Exactly. When it doesn't show up to the naked eye it's tough.

It's not a slight to Tucker that he can cover ground to make a gapper look like a lazy fly ball.

It's interesting to see that quantified. Which is all I was getting at. His inclusion is interesting.

It's pretty crazy how a lot of times a guy can pitch the 8th and be awesome every time, but as soon as he pitches a 9th inning he sucks.

redline248 said:

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It's pretty crazy how a lot of times a guy can pitch the 8th and be awesome every time, but as soon as he pitches a 9th inning he sucks.

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Mental fortitude

Good lord. TB just tried to steal home. What an idiot.

Mathguy64 said:

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Good lord. TB just tried to steal home. What an idiot.

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May have not been a bad idea in that situation, it was close

Wow Joc is a moron. Horrible guy to interview.

agdaddy04 said:

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Wow Joc is a moron. Horrible guy to interview.

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Joc looks like Rube from the Major League movies.

Farmer1906 said:

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Anyone who finds the Tucker nomination "interesting" (like 3 or 4 of y'all now) has not been paying attention. I've been trying to tell y'all since last year.

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It IS interesting though.

If you look up his sprint times, he's below average for a LF...slower than George. I can't remember the term for how good of a break guys get on balls in the outfield, but they have stat on baseball savant and he's just slightly above average. He has a good arm and only made one error, but definitely not the stuff gold gloves are made of until...

his defensive outs above average are off the charts, which is obviously what they were looking at.

I don't want to discredit him, but the only explanation I could think of was excellent defensive positioning and a lack of league adjustment for the small left field at MMP.

Harry Dunne said:

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Farmer1906 said:

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Anyone who finds the Tucker nomination "interesting" (like 3 or 4 of y'all now) has not been paying attention. I've been trying to tell y'all since last year.

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It IS interesting though.

If you look up his sprint times, he's below average for a LF...slower than George. I can't remember the term for how good of a break guys get on balls in the outfield, but they have stat on baseball savant and he's just slightly above average. He has a good arm and only made one error, but definitely not the stuff gold gloves are made of until...

his defensive outs above average are off the charts, which is obviously what they were looking at.

I don't want to discredit him, but the only explanation I could think of was excellent defensive positioning and a lack of league adjustment for the small left field at MMP.

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I think you may have read the data wrong.

The league avg is 27.0. I exported the qualified LFers and took the avg. It comes to 27.4. Tucker checks in at 27.6. While not elite, have still above avg.

They don't show a leaderboard for "Jump", but he's well above average in reaction (the feet he covers in the first 1.5 seconds) & burst (feet covered in 1.6-3.0 seconds). He does have room to improve on his route (feet covered in the direction toward to ball in 0-3.0 seconds).

Defensive positioning doesn't help you with catch probability from a fielder's perspective. It's more so measured by the distanced covered vs the hang time. For example, if Correa is shifted up the middle and they hit a routine ball to where the SS traditionally plays. Correa lays out and throws out the runner, he gets full credit for a brilliant 3-4 * play when it could have been an easy 0-1 * play if he wasn't shifted.

linkdude said:

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Hey Yordan!

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Excellent video content. Thanks for sharing!

Willy Wonka said:

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Don't let the link fool you. It's HOW it can happen, not that it's happened.

https://www.chron.com/sports/astros/article/Houston-Astros-sign-George-Springer-Carlos-Correa-15667898.php

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He doesn't say much that hasn't already been discussed. The big question is what is the budget Crane is giving Click? If it's the luxury tax threshold then yes we can sign Springer. If he wants it lower due to the losses in 2020 and uncertainty of fan attendance dollars in 2021 then its gets harrier.

Also keep in mind value. Is Springer for 6/$150 million that much more valuable than Bradley at 3/$35 million? They had similar WAR in 2020. That's where it gets tougher for Click. In a vacuum I'd say Bradley but the intangibles plus the tangible fact that you free up so much room in 2021 with few upcoming players needing to be paid may make Springer the better option. Basically, yes he's more expensive but you have to spend on talent somewhere and don't really want to overspend in free agency going forward and don't have any other superstars coming up you need to keep happy for several years.

