Eric Huysman and Brett Chancey discuss Dusty Baker’s decision not to hit Jose Altuve leadoff. The Astros lose the game, but Yordan Alvarez with another homer, and Ronel Blanco with a good performance. How long will the Astros go with the 6-man rotation? Will we see more Yainer Diaz as he starts to hear up as a hitter?
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14 Comments
Astro ~ Dusty !!!!! Jose Abreu 0.210 Are you serious????
Guriel 0.283 , even that Mancini 0.43!!!!
Really, stop!!! such a twat. Do you have in mind!!!!!!!!
If Altuve bunts him over, Alvarez comes up with a man on 3rd.
We need to win tommrow
Same old song and dance though. NO OFFENSE!
When Crusty the Clown stops playing his favourites and lets the lineup settle, we might start to produce runs on a regular basis.
Why are you guys making this about Dusty vs Dana? Dana is the general manager of this club and he was hired to do a job. He wasn't hired to play "who has more tenure here." Be better than this. If Dusty can justify playing Maldonado 162 games objectively, then fine. But he can't.
Astros pitchers have had better results with Diaz behind the plate than with Maldonaldo (3.05 ERA versus 3.39). And this is in light of Maldonado catching Framber and Javier, the Astros' best pitchers.The Astros pitchers are giving up almost a run per game more with Maldonaldo than with Diaz. Why did Dusty take Hunter Brown away from Diaz? Hunter Brown has done a lot better with Diaz and knows Diaz more. Hunter Brown 2.62 ERA with Diaz 4-2 (1 HR). With Maldy, 4.78 ERA, (5 HRs), 3-3, including 2 starts against Oakland. They have consistently given Diaz our worst pitchers. Despite consistently catching our worst starters, Diaz's ERA and the team record is better when Diaz has played. I'm not saying Diaz is some expert game caller. Brown could struggle if he gets to catch him next time the same as with Maldonado. But Dusty saying that he correlates the club's wins and pitcher performance with Maldonado, has NOT MANIFESTED itself in any ACTUAL RESULTS.
Martin .197avg/3HRs/11 RBIs/577 OPS/61 OPS+
Yainer .284 avg/3 HRs/ 7 RBIs/.787 OPS/.113 OPS+
Maldonado has a negative offensive WAR; Diaz does not.
Diaz also has the higher defensive WAR. He has caught more base runners out.
This is what Chandler Rome wrote in The Athletic:
"Behind the plate, only one major-league catcher throws harder than Diaz. He’s caught eight of the 18 baserunners who’ve tried to steal against him. Diaz’s pop time is the fourth-fastest in the sport, too. Two of the catchers ahead of him? Sean Murphy and J.T. Realmuto."
Why are we not acknowledging this?
Dusty had more leeway to play Maldonado when Salazar was here, but Salazar and Diaz were mainly on the bench. This is what Chandler Rome wrote about that:
"Baker gave Diaz 75 plate appearances while the team carried THREE catchers. Diaz started FIVE games at positions other than catcher: THREE times at designated hitter and TWICE at first base.
He took just 28 at-bats in April, while the team struggled to sustain any sort of offensive continuity. Diaz played so sparingly that Brown acknowledged he worried about development. Brown said he brought those concerns to Baker."
I would say these are very reasonable concerns
And Dusty still at it in game 2 against the Blue Jays, when GAUSMAN pitched. TK mentioned that Maldonado is 0-9 against Gausman in his career. What did Dusty do? This is what Chandler Rome wrote:
"The team optioned Salazar back to Triple-A on Monday, shrinking the catching corps to two and ostensibly making it more difficult for Diaz to crack Baker’s lineup. Take Tuesday’s 5-1 loss against the Blue Jays, for example: Baker paired Maldonado with starter Hunter Brown, started Corey Julks in left field and slotted Yordan Alvarez at designated hitter.
The decisions left Diaz on the bench. One evening earlier, he had delivered the first four-hit game of his career during the Astros’ 11-4 annihilation of Toronto on Monday."
One word: INEXCUSABLE
The organization has been trying to upgrade the position. That was apparent as soon as Vasquez was acquired. Again, their main target position in the offseason was to upgrade the catcher's spot with Crane himself calling the position an "obvious hole" at Abreu's introductory press conference.
When the Astros could have upgraded, Dusty Baker refused to upgrade in the offseason with two catchers that had something that he nor Maldonado did: a WS ring. Contreras won a WS as a rookie. Yainer Diaz can too. Vasquez won with the Red Sox. He is now a 2x WS champion. This on top of the fact that this is Maldonado's and Dusty's last season with the Astros. Dana Brown's responsibility is also the future of this organization, which includes Diaz. A future that Dusty nor Maldonado will even care about after they are gone. Maldonado should also be better and be willing to step back to give Diaz playing time. He also pouted in the offseason when the Astros tried to upgrade the position saying that he was not going to be back up catcher to anyone. That's why Vasquez didn't stay. Vasquez wanted to be a starting catcher on a team.
How in the world can you guys defend this crap on this show? No, this is not about who has been here longer. If Baker is playing "my way or the highway without being able to show objectively why he is right," he honestly deserves the highway!
The offense needs to pull their heads out their asses. It’s that simple, our pitchers are giving us a chance the majority of these games.
Maldy was able to skate by last year, but now we cloned another dud on first base so two losers are killing us.
Again, if we're talking about it, they're talking about it. The last thing you want is someone else making the decisions for Dusty and not Dusty himself. Hes put Maldy in a very awkward situation. Fans will start booing next if this keeps going. Expectations way too high to be borderline playoff team.
YOU CANNOT HAVE 2 ZEROS IN YOUR LINE IN THE BIG LEAGUES. Pitching wins WS but hitting gets you through the regular season to the playoffs. Sound familiar with James Click and Myles Straw? Dusty is so biased and double standard with his decisions. This is why hes always had rough departures with his teams. I think this will be Dusty's last year with the Astros either way, but he will not win the clash with Dana Brown. Jim Crane will side with Dana Brown this time over James Click.
No clue why Altuve moved to the 2 hole, he just wont stop messing with his lineups. Dusty once again giving some bs reason. All Altuve does is perform under pressure. It's what hes done his whole career, whatever… It's not early in the season anymore. Lucky the Cardinals pulled out a game against the Rangers. Its time to get it going. Now let's go get Bieber/Cease/Stroman and an OF like Soler. Chas/Jake/Julks will be tradable along with Urquidy/Bielak and other middle of the road pitching prospects. All these players have a lot of team control left and could land us quality over quantity without giving up their top prospects. Go Stros
In the case of Dubón, a new player cannot overshadow the show man and image that the team has, JA… however, make 3 hits and JA himself is not part of a team game… now it remains back in banking