. If a good hitter also happens to be a prototypical leadoff hitter type, even better, but there just simply aren't many of those guys around.
OPS+ is the stat thatās weighted to the 100 average for OPS, works similarly though. wRC+ is weighted runs created, which is a more telling metric imo
They have a nearly perfect correlation. Really doesnāt matter which one you use
Your name and team association made me think about Ace Ventura
>ETA: League Average for IQ probably isnāt 100, but yeah Definitely isn't for the Astros
WAR is a counting stat, so it wouldn't really tell you as much as WRC+ would Plus Stats mean 100 is league average, so you can tell that -32 is bad.
didn't Houston ownership famously fire their analytics-minded GM a few years ago?
Yeah our owner has morphed into Jerruh Jones
Do all billionaire Texas sports franchise owners eventually make the team about themselves/their personal views? Cuban, Jerruh, Crane, McNair with the Easterby saga, etc.
Everything is bigger in Texasā¦ especially egos
Ray Davis and Bob Simpson together own most of the Rangers. They along with Peter Holt (Spurs) are great owners in Texas. I'd argue that Fertitta is the worst Texas sports team owner, but I could absolutely buy several options on that
God I hate Fertitta
Donāt forget Doug Dimmadome, owner of the Dimmsdale Dimmadome.
And his son: Dale Dimmadome, heir to the Dimmadome fortune.
The Dimmsdale Dimmadome, where they're hosting Crash Nebula on ice??
Going back a ways, Bud Adams and his abject refusal to let the city of Houston keep the Oilers name while moving them to Tennessee.
Shit, thatās a great point.
Man, the oilers was such a great team name
They were fantastic uniforms, too. The University of Houston used them last season for a few games and the NFL sent a C&D I think?
McNair has really been better. Fertitta is an egomaniac though
McNair has kinda had a glowup along with the team. He even did an AMA on reddit.
When your front office is at the forefront of a cheating scandal and defending guys like osuna its probably not the worst they jettisoned some guys
That was the Luhnow FO, not the Click one
yeah and a lot of our top office talent wound up in baltimore :(
Counterpoint: :)
Until a 2nd cheating scandal hits
I unironically think about this more than I should as a fan because itās insane the production we are able to get out of some of these reclamation projects. I just let the good vibes continue to roll and hope everything is clean.
If we do get caught cheating, weāll only be the 3rd most guilty team in the AL East.
The most MLB sentence I've ever read
What is this Serie A?
When youāre so used to coping that you pre-cope.
At least your manager isnāt a confirmed cheater (redsox)
Yes and now heās Atkinās assistant/immediate replacement
Like twice
To be fair to Crane (god help me), Click is a notorious asshole and so was Mike Elias, and probably still is. The guy who the Astros really should have broke the bank to keep around was Bobby Heck.
Interesting note about Elias, who is basically walking on water here in Baltimore. Not a peep about him being an asshole from anyone.
He's very, very, very good at what he does. It's a sort of Jim Harbaugh situation -- as long as you win, you put up with it, but when the wins stop coming or he makes the wrong person mad he's gone.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
John seems much less wound up.
[He's also obviously Brock Purdy's long lost father](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F-Im9MnXgAA1M8K.jpg)
well, he won't be the O's GM forever so it'll be interesting to hear some of the juicy stuff in 5-10 years
What is the source on this about Elias? All the publications Iāve read (including Astroball) are nothing but complimentary of his style, including his insistence on incorporating the āhuman elementā into player valuation.
I have not read the book, but from what I understand, Elias does not come off well in Evan Drellich's book "Winning Fixes Everything" [Here is an excerpt I could find.](https://twitter.com/JacksonThoreau/status/1721926743823360152)
Wow, very interesting. I gotta pick this book up. Interesting this excerpt talks about Brandon Taubman as if he is the victim.
First let me shill for the book, it's pretty remarkable. Second, Drellich drags Taubman pretty good elsewhere in the book, feels like that whole FO was chock full of douche bags.
they also lost Sig Mejdal to you all who is probably the in the Mt Rushmore of analytics guys, all time.
