MaxPower said:

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What makes you think the sum of the parts is greater than the whole (especially this year)? This team has no business being in contention with all the injuries that have occurred. I'm not going to say we are in contention because of him but it's laughable to think the talent we have rolled out this season should be winning a division. It's a freaking miracle we are even in the playoff hunt, let alone leading the AL West.

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So, what's the basis of your argument then?

I'm not wanting to put words into your mouth with some passive-aggressive assessment, I'm just wanting to understand what goes into thinking that Espada isn't at the core of what's wrong.

For me...

- The medical staff is clearly a problem (misdiagnosis of significant injuries)
- The training staff is clearly a problem (the number of soft tissue injuries has been absolutely alarming)
- The hitting staff is and has been a problem (guys coming from other teams and declining, lack of approach at the plate with RISP, lack of any discernable strategy)
- The pitching staff has done well enough in terms of working with guys....but the volume of injuries over there (which absolutely outpaces what's happening with pitcher all over the league) has to lead to questions over what they're failing to see during BP sessions, etc.
- The in-game management has been a problem (running into outs on the bases constantly, poor lineup construction, poor bullpen usage, general lack of focus, PH management is just flat out bad by any measurement)

This is a continuation of the Dusty Baker era minus the career success of Dusty Baker...if a change isn't made after this season, then the organization is likely headed for a rebuild which will give us a new era of Bo Porter/Cecil Cooper/Brad Mills (a triumvirate whose names wouldn't ring a bell for the vast majority of Astros fans nowadays). It doesn't have to be like that; baseball doesn't have to be a build then bust sport.

Despite the recent slumps I think Joe has done plenty good considering the hand he's been dealt at times. That said if this team can't get to the postseason or has another quick exit then it's probably time to move on.

Seems like when things were going really well it was the "next man up" pitching performances that bailed us out time and time again. Mix that with the occasional AAAA guy going on a heater, like Matthews in AZ. Cam Smith starting his campaign really hot before hitting a wall. You thought to yourself, damn we have survived a lot of injuries and we are just that team that is "inevitable"

Now, the pitching has regressed, the bats aren't performing (few if any XBH's), and the team looks the worst that it has all season. Like 07 mentioned a few posts back, they will either figure it out and get hot at the right time or they won't, its completely up to them.

It's crazy to be this far into the season and still not be completely sure who this team is and will be. A lot of that will hinge on players coming back from injury (Meyers, Alvarez, Paredes, Hader, France, Garcia, etc.). The rest will be on the current team flipping the switch.

3B Paul 97 said:

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I'm concerned for Chas given he has pitched so well as of late. Joe will be tempted to use him in a leverage situation if it comes up today, but we really shouldn't try to pitch him 3 days in a row.

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Right now I'd take Chas pitching a game over McCullers or Arrighetti

To me your only potentially valid point is on the hitting coaches. I don't know what the connection is there but either hitting coaches in general are worthless or ours just suck. In either case, why do we need the existing ones?

All the medical / training stuff I assume is largely out of the managers control.

It makes zero sense to give the pitching coaches anything less than an A+. Even if our approach is contributing to injuries (a questionable assumption at best given how common injuries are amongst pitchers across orgs / levels), you take the results every time. It's savage but they have take a lot of chicken crap talents and made them usable pieces.

As for in game, I think his lineup construction has been generally fine. In general he has some really bad options, especially in the bottom half. I don't get too hung up on these should player X bat 2nd or 4th type arguments. You can't easily predict when a key appearance will occur and, once again, as long as your best hitters are hitting near the top of the lineup everything else goes to managers discretion. Up until the last month, we've been pretty good at getting runs across the plate with a powerless lineup.

Handling the pitching staff he has been good IMO. Outside the top 2 SP's it's piecemail and when you have to keep calling up AAA leftovers to scrape together 4 or 5 innings guys will get overworked. Bullpen ERA was good up until the last month when fatigue caught up to us plus throwing scrubs in meaningless blowouts as artificially inflated numbers.

Baserunning is one of those things that people take anecdotes and extrapolate too much. By most team baserunning metrics on statcast, we are about average at baserunning. Most of the teams at the top of the leaderboard are, unshockingly, very young and athletic (Brewers, Red Sox, Tigers, Rays).

Defensively we are top 10 in OAA, which I would say is pretty good without having your 2 best defensive players for large chunks of the season (Pena and Meyers).

Mathguy64 said:

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Injuries or not, we still have a lot of regular holes in the lineup. We still have 5 regular players who are below to well below league average players. You want to know why we can't score? Half of the lineup just cannot hit on a regular basis. Or in two cases hit at all.

Dubon is still playing almost daily.

Walker has an OPS of .700 and wRC+ of 95.

Diaz is .695 and 89.

