THE PALLILOG
What’s on the line, and in the way of Justin Verlander’s Cy Young campaign
Jul 27, 2022, 12:34 pm
Justin Verlander is putting together an impressive season for Houston. Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images.
The Oakland A’s have been a giant steaming turd of a baseball team this season. They made the playoffs in 2018, 2019, and 2020, were a credible 86-76 last season, but in 2022 have been the worst team in the American League and are on pace for more than 100 losses. Their offense is a joke. It’d need a double dose of Viagra to rise to impotent. The team batting average is .214, only the Tigers score fewer runs. Aside: notice how much smarter a manager the Tigers’ A.J. Hinch was when he had the Astros’ roster? Back to Oakland. The A’s stadium situation is a long-running joke, and their owner John Fisher is more interested in landing a sweetheart ballpark/real estate deal either in Oakland or Las Vegas than he is in spending to field a competitive ballclub right now. Yet over their last seven head-to-head matchups, the win tote board reads Steaming Turd 5 Astros 2. Baseball! Monday and Tuesday nights as the worst in the AL A’s were confounding the Astros, the worst in the National League Nationals were beating the best in the NL Dodgers. Baseball!
If the Astros were predestined to come out of the All Star Break winning five of their first seven games, they sure won the right five. Sweeping the doubleheader from the Yankees has the Astros in prime position to snatch the top seed in the American League playoffs, sweeping three in Seattle crushed any delusional Mariners’ fantasy about mounting a run at the Astros in the AL West. Let’s see what General Manager James Click gets done by Tuesday’s trade deadline to upgrade a roster that while excellent overall has well documented clear weaknesses.
Justin Verlander chasing history
Justin Verlander’s next command performance should be Friday night at Minute Maid Park against the Mariners. Verlander sits at 13-3 with a 1.86 earned run average. At 39 years old. After Tommy John surgery. He is brilliant. Verlander doesn’t quite have the scary mound presence of long-limbed, mulleted Randy Johnson, or the often overtly beyond smoldering intensity of Roger Clemens. I mean, you can boil it down to the nicknames: Johnson “The Big Unit.” Clemens “The Rocket.” Verlander is “JV.” That’s unfortunate considering there is not a molecule about Verlander on the mound that is junior varsity.
Clemens holds the record with seven Cy Young Awards. Johnson is in second place with five. Verlander is taking dead aim at winning his third. He’s already a lock first ballot Hall of Famer but if you’ll think of Hall membership as being made up of concentric circles, Verlander makes a big move toward the innermost circles if he wins Cy number three. After Clemens and Johnson, Greg Maddux and Steve Carlton are next with four Cys apiece. Next comes a group of six to win three times: Sandy Koufax, Tom Seaver, Jim Palmer, Pedro Martinez, Clayton Kershaw, and Max Scherzer. Nothing but legends in that group. When Scherzer is the “weakest” link you have one heck of a club. I do not literally love Justin Verlander but I do love that he is acutely aware of baseball history, his place in it, and places he’d like to get. Winning a third Cy would be a doozy. Shane McClanahan has other ideas. Some may ask “Who?” More on him shortly.
There are 11 two-time Cy Young Award winners, all tremendous pitchers at their peaks obviously. Some are legends like Bob Gibson and Gaylord Perry. Tom Glavine and Roy Halladay are Cooperstown-enshrined. But several guys to win two Cys are not remotely close to Hall of Famers. Think Jacob deGrom, Corey Kluber, Tim Lincecum, and Denny McLain. Two others won twice and barely got a sniff in Hall of Fame balloting but for whom I think you can mount credible arguments. For Bret Saberhagen it's a shaky but not meritless case, for Johan Santana it's a pretty good case when compared to, gulp, Koufax.
The Cy Young Award was first given out in 1956. For its first eleven years only one winner was named for all of Major League Baseball. 1967 started one recipient per league.
