Wednesday Morning Astros, etc Round Up
by Evan Hochschild on Aug 26, 2009 6:00 AM CDT
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PrintJJO has quite a bit of information for us in his latest blog post. For one, Mike Hampton is going to get plasma therapy for his ailing shoulder. And damn it folks, I'm a law student, not a doctor- so here's an article from the New York Times which details the procedure and its benefits. I respect Hampton a great deal for trying as hard as he can to get back, but the fact remains that there are less than 40 games in the season. Since the Astros are most likely going to be using September to see what their young pitchers have to offer in 2010, does Mike even get the opportunity to come back and make a start or two?
Speaking of young starters, fresh off his strong outing on Sunday Felipe Paulino could start on Sunday vs. the D-Backs. Paulino has admitted that his not knowing what his role will be from day to day is mentally taxing:
"You know how good it feels when they say you're going to relieve, because I feel more comfortable when I know what fixed role I have," he said. "Sometimes my mind wanders when I don't know what my role is. It's hard to say it, but it's true sometimes it's harder to focus when I don't have a set role.
Chalk it up to another bit of mismanagement by Cecil Cooper. If the Astros had a loss for every Cecil Cooper blunder...they'd probably be three games under .500 after 135 games.
Yorman Bazardo and Bud Norris will give it a go on Friday and Saturday respectively. So this is it Astros' fans: the potential for a series to be started by three young, promising arms. This occurrence has been like Halley's Comet in the Houston organization. Let's hope that trend ceases in 2009.
From MLB Daily Dish, two interesting links for ya. First off, the Diamondbacks are apparently looking to bolster their bullpen. LaTroy Hawkins, anyone? I don't know if it necessarily makes sense for a struggling team whose farm system isn't all that strong, but we shall see.
Second, Buck Showalter's ready to help baseball with a re-alignment plan. Some of his statements about how the NFL doesn't have two distinct leagues seems a bit off because, well, they have the NFC and AFC. Beyond that though, it's still sort of cool to think about changing things up.
A lot of people have had a coming to God moment- where their minds open up and they come to accept something new. Well, baseball geeks probably go through something similar, but instead of God, they come to sabermetrics.
Zach Levine got to see Jose Vallejo collect a hit in his third straight game, and JR Towles knocked him in once for his first RBI since returning from injury.
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I'm fine with Hampton getting a couple of starts over the season remainder.
I have my doubts he will recover enough to do that. But it might be helpful if it prevents the Astros from penciling Norris in on too many starts for the remainder of the season. Maybe Hampton can save the Astros from blowing out one of the young pitcher’s arms.
The Nationals just signed Livan Hernandez to start for the remainder of the season for that very reason…to reduce the normal of innings piled up by their young pitching staff.
Thoughts
- On Brian McTaggart’s blog Mike Hampton mentioned he’d be willing to move to the bullpen and pitch 40 innings instead of 100+ innings a year.
- I know how Paulino is feeling not knowing what his role is, and that feeling is not fun especially when your boss comes up to you and asks why you’re standing around….uh you didn’t indicate what I needed to be doing, or give my any type of plan.
- I don’t believe the D’backs article was suggesting they trade for Hawkins, but sign him in the offseason.
by Timothy De Block on Aug 26, 2009 8:17 AM CDT reply actions
being a free agent..
i assume that latroy will be at least a “b” level free agent. so draft picks would be coming our way if we offered him arbitration and he refused..we shall see
by Evan Hochschild on Aug 26, 2009 8:22 AM CDT up reply actions
Showalter's re-alignment plan
Realignment seems a good idea to me; but holy cow I was screaming, “Be consistent, guys”.
They start by saying every team plays every other team in the MLB six times a year, three at home and three on the road. By reducing the league to 28 teams that leaves each team paying 162 games, same as currently. (I guess they could leave it at 30 teams and add a dozen games to the schedule). I can accept that.
Then they go bananas. They divide the teams into four regional divisions, talking about how thes will save travel time; how this will keep fans from staying up late to watch games in different time zones for the most part,etc
Duh. guys, the only way the second half works the way they intend is to give up the idea of each team playing six games against all the other teams.
What I would like is One NL and One AL, balanced schedule -top four teams from each league making the playoffs. (or if you like Showalter’s plan to have every team play six games against every other team, on league of 28 teams, no divisions) Every day there’d be changes in the standings.
Under the current setup , I not only don’t follow the AL much at atl; but I don’t pay that much attention to NL East and NL West games that closely.
Astros fan for life
by Joe in Birmingham on Aug 26, 2009 8:30 AM CDT reply actions
Fangraphs revisits the Lidge-Bourn Trade
Here’s the article. Conclusion:
It’s as if Bourn and Lidge are on some sort of see-saw since being traded for each other after the 2007 season. Lidge isn’t probably as good as he was last season, but he’s not as bad as he’s been this season. The same can be said of Bourn. I have to say, this trade is looking more even than I would have ever expected it to be.
The author believes Bourn isn’t as bad as last year, but that he isn’t really as good as he shows this year. He bases that on Bourn’s BABIP this season. I hope he is wrong about the latter part….for the Astros’ sake we have to hope that he had a break out this year and established his performance level over his peak years. What do you all think?
