Houston Astros players cries and said “goodbye”to Joe Espada with transfer to Yankees now’on track’sealed deal.¡
Los Astros de Houston están eliminados de MLB 2024! ⚾️😱😬
Tigres de Detroit los barre en Minute Maid Park..Astros HOF Index: A Longitudinal Study..My earliest baseball memories were of watching the Astros in the early 1980s. I think Al Rosen was the general manager back then. I’ve gone through Bill Wood, Bob Watson, Gerry Hunsicker, Tim Purpura, Ed Wade, Jeff Luhnow, James Click, and finally Dana Brown. I might have left an early general manager out, but I think you get the idea of how far back I go.
I’ve learned two important things over the years. First, all of those general managers said they needed more pitching and that was when their clubs’ pitching outpaced their hitting in nearly every season. There is only one notable season where it did not and that was 2017. I wonder if there was anything special about that season. The second thing I know is that analysis in the wake of a playoff defeat is usually never sound. There is just too much raw emotion tied to it.
So, I thought what I would do is do a longitudinal study of sorts to look at the Astros in 2024 and the Astros in the playoffs from 2017 to 2024. If there is anything I detest it is small sample sizes. Anything can happen in two games and one lousy outing literally spoils the whole season. So, I’m expanding my search beyond 2024 and just October of 2024.I decided to take a look at our regular season losses (all 73 of them). In how many of those losses did we score three or fewer runs? I think most people would agree you will lose most games where you score only three runs. In how many of those games did we give up six or more runs? Most people would agree that you lose most of those games as well.
Three runs or less: 55 of 73 losses
Six runs or more: 32 of 73 losses
This information by itself is pretty damning. It tells me that more often than not the Astros lose they lose because they don’t score runs. That 55 accounts for over 75 percent of their losses. The 32 accounts for almost 44 percent of their losses. But wait, there’s more. What about the games where both of those happen in the same game?Three runs or less AND six runs or more: 17
This obviously has one obvious implication and one subtle implication. This means there were only 15 games where the offense clearly showed up and the pitching staff did not. That’s a little over 20 percent of the losses or less than ten percent of all of the games. I’d say that is pretty damn good pitching.
The more subtle answer is in the general narrative of those games. How many times did you have a fairly close game that Joe Espada simply gave up on because the Astros offense wasn’t doing anything? So, a couple of middle to late relievers end up giving up runs late and make it look like a blowout.
So, in short the Astros lose because they don’t score enough runs. Maybe that is true of most teams, but I think at least the facts are clear in my they are losing games. it is the offense stupid. So, let’s look at the Astros position by position with OPS+ and walk rates.
If we go back through the years in the playoffs we see the same kind of thing. The Astros have been 58-39 in the playoffs since 2017. We have to remember how successful they have been overall. In 30 of their 39 losses they have scored three or fewer runs. Sure, we can say offense is usually down in the playoffs because of improved pitching. Yet, it is interesting that the team has seen the same basic profile of failure through the years that they saw in the 2024 regular season. It’s almost predictable. Let’s take a look at the 2024 Astros position by position.
Catcher: 105 OPS+, 35 walks
First Base: 77 OPS+, 53 walks
Second Base: 110 OPS+, 48 walks
Third Base: 103 OPS+, 50 walks
Shortstop: 90 OPS+, 28 walks
Left Field: 99 OPS+, 48 walks
Center Field: 72 OPS+, 41 walks
Right Field: 114 OPS+, 71 walks
Designated Hitter: 125 OPS+, 68 walks
I had a friend at work that said he wanted a first baseman that hits .300 with at least 30 home runs and drives in 100 runs. Yup, and I want a million dollars and a date with Beyonce. The OPS+ marks are a lot more realistic. What you want is to have nine hitters around the league average or higher. So, the first place you look is any position with an OPS+ much lower than 90. That’s center field and first base. With Alex Bregman likely on his way out you have three positions to look at in earnest.
While the Astros were amongst the league leaders in batting average overall, they were 27th in walks. This was a key stat as far too many times they ended up swinging themselves out of rallies or failing to make a starting pitcher break a sweat. They were 28th (or third) in the number of double plays they grounded into. The good news is they had the third fewest strikeouts in the big leagues, but when you are swinging so early in counts you are likely to put the ball in play more often.
The Astros were 11th in runs scored. Only two teams above them did not make the playoffs. They were sixth in the big leagues in earned runs surrendered and 7th in runs surrendered. Again, the pitching outpaced the hitting. So, if Dana Brown starts waxing poetic about how we need more pitching I might not be responsible for my actions. The shortcomings of this team were on full display all season and not just in the wild card round.
I don’t think it will take a bunch of all-stars coming in here. If you picked up two or three league average hitters at key positions it would lengthen that lineup and hopefully not make you so reliant on a high batting average on balls in play. Draw a few more walks and work some counts. That might mean a new hitting coach or least a different message. Nothing should be off the table.José Altuve has been suspended for six month due too👇👇Good News:José Altuve Renewed 10Yrs contract with Houston Astros,Fans and well wishes celebrated 🍾. Astros’ Star Jose Altuve Urges Astros to Bring Back Alex Bregman.Houston Astros’ star second baseman and clubhouse leader Jose Altuve knows that his word carries a lot of weight with the organization. He is now trying to use that fact to help third baseman Alex Bregman, who is a pending free agent, remain with the organization beyond this season.
While speaking with reporters after the Astros’ loss to the Detroit Tigers in the AL Wild-Card series, Altuve used the opportunity to urge the franchise to re-sign Bregman.“I don’t want to think about my last game with Breggy,” Altuve said. “I’m pretty confident he’s going to be our third baseman next year. We have to. We’re not going to be the same organization without him. In my mind, there’s not a chance this is the last game.”