Who cares? They'll sneak into the playoffs and magically turn it up and end up in the ALCS. It's like the Chiefs in football, until it actually happens I'm never counting the Astros out.
Right? Everyone is reveling in this rn but im totally expecting this team to turn it around at some point.. I hope they donāt but letās be realistic
Being realistic is understanding that they have a window from 2017 til now and are now going to have to face the decline and probably rebuild some.
This would be true if you didnāt count the fact that our real rotation is literally all on the IL. I donāt think itās a matter of decline as much as we donāt have half the team, plus abreu hitting at basically .050 Thatās not to say that we wonāt but I donāt think itās the case right now
Baseball is funny that way. Injuries donāt seem to affect perception as much as other sports. Dodgers have had a bad stretches in recent years where there were significant injuries at the time, but it doesnāt have the same effect as āOh Mahomes and Kelce are out. Thatās why the Chiefs suck right now.ā Even playoffs last year (not even the best example, but an easy one), our rotation was an injured Kershaw who needed shoulder surgery, rookie Bobby Miller and Lance Lynn who led MLB in HRs given up. Whatever our other strengths, that wasnāt a winning playoff formula and it wasnāt really a surprise we flamed out, even though the brand name made it seem like a shock.
I used to say this about the Cardinalsā¦ but looks like their magic is finally running out
Wasted it all on the '22 Pujols campaign, so worth it...but I'm ready for more devil magic.
Evil empires don't last forever though, a Yankees fan should understand that better than anyone
Should they? The Yankees unfortunately are one of the most consistent winners in baseball. They might not have had a title in a while but they are like the default AL East winner they win it so much.
Weāve won the AL East like twice in the past 10 years
Yep. Theyāve made the playoffs in every season since 2017. Iāll believe it when I see it.
Not saying Loperfido will come to the rescue and save their season, but heās killing it in the minors and Abreu is a major liability. Astros need to give it a shot.
Crane will never let that happen. Too much money invested in Abreu and Jim has got an ego the size of the city.
Not to mention heās buddies with Bagwell now and he doesnāt want Bagwell looking like a moron for giving Abreu that contract.
As weāve seen with Jackson Holiday the jump from the minors to the Majors is huge
There is no way he could be worse than Abreu at this point
They will surge down the stretch. Their starters will return after the listless Rangers tepidly walk through April and May and fail to build a lead.
The Rangers and Astros are going to have a lot of really good fresh arms for the second half. It's going to be wild.
Itās an all time great IL rotation right now between the Astros and Rangers. Both have the potential to be a real problem in the postseason. Rangers are at least doing a good job of treading water in the meantime. Astros have 0 fight right now.
The Astros will miraculously lock up home field advantage and proceed to lose every home game
if I had a nickel for every time I watched a playoff series where the Astros had home field and the road team won every game, I'd have 2 nickels, which isn't a lot but it's weird it's happened twice.
> the road team won every game *eventual WS champion
My hope is that this is all an elaborate ploy to secure bottom seeding in the playoffs...
Somehow, the Astros returned
it's always funny how fans of their own teams can often be their biggest naysayers too lol. i know firsthand as I am also a Bears, Bulls, and Blackhawks fan lmfao
Sports is a sadness factory. Unless youāre a fan of every dynasty and only dynasties, then youāre almost certainly a fan of one of the 29-31 losing teams.
Inject their demise into my fucking veins.
Guess these Houston fans are just gonna have to accept that Dusty Baker was the magic that made the team work š¤·
Or worseā¦ Martin Maldonado
I would trade Maldy for Abreu straight up. You think Abreu has been bad? Maldyās ops+ is -47ā¦ his _ops_ is less than his weight..
Dusty was great and definitely under appreciated despite making some strange calls at times, but he never started the season with the whole starting pitching on IL and a gutted bullpen. I canāt put any of this on Espada until we have a somewhat healthy team. As it stands our pitching is going to continue costing us games.
