Taking the Pressure of J.R. Towles

If we should take one thing from yesterday's game, apart from the utter humiliation the team suffered it is that Manager Brad Mills is still very unsure about his lineup. This was clearly evident from J.R. Towles batting in the number 2 slot, which a lot of people had assumed would go to Clint Barmes, at least to start the season. The other candidate for the spot, Jason Castro is on the DL and out for the season.

Towles is the right sort of hitter, but putting him there would be putting too much pressure on him to start the season. You see how Chris Johnson performed when Mills put him down the bottom of the order, let him swing away, and kept the pressure off him. So it should be with Towles, but I wonder if Mills would be ready to really throw the dice and stick JR at number 9 in the pitcher's spot.

Such a move is probably beyond Mills, who isn't as inclined to break the managerial strictures as others in the job around the majors. In fact one of my only criticisms of the man is that he often reverts to reading out of his metaphorical copy of Baseball Coaching for Dummies when he runs out of ideas. Hence pulling pitchers for lefties, for the overriding reason that most managers do it. Not because the situation dictates it, but because that's what most guys do in that situation.

That would be what I would do. Think outside the box. Let Towles chill at no.9 them move him if his production warrants it.

Plot of Astros Sale Thickens: Jim Crane pushing hard for ownership

The Astros owner: But for how much longer?

I wasn't expecting anything until late into the year, but Mark Berman has this report that Jim Crane is pushing real hard to buy the Astros (h/t to Astros County for the link), while Richard Justice seems to have extrapolated from this link (or perhaps new information) that a deal has been struck, or is close to being struck.

Just when I think it is going to be a slow Astros news week with most of the spring sub-plots seemed to have been extinguished and this drops on my lap.

Take everything with a pinch of salt until reports are confirmed.

More to follow.

Now He's Just Messing with us

I think this picture perfectly represents my feelings to Justice's latest effort. I wonder if his editor has clocked on to the fact that he's phoning in his Astros efforts (metaphorically of course) as I'm sure he's still perched at his desk reading Dilbert or tapping his fingers on the arm rest of his chair. 

Clear analysis? That was jettisoned years ago. Messing with peoples' heads is much more entertaining. 

It Just Looks Wrong

Shudder.

On to today's game, which the Astros won 3-2, making it their fourth straight win of ST.

Bud Norris' 5 scoreless innings sticks out, which sort of doesn't count towards the hoodoo he has over the Cardinals. No walks over 5 innings is encouraging as his 4.51 BB/9 in 2011 really needs to be cut down to something at least near 3.

As you can see pretty clearly from the bottom two graphs if you click this link, Norris' fastball control is all over the shop. There are a few nice clusters on the edges of the strikezone down, but it could be better.

You want to be getting to the stage where you are throwing to the corners of the plate rather than grasping for the strikezone as young pitchers are wont to do. Bud has decent velocity on his fastball, averaging at 93.6 and his secondary pitches could make him a very effective pitcher when he progresses. Bud is the perfect model pitcher for Arnsberg to work with, raw, good live fastball, and good changeup.

The pitch f/x tracker for his slider actually intrigues me most.

You can see from this that most of his sliders have hit that bottom corner of the outside part of the plate for a right handed batter. The slider is a very effective weapon for a RHP against RHB as Hunter Pence's struggles with the slider have demonstrated over the past few years. Morgan Ensberg was another who had a huge weakness in that area. He would continually pull off on sliders outside and down. 

Braveheart is a Good 'un

Someone on TCB mentioned William Wallace in relation to Brett's nickname and I think it is an excellent suggestion.

Some of the Astros' BA have started to spiral upwards, which is good, but we shouldn't set too much stock in how many singles a guy can hit in ST. A few like Pence have yet to homer in spring, which would be handy. Hunter struggled early in the season with his power, and over the course of the entire 2010 his double numbers did dip.