Cam hasnt hit a HR since June and his July and August numbers are bad. Batting .214 in July and .186 in August.

Sanchez had been a bust. Let's not sugarcoat it. He had done less than nothing. Realistically he shouldn't be playing but that's not happening for a variety of reasons. .164/.220/.255. WRC+ 31 and a -0.3 fWAR. He's was awful against LHP before coming over, but he's not facing LHP because we don't see LHP.

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This is 100% valid and that's why I'm done with this management staff....

- Walker isn't some Cuban player who blossomed later in his career than most (Abreu) and was assessed on name only...he didn't just forget how to hit; he likely just got away from capable eyes who were watching his plate approach and helping him adjust.

- Sanchez is in a run that I'd venture looks as bad as any in his career; why does that keep happening with this staff??

- Cam and Yainer are somewhat linked, in my mind....guys that are good hitters and very talented guys, but as the league has gotten more on them, their reliance on talent over preparation isn't going to get them through it. My guess is that if you kept the same staff for the next 2 seasons after this...Cam Smith will look then exactly like Yainer looks today.

- Bregman went to another team and will re-enter the FA market having crushed one of the more damning criticisms of his game; that he is a notoriously slow starter...at some point it stops being a coincidence.

- Pena has had an absolutely phenomenal season and while all of my front office contacts left with Luhnow, I'd love to get some inside into what he has done differently. Just based on divergence of performance, I'm inclined to believe that he has someone else that he is working with on his plate approach.

I turn and look at Dana Brown and realize that here's a guy who has :

- Successfully not overpaid for Bregman

- Managed to avoid not having to overpay for Kyle Tucker and flipped him for an All Star 3rd baseman, a guy who has been a ROY candidate for most of the season until a bad July knocked him way back and a guy who also had been pretty solid in a few starts before going out for the season.

- Bonus for getting out from under Pressly for a prospect and cash and realizing that he was likely done

- He is quietly replenishing the farm system with quality that will likely start making itself known as early as next season as it goes from the quiet lower levels into the AA/AAA teams.

- Subpoint to that is that his drafts and the lack of success from what Click was doing (Melton is, I guess, the star James Click draft pick) is proving out that perhaps Crane saw something in Click's performance that bothered him deeply from a baseball POV and not just his refusal to make trades.

MaxPower said:

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To me your only potentially valid point is on the hitting coaches. I don't know what the connection is there but either hitting coaches in general are worthless or ours just suck. In either case, why do we need the existing ones?

All the medical / training stuff I assume is largely out of the managers control.

It makes zero sense to give the pitching coaches anything less than an A+. Even if our approach is contributing to injuries (a questionable assumption at best given how common injuries are amongst pitchers across orgs / levels), you take the results every time. It's savage but they have take a lot of chicken crap talents and made them usable pieces.

As for in game, I think his lineup construction has been generally fine. In general he has some really bad options, especially in the bottom half. I don't get too hung up on these should player X bat 2nd or 4th type arguments. You can't easily predict when a key appearance will occur and, once again, as long as your best hitters are hitting near the top of the lineup everything else goes to managers discretion. Up until the last month, we've been pretty good at getting runs across the plate with a powerless lineup.

Handling the pitching staff he has been good IMO. Outside the top 2 SP's it's piecemail and when you have to keep calling up AAA leftovers to scrape together 4 or 5 innings guys will get overworked. Bullpen ERA was good up until the last month when fatigue caught up to us plus throwing scrubs in meaningless blowouts as artificially inflated numbers.

Baserunning is one of those things that people take anecdotes and extrapolate too much. By most team baserunning metrics on statcast, we are about average at baserunning. Most of the teams at the top of the leaderboard are, unshockingly, very young and athletic (Brewers, Red Sox, Tigers, Rays).

Defensively we are top 10 in OAA, which I would say is pretty good without having your 2 best defensive players for large chunks of the season (Pena and Meyers).

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Injuries to pitching staffs are common....


...5 pitchers being on the IL due to Tommy John surgery is NOT common.

The luck +/- metric would have to be doing a lot of heavy lifting if it has nothing to do with a systemic problem with what they're doing on the days that they're not pitching.

The Beef01 said:

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MaxPower said:

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What makes you think the sum of the parts is greater than the whole (especially this year)? This team has no business being in contention with all the injuries that have occurred. I'm not going to say we are in contention because of him but it's laughable to think the talent we have rolled out this season should be winning a division. It's a freaking miracle we are even in the playoff hunt, let alone leading the AL West.

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So, what's the basis of your argument then?

I'm not wanting to put words into your mouth with some passive-aggressive assessment, I'm just wanting to understand what goes into thinking that Espada isn't at the core of what's wrong.

For me...

