WTF, Astros?

[Little Slide Rooter]

How are they doing it? I must know.

 

Altuve is a stud at SS.

 

They have a pair of relievers in Will Harris (6/29 BB/K, 0.40 ERA, 22IP,) Josh Fields (18/3 BB/K, 0.78 ERA, 10.1IP.)

 

Then, there's some dude named Dallas Keuschal who's managing a 6-1, 1.98 ERA and a paltry 21/49 BB/K in 72.2 IP.

 

But other than that, there's nothing particularly impressive. Not a single guy with an OPS above .800. Valbuena has 10 HR, but a .198/.257/.413 line to go with it.

 

So how are they a .600 team 46 games in?

[SouthSideRyan]

-Jose Altuve is a 2B.

-I'm guessing Josh Fields hasn't walked 18 guys in 10.1 IP

-Dallas Keuchel was really [expletive] good last year. And 6.1 K/9 isn't special.

 

But other than that.

[Clem Fandango]

And they're hitting dongs. Lots of them.

 

Edited May 26, 2015 by The Logan

[Guest]

some dude named Dallas Keuschal

 

lmfao

[Little Slide Rooter]

I had never heard of Dallas Keuchal until this year. Looks like he was quite good last year, but that's when I was following baseball primarily via box scores. And it doesn't look like he was particularly special prior to that, nor does he appear to have been much of a big time prospect. You act as though I'm asking who's Lance Lynn.

[Little Slide Rooter]

Speaking of the Astros, it just came to my attention that they have the number 2 and 5 picks in the draft, and a CB pick at 37. Glad to see them in the AL.

[ARCubsFan]

It's Dallas Keuchel and him and Kluber were sabermetric favorites last year

[JennieGarthAlgar]

Speaking of the Astros, it just came to my attention that they have the number 2 and 5 picks in the draft, and a CB pick at 37. Glad to see them in the AL.

 

Also glad its 2015 and not '13 or '14. Could you imagine getting, say, Rodon at 2 and then Schwarber at 5?

[sneakypower]

nobody liked Schwarber as much as we did, which is a credit to our scouting

[apete6]

Lance McCullers threw a CG with 11Ks, 0BB and only 107 pitches last night. Youngest pitcher to throw a 10K+ CG since the Kerry Wood 20K game. The Astros are going to be great right along with the Cubs the next several years. Good thing they moved to the AL. Thanks, Selig!

[Andy]

It's kind of stupid, but it annoys me that the Astros are better than us when we tanked (slightly) less shamelessly than they did, drafted smarter, traded smarter, didn't let a great outfielder go to the Tigers for nothing, and didn't [expletive] over any of our top picks.

[Banedon]

It's kind of stupid, but it annoys me that the Astros are better than us when we tanked (slightly) less shamelessly than they did, drafted smarter, traded smarter, didn't let a great outfielder go to the Tigers for nothing, and didn't [expletive] over any of our top picks.

 

The Astros did us one better though, they got out of the Cardinals division.

[Guest]

It's kind of stupid, but it annoys me that the Astros are better than us when we tanked (slightly) less shamelessly than they did, drafted smarter, traded smarter, didn't let a great outfielder go to the Tigers for nothing, and didn't [expletive] over any of our top picks.

I agree with most of that, but while we signed Albert Almora it was a poor pick.

[sneakypower]

Lance McCullers threw a CG with 11Ks, 0BB and only 107 pitches last night. Youngest pitcher to throw a 10K+ CG since the Kerry Wood 20K game. The Astros are going to be great right along with the Cubs the next several years. Good thing they moved to the AL. Thanks, Selig!

i guess opting for Correa & McCullers (& Ruiz) over Buxton might actually work out ok, huh

[Guest]

It's kind of stupid, but it annoys me that the Astros are better than us when we tanked (slightly) less shamelessly than they did, drafted smarter, traded smarter, didn't let a great outfielder go to the Tigers for nothing, and didn't [expletive] over any of our top picks.

 

They've been 3.5 games better over one third of a season with pretty different schedules, I wouldn't go too far in proclaiming much of a difference in quality.

[sneakypower]

quality of bullpen is basically the entire difference: 3.9 RA9-WAR & 3.30 WPA for them, 0.5 & -0.69 for us

 

the two teams are hardly distinguishable beyond that (7.1 hitter WAR for both, 4.4 & 4.3 starter RA9-WAR)

[Cubswin11]

Speaking of, the Astros are removing that stupid [expletive] hill and flag poles after the year and also moving the CF fence in.

[Andy]

Speaking of, the Astros are removing that stupid [expletive] hill and flag poles after the year and also moving the CF fence in.

I'm kind of going to miss that hill, but I didn't have to watch it 81 times a year either.

 

Jacque Jones homering clear over that hill is one of the weirdest random occurrences I've ever seen in a Cubs game.

[sontensei]

It's kind of stupid, but it annoys me that the Astros are better than us when we tanked (slightly) less shamelessly than they did, drafted smarter, traded smarter, didn't let a great outfielder go to the Tigers for nothing, and didn't [expletive] over any of our top picks.

 

The Astros did us one better though, they got out of the Cardinals division.

 

As much as it would pain me to leave the NL or the Central. I wanna get away from the Cardinals too ><

[Careless]

It's kind of stupid, but it annoys me that the Astros are better than us when we tanked (slightly) less shamelessly than they did, drafted smarter, traded smarter, didn't let a great outfielder go to the Tigers for nothing, and didn't [expletive] over any of our top picks.

 

The Astros did us one better though, they got out of the Cardinals division.

 

As much as it would pain me to leave the NL or the Central. I wanna get away from the Cardinals too ><

Why? They've won more than 91 games once in the past 9 years. In almost ever other division there were teams with more wins than they had. There were teams with as many or more wins than the Cardinals in 40 out of 45 divisions over that time.

 

The Cardinals don't win the division that much because they're always really good, they win because they're almost always pretty good, and the rest of the division is frequently bad.