Farmer1906 said:

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I'm hearing that the Astros will be "fixing" the batter's eye even more during this offseason at Minute Maid Park.

I am not sure to what degree, but it seems that it will be addressed.

— Michael Schwab (@michaelschwab13) October 24, 2023

I never want to hear about the damn batter's eye again.

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Sure didn't bother any other teams

it's crazy to look back and realize...

Meyers with 341 plate appearances and Julks with 323 plate appearances...did not play in the postseason

so many PA's for players not playoff roster worthy

it was part of the GM-manager disconnect

Farmer1906 said:

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I'm hearing that the Astros will be "fixing" the batter's eye even more during this offseason at Minute Maid Park.

I am not sure to what degree, but it seems that it will be addressed.

— Michael Schwab (@michaelschwab13) October 24, 2023

I never want to hear about the damn batter's eye again.

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Need to remodel it to look exactly like Globe Life field's.

RED AG 98 said:

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I agree. Let Dana do his thing. Additionally I would be totally fine if Dana chose Joe, but I want this bad GM - Manager dynamic completely gone.

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They don't have to agree on everything, but at least trust and respect where each other is coming from. Dusty felt spitful at times.

Dana's phone will be ringing with calls from agents of old players

especially after the money the 'stros spent on Brantley and Jose Abreu this past year

Dana needs to be stingy

I do not want Teoscar. At all.

linkdude said:

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pic.twitter.com/gOntIOc6hq

— Foolish Baseball (@FoolishBB) October 12, 2023

Teo would fit right in with Tuve. Probably need to focus on improving baserunning, versus this lol

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Look at his strikeout stats and you'll see why we don't want him.

Lonestar_Ag09 said:

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Also

The Porkchop Express said:

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Well we didn't win, but you guys seem so down I figured you can use a laugh. Presented for your laughter and mockery, an 18-year-old Porkchop Express throwing out the first pitch in June 1992, and getting the ball signed by all time dick head, Scott Servais. Fire away.

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I think I understand your love for Star Wars more seeing that throwing picture. On my list of things to watch that got skipped because of baseball season is the new mini series I'm not going to butcher her name but you know what I mean

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Scott Servais has male resting biatch face

First off, great OP Farmer. Informative and to the point. Just like we've come to expect from a championship seasoned veteran of this thread.

Quick 2023 Look Back

Even though the 2023 season was a repeated kick in the nuts in a variety of ways, I weirdly enjoyed it. A lot went our way in 2022. It's easy to stay competitive and focused when things are going well.

True championship mettle and grit is tested when things aren't going your way. The fact that we got within a game of the World Series this year, given everything that worked against us, was pretty damn impressive.

I stayed off the season thread a lot this year because I wanted to enjoy the season for what it was. The 2023 Astros were a team that clearly didn't have "it", but they fought hard, showed a lot of resiliency, and bounced back from a lot of adversity.

I'll remember JP France coming out of no-where to eat a lot of innings for us. I'll remember Dubon playing a nice 2B when Altuve went down. I'll remember Framber and Javier giving it everything they had in the playoffs, even though they were clearly gassed.

A year like this isn't supposed to deliver October heroics, but damn. Jose Altuve wrote ANOTHER chapter in the HOF story of his career. What a moment that was in Arlington.

After everything that happened this year and all the times we'd been written off, we came home after game 5 with a chance to win one game to advance to the World Series… where we'd either face a team we beat last year or a team we swept to finish the regular season. It was tantalizing.

It wasn't meant to be, but that's ok. Given the choice, I'd obviously rather still be playing and have a chance to snag that third title in seven years. But I do think there's a couple pretty large silver linings in bowing out of the playoffs when we did:

1) It's time to move on from Dusty. I do think there was considerable risk that Crane would bring him back for one more year IF we won the World Series, but now it doesn't matter. He gone.
2) The extra couple weeks of rest will do a number of players (pitchers specifically) ALOT of good

I'm Pumped For 2024

One super cool aspect of this Astros dynasty is that we've been able to refresh/reload along the way. It's rare that a team on an insanely successful seven-year run would be on its 3rd GM and 3rd manager, but that was the hand we were dealt. And honestly, I think it's an advantage to continually bring in fresh perspectives.

While our playoff machine has been oiled pretty well the last few years, it's obvious that Dusty's creaky regular season decision making cost us games. A newer school manager that's more tied in with the front office/roster optimization will be a breath of fresh air. I don't know who that will be but I like the DeRosa idea.

From a personnel standpoint, given our cap and prospect capital constraints, it seems likely that our 2024 roster will look very similar to our 2023 one, with a few exceptions here and there that I'll get to.

That's ok though. At a high level, I think our "championship blueprint" is still intact. It revolves around our pitching depth, which allows us to:

1) Have a consistent nightly starting pitching advantage during the dog days. While other teams dig deep into their systems to find arms while fighting fatigue, injuries, etc, we can go 7-8+ deep of quality big league starters
2) Occasionally use starters not-currently-in-rotation to eat bullpen innings and keep relievers fresh
3) Manage innings of our playoff horses and keep them fresh for October.