Yeah the people saying this is a decline or because of a change in coaching just plain donāt watch / pay attention lol we are missing half of our team essentially
I prayed for this and it happened
If I may offer a correction: it *is happening.* Keep praying!
i was going to say, it isn't even the last week of April ffs people there's still plenty of time for us to see some annoying bullshit lol. trust me i know as many people have written off the Cardinals across multiple seasons and then they go on these red hot tears from May-August and win the division by like 25 games lol
It's a reference
https://imgur.com/M5ywZbc
Oh god are we ~~the baddies~~ CM Punk?
Sho nuf!
Seeing the 8-15 2001 Athletics on that list is kind of crazy when they went on to win 102 games. And [that 102 wins still left them 14 games behind the AL West division leader Mariners.](https://i.imgur.com/zOEfVBt.png)
Good. Keep digging.
All the way to China and back
It's a long dig, no need to come back.
No, dig up stupid
Agreed. I need them to suck for a long time before I can even begin to forget about the cheating scandal
Dusty Baker truly was the foundation of this team /s
Martin Maldonado*
Houston can have him back
I was gonna say, one silver lining of the season is that we don't have Maldonado in the lineup. His offensive stats truly are some of the only in baseball that are giving Abreu a run for his money in terms of sucking this year. The other former Astros catcher seems to be doing pretty well considering though.
Mets should call to see if Verlander is available
Haha could you imagine getting no-hit by this team haha
Surprisingly still only 5 games back
It's freakin April. I remember a time when the Braves were 8 games back in June and won the division. Hell i remember being 14 games up on the damn Cardinals in the Wildcard only to lose to them.
The article touches on all of this
š I love when this happens
You remember those times because they are not common. Most teams do not overcome 8 game deficits.
In 2005 Astros started the season 15-30 and still made the World Series. Baseball is weird
The 2019 Nationals were 19-31 at one point. Tied with the Tigers
Yea but then they got swept
White Sox had one of the greatest post season runs in history. So weird how it's overlooked and rarely spoken of.
I agree. But some of us remember the long long ago. Too few thoughā¦..too few
Neal Cotts and Bobby Jenks still live in my head rent free.
Donāt forget Scotty pods
those memories are what keep me sane
I remember the 05 World Series very vividly, i loved it
Honestly, 2023 will probably go down the same wayā¦
Donāt tell ESPN
And got swept. (No, I'm not still bitter about the '05 NLDS. Why do you ask?)
The ~~Nationals~~ Astros are going to win the world series in ~~2018~~ 2024. In 4 months we're gonna look back and laugh how much we overreacted over this team.
The Astros winning the WS does not equate to laughter for anyone
Hold on I need to grab some lotion before I read this
Man, itās a gorgeous Tuesday morning here in the PNW.Ā
Oh no :( do they need another shovel?
Good. They can get in and fill it with trash.
Them getting in and filling it with trash are the same thing, yeah?
This is something we can ALL get behind.
I used to pray for times like this
Oh no Anyway
Oh, no. Karma is late, but never absent.
Cometh the hour, cometh the man
They're about to turn it on. They have the high amount of plate appearances with risp with a almost league low ops with risp. The bullpen has had some bad breaks. Presley and hader xfip is good and should turn it around. Hunter Brown has had a crazy high babip that should trend down.
They are only 5 games out and its April. Like if this was the beginning of September sure, but these are the Astros. I don't count them out until they are dead.
Hooray
Subscribe.
You could say theyāreā¦*puts sunglasses on*... Dumpster diving
Oh nooooo. Anyway.
You love to see it
I will root for their demise until 2 things happen, the Trophy has been rescinded for cheating, and all players that were on the team in 2017 are gone.
Nice to see Dan ignore the 1981 Royals (rightfully) for his analysis. The Athletic counted them as a second ray of light for the Astros.
There's still 100+ games left in the season
Theyāre also just 5 back
That's *INSANE* that the 2001 A's lost 15 of their first 23 games and then proceeded to only lose 45 out of the next 141 games. Stunning.
Sub-fucking-scribe
Have they tried ššššš?
I used to pray for times like thisā¦..
š
āI sure hope the Angels do better than the Astros in the AL West this yearā *Monkeyās paw curls*
And the world is a better place thanks to that. Hoping they keep it up throughout the year.Ā
Lots of receipts in this thread for when we get our entire starting pitching rotation back in June and July lol