"This feels like the kind of season where we frustratingly flounder around .500 for a couple months, then rip off like 24 of 26 around the all star break and take command of the division."

-Deluxe

Gracias

If someone had said this statement... "The Astros and Mariners would be five games apart after the first week of the season..." who would have thought it would be upside down like this? Baseball is an unpredictable sport sometimes.

Marvin said:

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If someone had said this statement... "The Astros and Mariners would be five games apart after the first week of the season..." who would have thought it would be upside down like this? Baseball is an unpredictable sport sometimes.

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Guess we can take solace in the fact the pitching has looked good. Our bats are not this bad for too, too long. I'm hopeful playing at home tomorrow helps get the guys on track.

The Rockets were in last place two weeks into the season and now are battling for the 2 seed.

I remember seeing something a couple of seasons ago (probably on Fangraphs) about how, even a month into the season, pre-season projections are a better predictor of full-season results than the first 30 days of actual results are. Let me see if I can find it.

Some of you guys are really freaking out about this offense so far. Here's a quick look at how our first 6 spots line up have performed up to this point:

BA OPS
Springer - .308 .926
Altuve - .222 .646
Bregman- .208 .696
Brantley - .208 .644
Correa - .333 .908
Gurriel - .240 .641

Can you guys honestly look at that, knowing the history of Altuve, Bregman, Brantley, and Gurriel, and say this offense wont start to produce runs?

It's certainly a frustrating start to this season, but at least two of the 4 above who are batting below .250 are going to pick it up. I'm willing to bet all 4 are going to be over .250 before the 3rd week of April.

Pretty sure the Dodgers were like 10 games below .500 last year through May. Can you imagine the panic here if that happened?

Jtayers23 said:

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https://boston.cbslocal.com/2019/04/04/mlb-has-to-discipline-umpire-ron-kulpa-incident-astros-aj-hinch/

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****ing unacceptable.

DVC2010 said:

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I remember seeing something a couple of seasons ago (probably on Fangraphs) about how, even a month into the season, pre-season projections are a better predictor of full-season results than the first 30 days of actual results are. Let me see if I can find it.

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Found it!

Jeff Sullivan said:

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What's the relative value of each data set? Let's set through-50 winning percentage as X1, and preseason projected winning percentage as X2. Here's the best-fit line, for coming up with rest-of-season winning percentage:

RoS Win% = 0.038 + 0.125X1 + 0.800X2

Actual performance through 50 games isn't worth nothing. But if you look at those coefficients, the preseason team projection is more than six times more important.

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There's no cliff here. Carry on.

Yep, multiple posts on r/baseball about it. I doubt they take any action, but it's definitely gotten attention.

For some reason I don't see this one blowing over. We'll see though.

I would've thought mlb would've changed their blackout rules by now as well.

Some good analysis by Buster Olney and Keith Law about #umpgate last night. They basically say that he shouldn't be allowed to ump again if his attitude is "I can do whatever I want". They also said that it will likely be handled behind closed doors, so we'll never get the satisfaction of knowing his punishment (if any). Also interesting that they were on the Astros/Hinch's side without even bringing up the Stassi shove.

http://www.espn.com/mlb/team/_/name/hou/houston-astros

Podcast is on the top of the page. Starts around the 35:20 mark.

Had the chance to go down to the field for batting practice at Globe Life Park yesterday. We were laughing at a sign you pass as you go down to field level that notes umpires are not allowed to go from the field to the tunnel area without security. After last night's game, I could see why they would need to call that out.

Positive note: my son and his buddies had a great time getting to talk to Correa, Springer, Altuve, Crane, Luhnow and Julia.

astros4545 said:

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HEB commercials

https://www.khou.com/mobile/article/sports/mlb/astros/watch-astros-stars-will-have-you-laughing-in-new-h-e-b-commercials/285-92ee29b9-db05-4f95-80fd-d67afe6c9bf1?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app

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So when are the Rangers going to fall off the cliff? Typical June swoon? Or earlier?

At least our offense isn't Cleveland bad.

Cleveland, .174/.255/.239, a .225 wOBA

Anyone going to the game today?

Farmer1906 said:

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Anyone going to the game today?

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Already planning excuses with a colleague for leaving work early.