IMO, it will take Jim Crane getting personally involved to sign Springer "for the fans." I'd be shocked if his baseball brass looked at what Springer is going to cost and what age he's going to be and didn't decide that they can probably use a lot of that money to fill more pressing holes.

JJxvi said:

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IMO, it will take Jim Crane getting personally involved to sign Springer "for the fans." I'd be shocked if his baseball brass looked at what Springer is going to cost and what age he's going to be and didn't decide that they can probably use a lot of that money to fill more pressing holes.

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What hole would you say is more pressing than our OF

Lonestar_Ag09 said:

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JJxvi said:

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IMO, it will take Jim Crane getting personally involved to sign Springer "for the fans." I'd be shocked if his baseball brass looked at what Springer is going to cost and what age he's going to be and didn't decide that they can probably use a lot of that money to fill more pressing holes.

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What hole would you say is more pressing than our OF

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Pitching primarily, I'd imagine. The main point is that you can have actually have a good outfield without spending a lot. Kyle Tucker no longer looks remotely like a potential bust, and you can probably replace most of Springer's production in the other two spots much more cheaply than Springer will be, if not next season, within a couple seasons.

Going to try and get the Astros all-time moments thing online on Wednesday a.m.

Looks like the OOA is the big reason for Tucker to be nominated. Digging a little deeper, it looks like he had 4 opportunities at 4* catches, and made all 4 of them, which contributed to the high OOA numbers. I was a bit surprised by the GG nomination, but after looking at the numbers, he seems to have earned it. You could probably make the argument the short porch in left helped his numbers, or defensive positioning, but either way he made most of the plays he should have, and a couple that you wouldn't expect him to.

The OOA may not be perfect, but it does seem to have some guys you would expect to be rated high near the top (Bellinger and Betts) and some guys you would expect to be rated low are near the bottom (Hicks, Reddick). Seems to pass the common sense test.

I think we are good with respect to the starting rotation. I'd personally like to see us resign Peacock simply for his versatility as a potential starter. Some combination of Greinke-McCullers-Urquidy-Valdez-Javier-Garcia offers quite a bit of flexibility, especially if Pruitt comes back at some point. Still, I'd prefer to have a healthy Peacock to fill in as needed.

Regarding the outfield, I do not think the Astros can compete without replacing some portion of Brantley and Springer. Straw isn't the answer at this point, but he can be a collective part of the answer... maybe. We don't necessarily need a Brantley or a Springer, but the team must have at least a league average starter in one of those spots.

Last, Straw needs to develop a zero launch angle on average. No more fly balls. He reminded me this year of Eric Young with all his "almost to the warning track" fly balls. Use your speed and beat out grounders in the hole.

Lonestar_Ag09 said:

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JJxvi said:

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Lonestar_Ag09 said:

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JJxvi said:

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IMO, it will take Jim Crane getting personally involved to sign Springer "for the fans." I'd be shocked if his baseball brass looked at what Springer is going to cost and what age he's going to be and didn't decide that they can probably use a lot of that money to fill more pressing holes.

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What hole would you say is more pressing than our OF

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Pitching primarily, I'd imagine. The main point is that you can have actually have a good outfield without spending a lot. Kyle Tucker no longer looks remotely like a potential bust, and you can probably replace most of Springer's production in the other two spots much more cheaply than Springer will be, if not next season, within a couple seasons.

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Im sorry....WHAT

We have Urquidy, Greinke, Framber, Javier and McCullers all coming back and most all very under team control. Now I agree Id like more in the pen but that is never a high dollar place to spend.

Where as we currently have Tucker...... thats it, I still have major doubts about Straw even with that we still have another vacancy

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I didnt say they would probably spend it all on pitching and none of it on the outfield. There will also definitely be a need for some of this money next year at either 3B or SS (fantasy article notwithstanding). Obviously there are outfield spots open, but the reality is that you can reliably pay MANY good outfielders a total of $20-25 million per year over 6 or seven years, for what its going to cost for only George (including 36-38 year old George)

Our current window opened in 2015 and in that time we've had roughly 10 starting outfielders in that time.