When we lost JV, we had to lean on Garcia/LMJ to eat a lot of his quality innings. When we lost them too, plus Urquidy, our biggest strength got thrown out the window and the ripple down effects were enormous.

Starting France (who turned out fine), Blanco and Bielak as many times as we did was not part of the plan when the season started. The starting pitching advantage we usually have in the dog days to rack up wins and distance ourselves from competition was gone. Our relievers got overworked trying to bridge shorter outings from our starters.

But perhaps most importantly, when Framber and Javier started to wear down late in the season, there wasn't much we could do about it. Call me crazy, but I don't think a fresh Framber goes 0-3 with a 9 ERA in the playoffs.

Our playoff chances ride so heavily on the success of Framber and Javier. Even during the worst times of the 2023 season, I felt like we'd be ok if 1) Altuve/Yordan were healthy and 2) Framber/Javier pitched like they were capable. Unfortunately, we just couldn't bring #2 into existence.

But while all that is a bummer for 2023 looking back, it's also an opportunity looking forward to 2024. We're not far off. Our starting pitching depth should be back and maybe better than ever.

JV, Framber, Javier, Hunter, France, Urquidy, Garcia/LMJ (when they return), possibly a jump from Blanco or a surprise from someone like Arrighetti, maybe we sign another mid-price veteran innings-eater. That's a really nice stockpile of guys who can chew up quality innings.

One of my first offseason initiatives would be to tell Framber to take some extra time off and report to Florida on April 1 for workouts. Then have him pitch a few games in Sugar Land to tune up and join the rotation in May. We have other guys who can carry the load in April. We need him fresh for October.

It's also imperative that we find some time to rest Javier at some point during the 2024 season… preferably when we get either LMJ or Garcia (hopefully both) back. Ideally, I don't want him to have thrown more than 130 innings when the playoffs roll around. Can he technically throw more than that? Yea. But his role as playoff assassin is too important.

Everything else is downstream of that IMO.

Signing Hader to solidify the back-end of the bullpen with a lefty sounds really nice. Retaining Neris would be fine too. I'd prefer not to go three years on another reliever but whatever. Abreu, <insert FA> and Pressly in the 7-9 innings is comfy. I also wouldn't be surprised at all to see Montero have a bounce-back 2024 and rejoin the high lev conversation.

Offensively I think we'll see marginal improvement. Whoever our new manager is will properly utilize Chas/Diaz and get them each 550+ ABs. Hopefully Altuve/Yordan don't have to miss extended time again. Guessing we'll pay more attention to splits and matchups as opposed to Dusty just playing whoever passes his look test. All that to say, I don't think we need to do much personnel-wise to have a better offense in 2024.

I'm intrigued by how we deploy Diaz and the cascading effect that will have on the lineup. I assume he's going to catch ~100 games, not because he can't catch more physically, but because ultimately his bat is too important and we want to limit the wear on his tires. When he's not catching, I assume Yordan will play LF and Abreu/Diaz will switch off 1B/DH.

IMO a quality veteran backup catcher is important 1) because we've always had a savvy vet catcher on the roster during our run and 2) he's going to start 50-60 games. I think Salazar could be an answer one day, but also kinda like having him as insurance in AAA if there's an injury.

If there's anyone who's guilty of getting too hyped on Pena in spring training after pics of his triceps and traps are unleashed, it's me. Hopefully he can bounce back next year. But now that we'll have a catcher who can hit, it wouldn't be the end of the world to plug Pena and his gold glove into the 9 hole and hope he can get on base at a .330-.340 clip. He's got some work to do this winter, but I think he wants it and is willing to work for it.

Convos around Framber and Tucker extensions were probably made more complicated over the last month or two. Not expecting much on either of those fronts. Hopefully we can get Bregman and Altuve done though.

Speaking of done, I'm done writing this post. TLDR: I'm calling it right now: The Houston Astros will win the 2024 World Series.

That's a helluva post. Well done!

Also - no World Baseball Classic this coming year to ruin our players.

I literally checked earlier today for off-season thread and nothing and now I come back and I'm 93 posts late

This is how I'll be sleeping while the WS is going on.

As far as the media saying our "run is over"

How many times have we heard that over the past few years?

This would be the 4th time

Post 2019: losing Cole, lost WS, lost Hinch, Lunhow etc. Run over

Post 2020: losing Springer, post cheating scandal. Run over

Post 2021: losing Correa, Greinke, lost WS. Run over

And now…. Apparently it's also over


Since our first "Astros run is over" post 2019

- 4 ALCS
- 2 Pennants
- 1 WS Title

Deluxe said:

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Offensively I think we'll see marginal improvement. Whoever our new manager is will properly utilize Chas/Diaz and get them each 550+ ABs. Hopefully Altuve/Yordan don't have to miss extended time again. Guessing we'll pay more attention to splits and matchups as opposed to Dusty just playing whoever passes his look test. All that to say, I don't think we need to do much personnel-wise to have a better offense in 2024.

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this is the easiest step in improving from 2023 to 2024

I'm so excited to see a full season of Diaz next year!