Bregman spent his entire career in the majors with the Astros. He made his MLB debut in 2016 and since then became a two-time All-Star while helping the team win the World Series in 2017 and 2022. Bregman is currently sixth on the Astros’ all-time list in home runs with 191 home runs and ninth in RBIs with 663.
“Since the day he got here, the whole organization changed in a better direction,” Altuve added. “He made this team way better. Like I said, there is hopefully a big chance for him to stay here, and not only that, but retire here.”
Bregman said on previous occasions that he would love to remain in Houston. However, considering he will be one of the top players in free agency this upcoming winter, the only way that will happen is if the Astros come with a huge offer. 11,000 dead as Turkey, Syria earthquake search continues.The death toll has surpassed 11,200 people and could yet increase dramatically if the worst fears of experts are realised.Rescuers raced to pull survivors from earthquake rubble as the death toll surpassed 9,000 in southern Turkey and war-ravaged northern Syria on Wednesday.
Officials and medics said 8,574 people have died in Turkey and 2,662 in Syria, bringing the total to 11,236. But that could still increase dramatically if the worst fears of experts are realised.
The hope of rescuing more people from under the rubble is now fading, as time passes since Monday’s pre-dawn magnitude 7.8 earthquake, the largest in Turkey since 1939, when about 33,000 people died in the eastern Erzincan province.Since then, the region has been hit by more than 100 aftershocks, including a second 7.6-magnitude tremor.
Tragic scenes of a newborn plucked alive from the rubble and a broken father clutching his dead daughter’s hand have laid bare the human cost of the natural disaster.
Nearly two days after an apartment building collapsed in Kahramanmaras, a Turkish city not far from the epicentre, rescuers pulled a three-year-old boy from beneath the rubble.The boy’s father, Ertugrul Kisi, who himself had been rescued earlier, sobbed as his son was pulled free and loaded into an ambulance.
A few hours later, rescuers pulled a 10-year-old girl from the rubble of her home in the city of Adiyaman. Amid applause from onlookers, her grandfather kissed her and spoke softly to her as she was loaded into an ambulance.
In the northwestern Syrian town of Jindires, residents found a crying newborn still connected by the umbilical cord to her deceased mother. The baby reportedly was the only member of her family to survive.At least 1,280 people have died in the opposition-held northwest, with more than 2,300 injured, according to the volunteer first responders known as the White Helmets. The Syrian government has reported an additional 1,250 deaths.
The rescue team, also known as the Syria Civil Defence, said on Twitter that the number of casualties was expected to “rise significantly due to the presence of hundreds of families under the rubble, more than 50 hours after the earthquake”.The World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has warned that time is running out for the thousands injured and those still feared trapped.
Search teams from more than 20 countries joined more than 24,000 Turkish emergency personnel and aid pledges poured in.But among those whose relatives were still under the rubble, help has been too slow to arrive.
“I can’t get my brother back from the ruins. I can’t get my nephew back. Look around here. There is no state official here, for God’s sake,” Ali Sagiroglu, a resident of Kahramanmaras, told AFP.
Al Jazeera’s Stefanie Dekker was in Gaziantep and she gave a chilling account as rescue workers raced against time to find survivors.“Unfortunately, where we are here, and also at another location that we just returned from, it is a recovery operation, it is no longer a rescue operation,” Dekker said.
“Around 80 people, bodies at this stage as rescue workers are saying, are believed to be under the rubble of this apartment. They are no longer hearing voices,” she said.
“We just came back from another location where we saw a body being pulled from the rubble. It was a father. His daughter was there, she was sobbing – all the family members were there.Absolutely heartbreaking to see,” Dekker added.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said 13 million of the country’s 85 million people were affected and declared a state of emergency in 10 provinces.
Erdogan visited Kahramanmaras on Wednesday, and announced plans to help the survivors of the earthquake.
“We will not allow citizens to go homeless,” Erdogan said, adding that victims would be able to stay in hotels. “The state housing authority will do what is necessary.”
In Syria, where a conflict that began in 2011 continues, despair was growing among those still waiting for help.
Aid efforts have been hampered by the continuing war and the isolation of the opposition-held region along the border, which is surrounded by Russia-backed government forces.Damage to roads and other infrastructure in southern Turkey has prevented aid from reaching northern Syria through the only crossing, known as Bab al-Hawa.
Syria itself is under Western sanctions linked to the war. The government of Bashar al-Assad and its allies in Russia have seized the moment to renew their push for aid to the north to be routed through Damascus.
Countries opposed to al-Assad do not trust the Syrian authorities to effectively deliver aid to opposition areas and worry it would be diverted to benefit people and institutions linked to the government.At a press conference on Tuesday in Damascus, Syrian Arab Red Crescent head Khaled Hboubati said his group is “ready to deliver relief aid to all regions of Syria, including areas not under government control”.
He called for the European Union to lift its sanctions on Syria in light of the emergency.Even for survivors, the future seems bleak. Many have taken refuge from relentless aftershocks, cold rain and snow in mosques, schools and even bus shelters, burning debris to stay alive.
In Gaziantep, where the violent aftershocks rumble on, shops are closed, there is no heat because gas lines have been cut to avoid explosions and finding petrol is tough.
Only bakeries remain open, drawing long queues.
Some of the worst damage in Gaziantep’s eponymous province took place in the most remote districts, where hundreds of buildings have collapsed.
With the airport and many roads outside the city blocked, attempts to flee the city have been frustrated.
Many survivors, who rushed outside without even having time to put on shoes when the earthquake struck, feel abandoned as they also battle cold weather.