- The medical staff is clearly a problem (misdiagnosis of significant injuries)
- The training staff is clearly a problem (the number of soft tissue injuries has been absolutely alarming)
- The hitting staff is and has been a problem (guys coming from other teams and declining, lack of approach at the plate with RISP, lack of any discernable strategy)
- The pitching staff has done well enough in terms of working with guys....but the volume of injuries over there (which absolutely outpaces what's happening with pitcher all over the league) has to lead to questions over what they're failing to see during BP sessions, etc.
- The in-game management has been a problem (running into outs on the bases constantly, poor lineup construction, poor bullpen usage, general lack of focus, PH management is just flat out bad by any measurement)

This is a continuation of the Dusty Baker era minus the career success of Dusty Baker...if a change isn't made after this season, then the organization is likely headed for a rebuild which will give us a new era of Bo Porter/Cecil Cooper/Brad Mills (a triumvirate whose names wouldn't ring a bell for the vast majority of Astros fans nowadays). It doesn't have to be like that; baseball doesn't have to be a build then bust sport.

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Totally different sports and era, but these last few weeks have give me some "End of the 1970s Pittsburgh Steelers" era vibes. The Steelers had been a legit Super Bowl threat every year for a decade but their amazing run of draft acquisitions ran out Between 1969-1974 they drafted 9 guys that wound up being in the Hall o Fame, including four in the same draft. They didn't draft another HOFer for 13 years (Rod Woodson) and most of their guys were huge busts.

The Steelers' fall was more preciptuous than the Astros going from WS champs to AL runner-up to wildcard loser; they won back to back Super Bowls in 78-79, then missed the playoffs entirely in 1980. Their older guys were all 30-34 years old and some of their studs like Lynn Swann and John Stallworth missed games, with nobody to pick up the slack behind them. Their perennial strength - the defense - went from the best around - to last in their own division (most points allowed out of 4 teams). They only won 2 playoff games for the entire decade of the 80s.

Source: The #Astros are calling up RHP Logan VanWey, who will join the team in Detroit and provide a fresh bullpen arm.

VanWey made 7 appearances for the Astros earlier this season. pic.twitter.com/LHFEJSOt3K

— Ari Alexander (@AriA1exander) August 19, 2025

my god this thread is exhausting. two months ago Joe was going to win the manager of the year award and now we want him fired and the entire team imploded.

Again, let's not forget before this season started we lost two of our best hitters in Bregman and Tucker, and essentially Yordan as well due to injury. With that being said this team is somehow still in FIRST PLACE in the division and it has the third best record in the AL. Not sure if some of yall are just now discovering the game of baseball, or generally don't understand the ebb's and flows of the game (especially a MLB season). BUT, CALM THE F DOWN.

Yes, they are slumping and look bad currently but take a deep breath and enjoy the fact they are even in contention for the division and a playoff spot.

EastCoastAgNc said:

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Source: The #Astros are calling up RHP Logan VanWey, who will join the team in Detroit and provide a fresh bullpen arm.

VanWey made 7 appearances for the Astros earlier this season. pic.twitter.com/LHFEJSOt3K

— Ari Alexander (@AriA1exander) August 19, 2025

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Can't wait to see how his 1.98 WHIP at AAA translates back to MLB. He was not good in his earlier stint this season.

Astros Bingo Update 8-19-25

How many more times do i have to hear this weird yawning noise on the ad, Texags? HOW MANY?

What have I been reduced to with the Astros lately on the Bingo front? Hoping that Altuve gets a combined 3 hits between today and tomorrow. Doing so will get him to 2,365 and allow him to tie Tiger legend Alan Trammell while in Detroit. The Tigers don't have a ton of fans anymore but the times I've sat by them in other ballparks, they're classy and knowledgable and I get they'll recognize Tuve tying the guy who is most similar to him in their annals. Or if Jose wants to go crazy and get 7 hits, he can jump Trammell and tie their other lifer - Lou Whitaker - at 2,369.

Trammell is definitely a cautionary tale for how tough it is to get 3,000 hits. He had 1,929 at the end of his age 32 season in 1990. He played 6 more seasons, only got over 100 games played twice, and only got over 100 hits once down the stretch from age 33 to age 38.

The win total is officially down to 89. Nine people - including me - have that square.

The Rangers are about to start their 25-13 (.658) charge to 87 wins.

if you're one of the 5 dummies like me who picked Rafael Montero to have a sub 4.50 ERA, you have to pray he pitches today and tomorrow against Team Comatose, because right now he's at 5.52.

Totally agree - calm the f down. It's like 10 days ago when the M's were in their 10 game home stand - people on here acted like they were never going to lose again. They are 2-5 since they went on the road (w 2 more games at Phillie before returning home). Ideally we would've picked up more ground, but….
Get the pitchers back, get Yordan warmed up, and I still like our chances.

It's not unreasonable for Joe to be held to a similar standard as past managers like Dusty who moved on (or was let go) after an ALCS appearance and just a year after winning a title.

