Apollo79 said:

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Mathguy64 said:

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On the Walker complete fall off the cliff, I wonder how much of it was separation based. His wife was pregnant and still in Phoenix I think? He's not there and she's probably stressed so he's stressed.

That can't be easy.

Add in the oblique early and now it's all crashing down.

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pooor guy making millions of dollars playing baseball setting his family up for life.

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Agreed

Getting paid $60M to suck ass

Meanwhile Jon Singleton could have provided better value at a much cheaper cost, and he never got his big contract

That's baseball I guess. Back of the baseball card not always reliable

EastCoastAgNc said:

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agproducer said:

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EastCoastAgNc said:

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Mr.Bond said:

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AJ still lives here.......

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I think he's under contract, so you'd have trade for him, which the tigers will not do.

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If the Tigers crater in the upcoming days -- does AJ get fired?

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If he does, why would we want him?

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Boggles my mind this forum wants Hinch after he committed the two biggest acts of baseball terrorism this franchise has and will ever see. Talk about pining for an ex. Yikes

I like Hinch a lot but

I think it's time for a fresh outside (and never been in) the organization hire at manager.

Framber was allowed to get away with pegging Salazar, for what?

The 2019 roster ain't walking back through the door with Hinch lol

He's a good manager, but it's about the players. If Espada gets the axe, it's a CYA move from Dana, who supposedly was the one pushing to hire Espada in the first place, although that could have just been FO speak

We have a high floor but low ceiling with Espada. He's good enough to keep the boat afloat but he won't rock it for better or worse. Even Dusty called out lazy Chas, fought the fans and media over Yanier and the whole Framber fiasco would have never happened under his watch

I also don't think Espada will make the tough calls regarding his staff and will want to keep the status quo.

Just gotta flex that my first hit of the year come off a lefty who played a couple years in the minors

BadAggie said:

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Framber was allowed to get away with pegging Salazar, for what?

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Wording my man...Wording

Ag_07 said:

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BadAggie said:

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Framber was allowed to get away with pegging Salazar, for what?

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Wording my man...Wording

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I was thinking the same thing.

This is good use of data visualization IMO

The Astros home performance mapped out with notable injuries. I had to leave off a ton of guys but you get the picture. Things really went to hell in a handbasket when they lost Peña, Meyers, and Paredes back to back to back. https://t.co/M1fNp856sm pic.twitter.com/kTR3xhWR1J

— Daniel Meyer (@TheAstrosLocker) September 22, 2025

Zach Dezenzo hit a homer for Sugar Land today. Wonder if he's a possibility to rejoin the Astros this week in California

— Adam Spolane (@AdamSpolane) September 22, 2025

I agree with everything said about Walker's bat. Him pinch hitting in the 8th on Saturday night was like "What's the point?" A lot of people in my section clearly had been to / watched enough games to know that wasn't a solution to the problem.

That being said, he's outstanding in the field. It's easy to see we'd get this production from Big Jon on offense, but even 120 games of SIngleton playing 1B would have been a nightmare.

I guess I have some sort of pathetic faint hope that Walker will alter his swing to adjust for his lack of bat speed at this age, but it seems unlikely. His final numbers will be close enough to 25 HR and 90 RBI to seem like he had a decent year.

In a lot of ways, our decline synced up with Cam Smith hitting the rookie wall. Disclaimer: we should never have been in a position to rely on a rookie as a lynchpin.

But in a year where so many guys have padded stat lines while consistently failing with runners in scoring position, Cam Smith was actually hitting in the clutch. And with the injuries, he had moved up to the heart of the order and consistently picked up hits in RISP situations.

When he hit the wall on tip of the injuries, we had no one left who could be counted on to drive runners in. And relying on HR to score is an awful strategy when your opponents all play gorilla ball better than you.

Drunken Overseas Bettor said:

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I agree with everything said about Walker's bat. Him pinch hitting in the 8th on Saturday night was like "What's the point?" A lot of people in my section clearly had been to / watched enough games to know that wasn't a solution to the problem.

That being said, he's outstanding in the field. It's easy to see we'd get this production from Big Jon on offense, but even 120 games of SIngleton playing 1B would have been a nightmare.

I guess I have some sort of pathetic faint hope that Walker will alter his swing to adjust for his lack of bat speed at this age, but it seems unlikely. His final numbers will be close enough to 25 HR and 90 RBI to seem like he had a decent year.

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Walker's defensive stats this year are not great

AggiEE said:

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Drunken Overseas Bettor said:

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I agree with everything said about Walker's bat. Him pinch hitting in the 8th on Saturday night was like "What's the point?" A lot of people in my section clearly had been to / watched enough games to know that wasn't a solution to the problem.

That being said, he's outstanding in the field. It's easy to see we'd get this production from Big Jon on offense, but even 120 games of SIngleton playing 1B would have been a nightmare.

I guess I have some sort of pathetic faint hope that Walker will alter his swing to adjust for his lack of bat speed at this age, but it seems unlikely. His final numbers will be close enough to 25 HR and 90 RBI to seem like he had a decent year.

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Walker's defensive stats this year are not great

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He's a helluva lot better than Abreu or Singleton, I don't care what the defensive numbers say. Yuli was a big plus on D, which was quite a surprise, actually.

It doesn't get overlooked here but a lot of people don't realize that the career Yuli Gurriel has was nothing short of f-in phenomenal.

To come here at his age and learn a completely new position and continue to hit as well as he did.

Dude won a GG and a batting title and he didn't start his MLB career until he was what 32? And has stuck around for this long.

Hell there were doubts of whether his hit tool would even translate. No one would've ever thought he'd win a GG at 1B.

