THE PALLILOG
How Astros next foe reinforces Houston's big picture formula
Apr 6, 2023, 1:02 pm
The Astros are heading to Minnesota to face Carlos Correa and the Twins. Photo byMandato/Getty Images.
The Astros’ first road trip of the season has three games at Minnesota, then three at Pittsburgh. It follows a not good opening homestand. It wasn’t awful, it’s not remotely season-shaping, but for the Astros any losing homestand is a bad one, so 3-4 is bad. Both the Twins and Pirates went 4-2 in the season’s first week. Big deal. Good teams have bad weeks and bad teams have good weeks. The Twins could be pretty good. The Pirates almost definitely will again be very bad.
Any concern with the Astros’ offense in the early going must be hedged with the fact that Jose Altuve is out of the lineup. Throw out the 2020 60 game COVID season in which Altuve was awful, and he has posted an OPS of at least .837 six consecutive seasons. You are just not going to replace that without skipping some beats. To a lesser extent the same is true about Michael Brantley. It’s still a capable lineup, just taken down a couple of pegs. Yordan Alvarez’s hand evidently is juuuuuuust fine. Kyle Tucker appears primed for a huge season. Jose Abreu has a hit in all seven games.
Alex Bregman is off to an unfortunately characteristic slow start. 0 for sixteen with seven strikeouts slow before he finally produced three singles Monday. Seven games in Bregman is batting .138 with zero extra base hits. That’s the bad news. The good news is we can be pretty sure that at 29 years old Bregman isn’t suddenly washed up. Unbold prediction: he doesn’t go all season without a double or home run. No triple, maybe. Breggy’s last three bagger was in 2020.
One shaky turn through the starting rotation and at least one ineffective outing already from all four of the returning 2022 bullpen studs (Ryan Pressly, Rafael Montero, Ryne Stanek. Bryan Abreu, and if you like you can add Hector Neris) isn’t a feel good prescription, but should not cause night sweats. A rough week in June or July is just that. A rough week the first week of the season is the resume to date and naturally lends itself to overreaction by caring if sometimes irrational fans. If the Astros’ starting pitchers make it a long term routine to more often than not get no outs beyond the fifth inning, then yes they will have a problem. There just isn’t reason to expect that. Framber Valdez is two for two in good outings. Cristian Javier hasn’t dominated in either of his first two starts, who thinks it’s not coming? Luis Garcia and Jose Urquidy are solid mid to back of rotation starters. The lone real question mark is Hunter Brown, who will have to pitch with better command to thrive as a big league starter. The Astros gave up at least three runs in each of their first six games. Only once in all of 2022 did they have a longer stretch giving up three-plus. It was eight straight games. It happened last April. Things turned out okay.
The Astros spend the weekend in the Land of 10,000 Lakes (actually close to 12 thousand), Minnesota. Other than for the sake of Twins’ home field advantage, the imploded Metrodome was a lousy place for Major League Baseball. It did prevent snowouts however. Target Field does not, so with the Thursday forecast of snow and temperature in the 30s during the day and temp down to near 20 Thursday night, the Astros get their first off day one day early. This is why Friday was originally slotted as an off day, giving the Twins a fallback for their home opener. The Friday, Saturday, Sunday Minneapolis forecast is beautiful.
The Twins are out of the shoot at 4-2 having swept three from royally crummy Kansas City, then dropping two out of three at Miami. Carlos Correa is off to a slow start to his second season as a Twin. Correa is batting .208 one week in after his offseason free agency saga. He agreed to a 13 year 350 million dollar contract with the Giants before they flunked him on his physical because of long term concerns with Correa’s lower right leg and ankle. Correa then pivoted to a 12 year 300 million dollar deal with the Mets, before they flunked him over the same concerns. No pity party is warranted for Correa settling for a six year 200 million dollar remarriage with the Twins. Still, while a very pleasant climate through the summer months and with a decent team around him, no way was Minneapolis Minnesota the market where Correa hoped to play however many years remain in his prime. Over his first three seasons with the Twins, Correa will pull down a little under 102 million dollars. Over those same three years the Astros will pay Jeremy Pena under three million, unless they enter into an early contract extension which pays more. Again: Correa approximately 102 mil, Pena approximately 3. Correa was the better player last season and the odds favor him being so this season, but not lopsidedly.