Espada knew the expectations of the job which is primarily based on postseason results not potential regular season awards.

Get through this rough patch (3 shutouts in 4 games is just that no matter how you slice it) and get on a run.

Drunken Overseas Bettor said:

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3B Paul 97 said:

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I'm concerned for Chas given he has pitched so well as of late. Joe will be tempted to use him in a leverage situation if it comes up today, but we really shouldn't try to pitch him 3 days in a row.

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Right now I'd take Chas pitching a game over McCullers or Arrighetti

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And Dubin

After back to back appearances, Chas is presumably unavailable to pitch tonight.

That being said in a do or die situation I’m sure he’s ready to go. Gamer. https://t.co/ffJyRpNArh

— Ari Alexander (@AriA1exander) August 19, 2025

Drunken Overseas Bettor said:

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can confirm that 2+ hours of 8th grade Algebra homework was a superior evening to watching 1 second of that game tonight.

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I'm not sure you're doing it right if a single 8th grade classes' homework is taking two hours in a given evening.

3B Paul 97 said:

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I'm concerned for Chas given he has pitched so well as of late. Joe will be tempted to use him in a leverage situation if it comes up today, but we really shouldn't try to pitch him 3 days in a row.

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You'd think our biggest problem going with one of our hottest relievers right now is that we have to be down by 8 runs, but it's proving not to be an obstacle.

Faustus said:

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Drunken Overseas Bettor said:

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can confirm that 2+ hours of 8th grade Algebra homework was a superior evening to watching 1 second of that game tonight.

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I'm not sure you're doing it right if a single 8th grade classes' homework is taking two hours in a given evening.

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There are two 8th graders in two different classes!

What an absolute slap in the face to a guy who needs it as well. Throwing Chas out there night after night saying "youre the one guy we don't worry about having to use"

AustinCountyAg said:

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my god this thread is exhausting. two months ago Joe was going to win the manager of the year award and now we want him fired and the entire team imploded.

Again, let's not forget before this season started we lost two of our best hitters in Bregman and Tucker, and essentially Yordan as well due to injury. With that being said this team is somehow still in FIRST PLACE in the division and it has the third best record in the AL. Not sure if some of yall are just now discovering the game of baseball, or generally don't understand the ebb's and flows of the game (especially a MLB season). BUT, CALM THE F DOWN.

Yes, they are slumping and look bad currently but take a deep breath and enjoy the fact they are even in contention for the division and a playoff spot.

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Exactly. The Astros are winning at a 55% clip, which beats the 54% target the Mariners strive to achieve (and, checks standing, are currently sitting on) according to their own GM.

So sit back, accept blowout losses, and enjoy the suck. Mediocrity is the new window that never closes!

Speaking of the struggle bus occupants...

Quote:

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Cubs right fielder Kyle Tucker is likely to get multiple days off after going 0-for-4 in Game 1 of a scheduled doubleheader Monday, manager Craig Counsell said after his team's 7-0 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers.

Tucker, 28, has struggled mightily this month, hitting .160 with zero extra-base hits. He was booed after each of his final three at-bats in the loss to the Brewers, including two weak groundouts and a popup to left field. He also grounded out in his first at-bat.

"The fans are frustrated, and Kyle is frustrated," Counsell said. "When you make outs, it doesn't look good. He's trying. It's just not clicking. We're going to have to take a step back here, just give him some days off to reset him, hopefully."

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Marvin said:

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. "When you make outs, it doesn't look good.

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Craig Counsell, manager of the year

Drunken Overseas Bettor said:

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Marvin said:

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. "When you make outs, it doesn't look good.

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Craig Counsell, manager of the year

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Kyle Tucker, lollygagger of the decade

Anybody in Corpus tonight? Need real time updates on Yordan!

Drunken Overseas Bettor said:

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Marvin said:

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. "When you make outs, it doesn't look good.

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Craig Counsell, manager of the year

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At least he seems to know to sit the guys that are in the midst of a month long slump instead of the guy that had the hot bat the night before.

EastCoastAgNc said:

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I don't blame him. I think most players react in some way at that point or even before.

Skubal strikeouts discount on PrizePicks right now 7 5.5

How the mighty have fallen with Chas.

Went from 2 ALCS home runs, WS potentially series saving catch, one of our best bats in 2023… And now he has been relegated to a non-leverage bullpen arm

Chas is playing because he has a pulse at this point.

tjack16 said:

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How the mighty have fallen with Chas.

Went from 2 ALCS home runs, WS potentially series saving catch, one of our best bats in 2023… And now he has been relegated to a non-leverage bullpen arm

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Hang in there, Chas!

Hornbeck said:

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Chas is playing because he has a pulse at this point.

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We assume he does but medical staff is still trying to confirm.