All eyes on the competition
As for that McClanahan fellow. The 25 year old Tampa Bay Rays’ lefthander has been awesome this season, better than Verlander by a number of criteria including earned run average and ERA+ (which adjusts for ballparks pitched in), strikeouts, and strikeout-to-walk ratio. But the margins are all slim. McClanahan pitches for a clearly inferior team (meaning Rays vs. Astros) with the inferior defense backing him. The guy has been spectacular. It’s the 2022 Cy Young Award so Verlander should get no additional credit for his comeback, there’s a Comeback Player of the Year Award for that. Still, some voters may factor it in if it’s a really close call at the end. As a rookie last season McClanahan threw 123 and a third innings. He may top that total in his next start. We’ll see how he holds up the remaining two-plus months. How Verlander holds up is a question also, but if anything he’s been getting stronger. Last five starts: 5-0, ERA 0.79. The Astros adding additional days rest between several of Verlander's starts was/is a smart luxury the Astros can afford.
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Texans HC DeMeco Ryans reveals what he values most at scouting combine
Feb 28, 2025, 3:51 pm
Now that spring training is officially underway, we're able to make some observations about how the Astros 2025 roster is taking shape.
Houston's starting rotation is basically set, but we got to see Hayden Wesneski make his first start in an Astro uniform. Wesneski pitched two innings against the Mets on Tuesday, allowing one run with three strikeouts.
He's working on a curveball that's a new pitch for his repertoire, and he saw some success with it. Hopefully, adding this pitch will help keep batters off balance (especially left-handed hitters) and help elevate his game. Which is nothing new for the Astros, who have a history of helping pitchers get to the next level.
Forrest Whitley also looked good, pitching a clean inning and finishing off his final hitter with a 97 mph fastball. Whitley finally realizing his potential in the big leagues could be a huge deal for the Astros, as they're looking to lighten the workload for Bryan Abreu and Josh Hader this season.
Hader in particular could benefit from this adjustment, as he was much worse when pitching in non-save situations last season. An easy fix with Hader could be trying to limit his workload to mostly save situations. That way, you get the most out of him and achieve the goal of him pitching less innings this year.
The Houston Chronicle's Matt Kawahara wrote about Hader's struggles pitching when games were tied or Houston was trailing.
“Hader converted 34 of 38 save chances but faced more batters in non-save situations (142) than in save situations (136), a sharp pivot from his previous few seasons. Opponents slugged .271 against him in save situations and .411 in non-save situations, while his ERA was more than two runs higher (4.98) in the latter.”
And while it's easy to say “suck it up, you're getting paid a fortune to pitch,” if he's not having success in those situations, and you're looking to back off his workload, this seems like an obvious way to pivot. He's under contract for another four seasons, so the Astros are right to want to be careful with him.
Astros plate discipline
Manager Joe Espada has made it very clear that he would like his offense to see more pitches this season. And we're seeing a stark difference in the approaches from the newly acquired players (Isaac Paredes, Christian Walker) and Houston's returning hitters.
Keep in mind, Paredes was first in pitches per plate appearance last season, and Walker was 10th.
So it shouldn't come as a surprise that Paredes and Walker both worked a full count in their first at-bats on Tuesday, while Mauricio Dubon, Yainer Diaz, and Chas McCormick swung at every pitch in their first at-bats.
Hopefully the new blood in the clubhouse will rub off on the rest of the Astros lineup, which is full of free swingers, especially with Alex Bregman now playing for Boston.
Which is why we're so excited about Cam Smith's early results. While we're super pumped about his two home runs on Tuesday, we're equally impressed that he walked in his first two at-bats this spring. If anyone would naturally be jumping out of their shoes to make a strong first impression, you would think it's the guy that was traded for Kyle Tucker. But Smith was patient, and he was rewarded for it.
What is Dana Brown saying privately?
Just last offseason, Brown was talking about extending Tucker and Bregman while also signing Hader to a shocking 5-year, $95 million deal. Plus, the team signed Jose Altuve to a whopping $150 million extension. Fast-forward one year and Tucker has been traded, Bregman left in free agency, and Ryan Pressly was dealt in a salary dump. Safe to say, his vision for the ball club has changed drastically in one season. Welcome to baseball economics under Jim Crane!
We're just scratching the surface on everything covered in the video above. Be sure to hit play to watch the full conversation!
The countdown to Opening Day is on. Join Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and Charlie Pallilo for the Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast which drops each Monday afternoon, with an additional episode now on Thursday. Click here to catch!
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