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With the Astros now officially ten games under .500 for the season, manager Joe Espada is taking a lot of heat from the fanbase for the team's struggles.
While we don't agree with the sentiment, we even hear fans clamoring for the return of Dusty Baker and Martin Maldonado, thinking the Astros wouldn't be in this mess if they were still here.
Which is ridiculous. First of all, Maldonado has been awful for the White Sox, hitting .048 (even worse than Jose Abreu's .065). And for those of you that think his work with the pitching staff justifies his pathetic offense. Let me say this: Where was Maldy's game calling genius for Hunter Brown, Cristian Javier, and Framber Valdez last year? All of them regressed significantly.
And as far as Baker is concerned, we have no idea how much a difference he would make, we can only speculate. Baker would also be dealing with a pitching staff ravaged with injuries. And let's not forget, Baker was the guy that refused to move Jose Abreu down in the batting order, even though he would finish the regular season with the ninth-worst OPS in baseball.
The reality of the situation is managers can only do so much in baseball. Which leads us to something else that needs to be considered. Is Espada being handcuffed by the front office? Espada and GM Dana Brown both said recently that Jon Singleton was going to get more at-bats while they give Abreu time off to try to figure things out. Yet, there Abreu was in the lineup again in the opening game of the Cubs series.
It makes us wonder how much power does Espada truly have? The Astros have some other options at first base. Yainer Diaz may only have eight games played at the position, but how much worse could he be than Abreu defensively? Abreu already has four errors, and Diaz is obviously a way better hitter. Victor Caratini isn't considered a plus offensive player, but his .276 batting average makes him look like Babe Ruth compared to Abreu. Let him catch more often and play Diaz at first. Starting Diaz at first more often could also lengthen his career long-term.
Maybe that's too wild of a move. Okay, fine. How about playing Mauricio Dubon at first base? I understand he doesn't have much experience at that position, but what's the downside of trying him there? If he can play shortstop, he can play first base. He's driving in runs at a higher rate (11 RBIs) than everyone on the team outside of Kyle Tucker and Yordan Alvarez. And he's producing like that as part-time player right now.
The other criticism we see of Espada is his use of Jon Singleton to pinch hit late in games. Let's be real, though, who else does Espada have on the roster to go to? Batting Abreu late in games in which you're trailing should be considered malpractice. Espada can only use who he has to work with. This all really stems from the Astros poor farm system.
They don't have anyone else to turn to. The draft picks the club lost from the sign-stealing scandal are really hurting them right now. First and second rounders from 2020 and 2021 should be helping you in 2024 at the big league level.
Maybe they go to Astros prospect Joey Loperfido soon, but after a hot start he has only two hits in his last six games.
Finally, we have to talk about what seems like a committee making baseball decisions. Lost in a committee is accountability. Who gets the blame for making poor decisions?
As time continues to pass it looks like moving on from former GM James Click was a massive mistake. He's the guy that didn't sign Abreu, but did trade Myles Straw (recently DFA'd) for Yainer Diaz and Phil Maton. He also built an elite bullpen without breaking the bank, and helped the club win a World Series in 2022.
The reality of the situation is Dusty Baker and James Click are not walking back through that door. And all good runs come to an end at some point. Is this what we're witnessing?
Don't miss the video above as we hit on all the points discussed and much more!
Catch Stone Cold 'Stros (an Astros podcast) with Charlie Pallilo, Brandon Strange, and Josh Jordan. We drop two episodes every week on SportsMapHouston's YouTube channel. You can also listen on Apple Podcast, Spotifyor wherever you get your podcasts.