Absolutely incredible

Ag_07 said:

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Apollo79 said:

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Mathguy64 said:

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On the Walker complete fall off the cliff, I wonder how much of it was separation based. His wife was pregnant and still in Phoenix I think? He's not there and she's probably stressed so he's stressed.

That can't be easy.

Add in the oblique early and now it's all crashing down.

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pooor guy making millions of dollars playing baseball setting his family up for life.

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If you want to feel sorry for a dude making a ton of money playing a game by all means go ahead life isn't fair booo hooo

Apollo79 said:

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Ag_07 said:

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Apollo79 said:

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Mathguy64 said:

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On the Walker complete fall off the cliff, I wonder how much of it was separation based. His wife was pregnant and still in Phoenix I think? He's not there and she's probably stressed so he's stressed.

That can't be easy.

Add in the oblique early and now it's all crashing down.

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pooor guy making millions of dollars playing baseball setting his family up for life.

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If you want to feel sorry for a dude making a ton of money playing a game by all means go ahead life isn't fair booo hooo

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I spent 10 years working on the road, to make twice as much as I did locally. That put me away from home just about every week, home on weekends, and a couple times for a month in a foreign country.

It's called making a living, and sacrificing to give your family and kids a better future. I didn't make Walker money, but I did put a heck of a lot away for retirement, and we own our house outright, so there's that.

Show me where anyone said they feel sorry for him.

You're the one who brought that up.

Espada juggled a lot this season through the injuries

But his milquetoast managerial style will, barring an unexpected playoff run at this point, have done him in

Way too many games just accepting some egregious ball/strike calls

Failure to handle Framber's knucklehead antics on multiple occasions

Even with the injuries, too much lineup roulette

Never really changing the approach to holding runners on first

Too many questionable reliever decisions

The quick exit in the postseason last year perhaps is a better measure of his capabilities versus expectations, but there was enough this season to warrant moving on.

I stayed on the Espada train longer than most on here but the Framber/Salazar incident is what finally pushed me over the ledge.

How he handles that was really really disappointing.

Other than the pitching coaches, this is an opportunity for Dana to clean house and start afresh.

I understand the desire to extend the qualifying offer to Framber to secure the draft pick but you gotta move on, and there's the distinct possibility that's the best he will be able to pull

plus the 6-man rotation

it was a disaster for the bullpen

whose idea was that?

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/46200122/mlb-2025-buster-olney-manager-gm-exec-front-office-changes-decisions

https://www.si.com/mlb/orioles/news/insider-lists-3-potential-orioles-managerial-candidates-grant9

Urias' last appearance was on 9/13, did he piss in somebody's Cheerios? Not that he was lighting it up, but curious

that is good data

the Astros were 6-6 at home in August and 5-5 at home in September

however it's hard to blame injuries for the offense after August 1st...because Correa, Sanchez, and Urias were added (and Pena was back by then)

this is where Espada mismanaged things...especially with regard to Dubon.

Dubon started 21 games in August (his second highest monthly start total of the season) -- despite the 4 players above joining the lineup. Dubon provided .504 OPS in August in 80 at-bats.

Dubon's OPS in September is .499

Joe played him way too much

W said:

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that is good data

the Astros were 6-6 at home in August and 5-5 at home in September

however it's hard to blame injuries for the offense after August 1st...because Correa, Sanchez, and Urias were added (and Pena was back by then)

this is where Espada mismanaged things...especially with regard to Dubon.

Dubon started 21 games in August (his second highest monthly start total of the season) -- despite the 4 players above joining the lineup. Dubon provided .504 OPS in August in 80 at-bats.

Dubon's OPS in September is .499

Joe played him way too much

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Joe not only defers to back of the baseballcard

He also defers to HEB commercial status

Apparently Dubon is a celebrity that MUST be played.

Which makes no sense when you have Urias with a .200 higher OPS and ditto for Sanchez. They should have taken away most of Dubon's starts.

AggiEE said:

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W said:

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that is good data

the Astros were 6-6 at home in August and 5-5 at home in September

however it's hard to blame injuries for the offense after August 1st...because Correa, Sanchez, and Urias were added (and Pena was back by then)

this is where Espada mismanaged things...especially with regard to Dubon.

Dubon started 21 games in August (his second highest monthly start total of the season) -- despite the 4 players above joining the lineup. Dubon provided .504 OPS in August in 80 at-bats.

Dubon's OPS in September is .499

Joe played him way too much

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Joe not only defers to back of the baseballcard

He also defers to HEB commercial status

Apparently Dubon is a celebrity that MUST be played.

Which makes no sense when you have Urias with a .200 higher OPS and ditto for Sanchez. They should have taken away most of Dubon's starts.

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Dubon has been here for years, they are the new guys. Bench coach mentality is to not upset the vets by taking away playing time for the new guys. Dana will probably have to find a way to let Dubon go elsewhere to force Joe to play Urias and Sanchez more. Like we had to do with Maldy and Dusty to force more time for Diaz.

Maybe true but reflects a bit of dysfunction with the fro t office. Why trade for players to fill gaps/needs and then the manager not use them. Makes trading less valuable than it should be

So we need to win the series against the A's or sweep them… then best case scenario the Tigers/Guardians series ends in a sweep as well

The good news is the guardians, Tigers and Red Sox have a lot of guaranteed losses coming up.

Cleveland and Detroit play 3. That's 3 guaranteed losses.

Boston plays Toronto and Toronto is being squeezed by Seattle and NYY so that series will be real.

Detroit plays Boston. That's 3 guaranteed losses.

All we have to do is take advantage of the losses. I just have no confidence this team can do that. They look beaten.

Is Nick Kurtz available for this upcoming series? If so, we may be ****ed.

Whatever we think this team is, they seem to do the opposite the next series. So this time, when they start winning again, we need to not think they have gotten back their mojo. Just keep thinking they have given up.