irish pete ag06 said:
Buddy of mine emailed this...
26% of the Astros starts in a season they won 100 games were made by Fiers and Musgrove. Those 2 will essentially be replaced by Gerrit Cole and Collin McHugh.
Let's take it a step farther.
Our rotation of Morton, Keuchel, McCullers, and Verlander had 75 starts (46%).
You put Verlander (32), Keuchel (27), & Cole (26) back at their career averages (leaving McCullers last years # since he's always hurt & Morton because he stayed mostly healthy) then we're looking at 132 starts for our normal rotation. That's 57 more games with our best. That leaves 30 games between McHugh, Martes, Paulino, and maybe Peacock (I kind of hope they leave him in the pen).
If our offense can keep up to last year (may be difficult) it's not hard to imagine we win 100 games again this year. Without trying to drink too much kool aid, I don't think it's unfair to maybe even improve on an already great regular season.