Time will tell
My money is that Bourn will add slightly more power next year but otherwise continue this year’s performance.
Astros fan for life
by Joe in Birmingham on Aug 26, 2009 10:45 AM CDT up reply actions
I'm happy
if Bourn is a roughly league-average hitter. As long as he stays a great fielder, the Astros have a solid contributor for the next few years.
Your friendly neighborhood Dream Shake mod.
I thought he was a very good defender last year and this
At the plate he seems a lot more comfortable. I’d guess he watches a lot of the garbage that he chased last year. And he’s still fast.
I have no science to this, just a gut observation, but if a player came to his stats by luck I would expect to see some fluctuation. There is none of that with Bourn. Since May 20th his AVG has never been lower than .282, never been higher than .302. He has been remarkably consistent, which to me suggests that he isn’t getting lucky. Surprise surprise – lightning fast guys who either pound it into the ground or hit line drives have high BABIPs.
by seanbergmanrules on Aug 26, 2009 10:38 AM CDT reply actions 1 recs
my thoughts exactly
ichiro is the greatest example of this idea…he’s light years beyond where bourn (or anyone for that matter) could hope to be, but all of this is true for him as well. Simple fact that fly ball hitters run into more bad luck than ground ball hitters..it’s just the nature of the beast
by Evan Hochschild on Aug 26, 2009 10:48 AM CDT up reply actions
maybe
but we see very, very few successful players who hit lots of ground balls. Still, Bourn’s LD rate rose by about 5% this year, and he seems to be more focused on just punching the ball into the outfield. That’s an approach that has a proven record of success, and hopefully he’ll be able to replicate it from here on out.
Your friendly neighborhood Dream Shake mod.
in tandem with a rising ld%, yes
it also depends on what your definition of success is. bourn will never be ian kinsler, smacking 30 hrs a season, and no matter how high his batting average gets, bourn won’t be able to make up for that lack of power. but the fact remains that as long as bourn is in his pre-free agent years, it’s likely that his salary will be “low” enough to justify his .280/.350ish/.400ish line.
by Evan Hochschild on Aug 26, 2009 11:01 AM CDT up reply actions
At first I felt like Ichiro may be the wrong comparison there, that maybe a less-powerful-Carl-Crawford was more apt. So I decided to look into them a little more.
Crawford has a career GB/FB ratio of 1.65.
Ichiro has a GB/FB of 2.34.
Bourn is in between the two at 2.14.
Interestingly, Ichiro’s better and worse BABIP seasons correspond to his better and worse infield hit seasons. The same cannot be said of Crawford. As usual with fangraphs, there’s a great article about how Ichiro achieves his exceptionally high levels of infield hits. The answer? He bats left (like Bourn and Crawford), he hits more grounders (which have a higher BABIP than FB), and goes to the opposite field more often than most lefties (opposite field being farther away from first base). Given this analysis, I wouldn’t be surprised if tomorrow Coop came out and said that he’d like for Michael to try pulling the ball a little more into right field.
My conclusion: cross your fingers and hope Bourn turns out like Ichiro.
I agree with Joe’s comment that Bourn may develop more power…not necessarily HR power (even though I think he can be a 10 HR hitter in a peak year), but I wouldn’t be surprised if he could become Biggio-like in his doubles ability. He already leads the NL in triples, and, given that MMP is conducive to triples, why would that stop? Bourn is on course to hit around 30 doubles this year, which isn’t bad. As long as Bourn continues to spray line drives around the outfield, I think his doubles ability can improve. Like Biggio, he can stretch singles into doubles. And when the line drives get over an outfielder’s head, it is an automatic double, and sometimes a triple. So, even if Bourn’s BABIP declines (and I really doubt he can sustain .290-.310 batting averages because of his K rate), he may still improve if his slugging creeps upward. Bourn’s ISO is the highest of his ML career this season.
When I wrote an article on Bourn earlier this season, I was surprised to see Kevin Bass as a “same age” comparable player for Bourn. (Bass, by the way, is an admirer of Bourn’s ability.) Bass is a guy who could hit triples, doubles, and the occasional HR.
there's an interesting discussion going on in the fangraphs' comments section..
where one guy made the ichiro-bourn comparison too
by Evan Hochschild on Aug 26, 2009 11:16 AM CDT up reply actions
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3 game series vs Dodgers @ Dodger Stadium
| Fri 05/25 |
WP: Lucas Harrell (4 - 3)
SV: Brett Myers LP: Clayton Kershaw (4 - 2) |
3 - 1 win |
| Sat 05/26 |
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Houston Astros
Sunday, May 27, 2012, 3:10 PM CDT Partly cloudy. Winds blowing out to right field at 10-15 m.p.h. Game time temperature around 75. |
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NL Central Standings
| W | L | PCT | GB | STRK | |
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Cincinnati
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26 | 20 | .565 | 0 | Won 1 |
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St. Louis
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25 | 22 | .531 | 1.5 | Lost 3 |
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Houston
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22 | 24 | .478 | 4 | Lost 1 |
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Milwaukee
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(updated 5.27.2012 at 1:03 AM CDT)
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