hen3ry

Well, we still suck.

We're missing our real MVP, clearly.

I'm going to say yes, because it's understood to be colloquial rather than literal. English lacks sufficient diversity in its third person pronouns to distinguish the "them" we like from the "them" we don't.

We're not going to get _that_ much chance to adjust. If we're close to 1st coming down to the wire, you gotta try and go for 1st - avoiding a 50-50 coinflip game is more important than setting the rotation to put your 'ace' up in that game, especially since we don't really have an ace.

Houston. It's like LA, but with more humidity and more conservatives.

I can't fault a guy for not wanting to pitch when the act of pitching is causing him significant physical pain. And I could see the 'suck it up' attitude if he was our best option. I'm honestly not seeing either. Let him get the surgery, get as healthy as he can and see if he can contribute from the pen next year maybe. Never know - he might become a decent 7th inning option for us in 2016. And I wouldn't mind if he decided to develop a knuckler. As for the money, Arte's on the hook either way, and his trade value is about the same as Matt Joyce's right now. So that money's really already spent. Only thing you can do going forward, in any of these situations, is to do the best you can with what you're holding. Concentrating on the dollar amount of the contract just leaves you open for the sunk cost fallacy.

Or forgot it exists.

5 2

An actual lead. I guess we're getting buttercupped tonight. Nice change of pace.

Are you sure we haven't gone from suck to blow?

If you still use 'thee,' you might be a Shakespearian era rapper.

What are the scientific odds of that! Honestly, I can't bring myself to hate on the Astros fans. Part of that is because I have a personal friend who works for the organization - and I teased him a lot when he got his first shot with the quadruple-A Houston franchise a couple years ago. But really, I only truly despise Boston. Everything else is just good fun, and I can't bring myself to hate on the fans of a team that's doing well just because they're happy they're doing well. I suppose it's the 1986-1995 difference. In 1995 we did it to ourselves, I can't hate Seattle fan for that, even when they were obnoxious about it. In 1986, (the rest of this paragraph has been censored for the sanity of anyone who's still sane around here). And Houston fan has got a point - unless the Astros undergo an epic collapse like we did in 1995, they're going to the post season. We could get hot and catch them, take the West away, but Houston's playoff fate is entirely in its own hands - at worst they're a wild card, even if we go back on a tear. When this year started, if you told Houston fan that they'd have a shot at the wild card, you'd've probably heard a lot of scoffing and "yeah maybe in another year or two". The division was out of the question. The non-bandwagon portion of their fanbase has suffered for a while now, I'm not going to hate on them for finally having a reason to be happy. I'm gonna hate on our own boys for looking like dogshit this week. They need to get it together, and start playing like they want to play more than 163 games this year.

Even a clock that's drunk and high can be right on occasion.

5 2

Birdemic

3 0

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/the-most-imbalanced-teams-in-mlb-trade-deadline-edition/ Two thoughts spring immediately to mind: 1) Without Trout, we're a "perfectly balanced" team I think. Trout's 7-ish WAR singlehandedly shoves us significantly into the "position players are better" side of the graph. 2) Without Trout, we'd be comparable to the Cleveland Indians. A further one occurs: "So much for our much vaunted starting rotation"

Final: Dodgers 5, Trout 3.

It was clearly all part of the plan: Get Hambone to relapse. Fail to win the legal arguments to get out of the contract. Trade for an average player on the down side of his career, and get him to have the worst year of his career. I see it now, Dipoto had to leave because he knew too much.

K6 ER1

Most relievers are a streaky mess. Trading for them usually doesn't work out in the long run. Street is almost so notable an exception as to be a candidate for the name of the rule's only exception.

C'mon, we still have a good shot at being the second wild card.

We're officially way too optimistic of a fanbase.

Obligatory Season over Franchise over Universe over

As far as roster construction, until August 31, you've got: 9: Your starting 9 (includes 2 of the 4 above platooners) 2: The other two, in backup OF/PH role 1: Featherston (Rule 5, backing up 2b and ss) 1: Perez (Have to have a backup catcher) 1: Gillespie (when Freese gets back) [Robertson sits in this spot until Freese gets back] -- 14 position players 11 pitchers. After Aug 31, Robertson comes back up, along with Navarro, Kuby, Marte, and a couple others. Biggest bench hole, honestly, is that we're using Featherston to backup the middle infield spots. And it's not as if anyone has someone who can really rake sitting as their backup infielder - we might have one of the worst, but the spread between worst and best isn't huge.