The Crawfish Boxes: An SB Nation Community

Navigation: Jump to content areas:


Pro Quality. Fan Perspective.
Around SBN: Vanderbilt 90, Tennessee 71: What Happened in Nashville

The game yesterday and Stros in general

What a nightmare for the pitchers. Every flyball was an adventure and 8 HRs total was pretty crazy. The only HR that was truly impressive was Pence's.

The good news:

Bourn is looking excellent. Having GREAT ABs and putting great contact on the ball. He is also amazing in CF. Anything close to this production and he will give the Astros the best leadoff hitter since Biggs of 8 years ago.

Pence is giving a mixed bag but good for the most part. His patience at the plate is worrisome to me but he has so much power he can get away with it more than most. If he was more selective no telling what he could accomplish this year.

Lee and Berkman both look like they should right now and that is always good.

Backe looks really good to me. He has had some good and not so good outings. I think he will put it together for a real solid campaign this year.

Roy Oswalt. Will win the Cy Young and most wins in 20 years or so.

Valverde is the only RP that has looked really good though they have enough arms to have a solid relief core.

The Bad:

Woody has been the pits this spring. Everyone is questioning if he will even make the team. Nothing he is doing seems to work this spring. JD(announcer) suggests he throws backwards like he did at the end of his career or like Jamie Moyer does now. Mainly throw junk and limit his 84 mph FB under 20 times per game.

Tejada has butchered SS all spring and though I am not that worried about his swing he hasn't done anything to relax the critics that think he is declining rapidly. I think he will be fine.

All the nagging injuries. The whole Paulino thing is very strange. Never heard of it until yesterday. Someone said he had a family friend in the Phillies organization with the same kind of problem and after a while they eventually removed part of a rib(I know this is crazy) and he was better in weeks. He had pain for a long time and post surgery he gained 4mph on his stuff.

Towles, Valverde, Matsui, and Wandy will all play big rolls on the club but haven't played in a while. Not a great thing.

What they might do:

It looks like Wright has the stuff to be on the roster and probably has the inside track right now. Sampson will likely get a spot in the rotation now and for sure if Woody continues to stumble. With Matsui out for the fist week or two Q might make the team and might even get traded in May. Abercrombie has come on strong lately but I don't think he makes the team over Cruz who is probably the Spring MVP.

That is all I can think of right now but if anyone hasn't seen or heard the Stros much ask a question and having seen or heard all the games available I will answer if I know something.

 

0 recs  |  Comment 2 comments

Story-email Email Printer Print

Comments

Display:

How effective...
"working backwards" would be for Williams might depend on how good his off-speed pitches are.  Fangraphs.com has the data on every type of pitch thrown by every ML pitcher for each of the last three years.  Here is the 2007 breakdown on Woody Williams (with avg. velocity in parentheses):

Fastball 59.3% (86.5) Slider 1.8% (81.3) Cutter 9.6% (83.5) Curve 20% (74.1) Change 9.1% (80.1)
Knuckleball 0.2% (70.5)

Comparing to previous years, the velocity of Woody's fastball has been decreasing each year by a decimal or two.  Also, Woody quit using his slider, compared to other years.  Not sure why, but I assume it was a conscious decision. Woody started using his change up more last year.  I am skeptical that he could survive throwing mainly changeups and curveballs. (Well, I suppose he could work on his knuckleball. partly joking here.)

I suppose Woody might get back in Cooper's good graces if he has a couple of good outings in his remaining spring training work.  But if that doesn't happen, the Astros face a tough decision.  I suspect they will let Williams start a few regular season games and see if he can break out of his rut before they do something as drastic as cutting him.  Something I will say in Woody's defense, though, (and I mentioned this last season too): he has been a streaky pitcher over most of his career, which makes me think that there is a possibility (albeit maybe remote) he could right himself.

by clack on Mar 18, 2008 4:54 PM CDT reply actions   0 recs

A lot of 'what ifs"
Bourn can cover CF I just want his OBP up - 340+ would be great.
Pence will have his up and down days at hs age.
Berkman and Lee will be Berkman and Lee and that is good for the Astros.
If we can convince Backe that every start is October he would win the Cy Young.  As it is I would take 180 innings and 3.9 ERA without even having to think about it.
Since 1987 about 4 players have won 24 games.  Shamus, you think Oswalt wins 25?  I'll take the under on 21.  Cy Young?  I'll bet no there too just on odds.  He is good but I can't say he is flat out better than Webb, Peavy, Zambrano, Haren, and maybe a couple others and will win it.

As for the bad...
Woody - dream about doing bad things to TPurp
Starters not named Oswalt - insert joke here
Tejada's glove - not what he is here for
Matsui - Stupid move by Wade in the first place and as for the 'injury' no need for a joke.  I am already laughing.

And the 'what ifs'...
Towles bat needs to come through and learn from Ausmus for the defense
Matsui needs an OBP above 325
Bourn needs to be close to what he has been in ST and all of the sudden the Lidge trade looks better.  I thought we could have gotten more.
Any starter that wants to have a breakout year is more than welcome.
IF those happen along with the guys we are already counting on a postseason is possible for the Astros this year.  I am still betting against it.

It's the next generation of Astros. Let's see if they can play like the men they are replacing.

by TBurford on Mar 19, 2008 12:44 PM CDT reply actions   0 recs

Comments For This Post Are Closed


User Tools

Welcome to the Crawfishboxes, the SBNation blog for the Houston Astros.
Start posting about the Astros »

Join SB Nation and dive into communities focused on all your favorite teams.

FanPosts

Community blog posts and discussion.

Recommended FanPosts

Small
Pitching Mechanics/Terms To Look/Listen For

Recent FanPosts

Johns_small
Vallejo and Lyon News
Small
Beating a Dead Horse: Should Berkman be a LHB?
Small
Pre-Spring NL Overview/Predictions
Small
Looking ahead to the 2010 mlb draft
39135485-59af19dbb26654095f910f34176af094_4ae8a81e-scaled_small
Predictions Group
Fbod6_small
Boys of Summer Revisited
Kids_small
Outsider's Astros prospects 30-21
Small
McTaggart: Wandy and Astros going to arbitration
Nsapcs13_large_small
Gumbel, Pearlman throw Bagwell into the McGwire mess

+ New FanPost All FanPosts >

THE CRAWFISH BOXES GETS SOCIAL

Picture_88_medium The Crawfish Boxes on Facebook

Picture_89_medium The Crawfish Boxes on Twitter

NL Central Standings

W L PCT GB STRK
St. Louis 91 71 .561 0 Lost 6
Chicago 83 78 .515 7.5 Lost 1
Milwaukee 80 82 .493 11 Won 3
Cincinnati 78 84 .481 13 Won 2
Houston 74 88 .456 17 Lost 3
Pittsburgh 62 99 .385 28.5 Lost 2

(updated 2.10.2010 at 5:43 AM CST)


Humble Blog Managers

Woodstock_small HighLeveragePerformer

Lovelance_small DyingQuail

Old_school_dome_logo_small David Coleman

Editors

Nsapcs13_large_small clack

Fbod6_small farm_stros