George Springer, Jake Marisnick, Preston Tucker, Nori Aoki. Carlos Gomez, Colby Rasmus, Josh Reddick, Marwin Gonzalez. Kyle Tucker, and Michael Brantley.

You might be able add up most all of these names for the years we had them between 2015-2020 and it might be cheaper than $25-30 million per year. We've always had a credible (and yet also veteran) outfield that even included a lot of balance between hitting, defense, speed without needing to have a $20 million plus superstar, so I don't imagine we are going to be seriously looking to do that now, without sentimentality coming into it.

The Astros will likely also be signing a Cuban outfielder (Pedro Leon) for a significant investment when the international window opens. He is 22 years old, and probably would have been expected to potentially (in the best case) make the majors by then end of this past season or the beginning of next season had the international window not been moved back.

scrimp said:

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Looks like the OOA is the big reason for Tucker to be nominated. Digging a little deeper, it looks like he had 4 opportunities at 4* catches, and made all 4 of them, which contributed to the high OOA numbers. I was a bit surprised by the GG nomination, but after looking at the numbers, he seems to have earned it. You could probably make the argument the short porch in left helped his numbers, or defensive positioning, but either way he made most of the plays he should have, and a couple that you wouldn't expect him to.

The OOA may not be perfect, but it does seem to have some guys you would expect to be rated high near the top (Bellinger and Betts) and some guys you would expect to be rated low are near the bottom (Hicks, Reddick). Seems to pass the common sense test.

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How? Positioning would just mean fewer opportunities to make the tougher plays.

Lets dive a little deeper into the OOA. It's not so much he made 4 good catches so he gets a plus 4. OOA takes into account each opportunity with a <90% catch probability.

5 Star (0-25%)
4 Star (26-50%)
3 Star (51-75%)
2 Star (76-90%)
1 Star (91-95%) - not factored in OOA

If we look at the 5 balls he got that we're 4-5 * opportunities per the graph on his page (doesn't match the leaderboard page)

20% - not made (-.20)
20% - not made (-.20)
35% - made (+.65)
45% - made (+.55)
50% - made (+.50)

On "difficult" plays he earned 1.3 outs above average.

At this point, Crane may tell Click just to make do with what we have. Baseball really took it on the chin with COVID, and the future is uncertain.

I have a feeling Ol' Jimmy will be tightening the purse strings.



https://www.sportico.com/leagues/baseball/2020/mlb-debt-2020-manfred-1234615474

Hard to know what'll happen due to the odd situation with COVID but Crane has spent when justified.

Extending Altuve
Extending Bregman
Acquiring JV
Extending JV
Acquiring ZG

He's shown that when it's justified and makes sense he'll spend.

Not sure if already posted but not a great rumor.

The phrase "does not want to return" is idiotic and straight up baiting. If they pay him he will absolutely return. If they don't he won't.

Mathguy64 said:

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The phrase "does not want to return" is idiotic and straight up baiting. If they pay him he will absolutely return. If they don't he won't.

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Yea, I'd believe "does not expect the Astros to be the highest bidder". I don't believe "does not want to return".

I agree, at a minimum that's a odd wording, if not outright click-bait. So Crane says before the season that signing Springer is a top priority, and it didn't happen yet. I wonder if there was anything unusual that happened this year that might slow that down...... Ya know, something like a virus, complete shutdown of baseball for months, loss of revenue from fans not being allowed in the stands, etc. That could slow down the process.

Again, I don't know if anything about the situation. Maybe Springer doesn't want to return, but I don't believe that he doesn't want to return because Click/Crane didn't offer him a contract in the middle of this unprecedentedly crazy season.

Tweets like this are reason 1,293,289 I hate twitter. No accountability--"I'm hearing..."--from who? Springer, his agent, your dog, an imaginary friend? Completely meaningless. And if this turns out to be wrong, there's no repercussions. He can just claim the situation changed.

Is it that far fetched that Springer doesn't want to return? I don't think it is. As soon as anyone leaves the Astros, everyone seems to forget that player's involvement in the scandal. Now no one of Springer's caliber has done that yet so it may be different with him, but I could see him (or anyone for that matter) wanting to move on for that reason. I hope he doesn't, but I can understand.