However the unlikely trio of Wallace, Johnson and Towles might prove a lot of people wrong in 2011, which would be great if Barmes and Hall can put up half-decent seasons as well. Quintero is never going to hit around .400, even if he is doing roughly that now, and any performances in Spring Training should be treated with at least a smidgen of caution. Jason Michaels has had a nice spring, and so have a few other guys. Manzella and Downs have had their moments. Only one will likely make the 25-man roster.

Wilton Lopez completed his sixth straight scoreless inning of this spring, accomplished without giving up a hit or a walk, fueling talk that he may not be too far away from assuming the closer's mantle.

Wandy is on the road to recovery after his 'mild' tendinitis which probably means it was misdiagnosed. You can tell how crucial Rodriguez is to Astros' success when guys like Jeff Sullivan start writing about it.

One or two other links to share with you. The first is a new entrant into the Astros' blogosphere, and he reminds me a bit of me when I started out, oh, nigh on six years ago. I think he still has tons to learn, but then don't we all. Looking back on my earlier stuff I can't believe how dumb some of my stuff was.

Still do.

Jerry Crasnick is also full of praise for the Astros' rotation, arguing that the quartet is an underrated bunch.

Brett Myers has also been named as the Astros' opening day starter after eight years with Roy Oswalt in that role. Roy had lost his last four openings dating back to 2007, with the Astros going 2-6 in his opening day starts.

Nicknames 'n stuff

I think TCB came up with Cast Iron for Jason Castro's nickname, and all I can say is it's better than Michael Kay's ridiculous Al So for Alfonso Soriano or J-Roll for Jimmy Rollins. Good lord.

Since Wallace is now the greatest hitter on the planet, golfing out 7 RBIs today he should really have a nickname, and not "that f***ing useless one." Johnson and Wallace need a collective nickname too, since they are holding down the whole Astros youth revolution without Castro this season. Some variation of Bash Brothers, Native_astro came up with "Needle-less bash brothers" and "bash brothers without the stash."
Super smash brothers would work, but CJ and Wallace weren't the two Astros' rookies who dressed up as Mario and Luigi (that was Esposito and Villar I think).

Since Wallace is a well built guy, and he's a first baseman and he's a left-hander, I thought some homage to the late-great- Lou Gehrig would be appropriate (Gehrig was nicknamed the iron horse for those who should know). Since we have 'the horse' in left field, although he's rarely called el caballo these days we could have two horses on the team.

Ideas?
Mine are
Trojan Horse
Rocking Horse
Pommel Horse
Clothes Horse
Charley Horse
My Little Pony

Jordan Lyles pitched two scoreless innings today, fueling the mania, striking out 3 and lowering his ERA to 1.80. Aneury Rodriguez and Lance Pendleton pitched either side of him. Apart from a solo shot he coughed up to Jake Fox Rodriguez did pretty well. Pendleton however got rocked in his single inning.

My money is still on Figueroa to start in the rotation before someone else takes over mid-season. Could be wrong.

The moment Justice lost even a shred of credibility

Not that he had much anyway.

Usually Richard Justice's opinions do make the mind-boggle, but you can usually isolate the problem pretty easily. With today's offering I'm just perplexed as to what he is trying to say, or whether the entirety of the post is a joke, or perhaps he just isn't taking it seriously anymore.

Perhaps for all these years he has just been one long troll, endlessly offering up joke opinions and then laughing at us as we rise to the bait. Is he the Stephen Colbert of baseball writers?

Or maybe he just pressed send on a piece he had only drafted. Its like he started to write a piece on '50 reasons to watch the Astros in 2011' sort of had a stab at it, and then gave up and called it a bad job. And throughout he quotes what I assume is the Astros ticket line.

I know as a writer on a team you have to jazz up the team's prospects to make your own coverage seem as exciting and relevant, and perhaps Justice's editors have asked him to do just that, and the small endorsement of the Astros in 2011 is written in sarcasm just to prove a point to his editor.

Or maybe Justice has finally cracked as we have all been predicting he would, and the men in white coats will be down shortly.

Reading between the lines you have to think he has just lost it with the organisation and has no enthusiasm left for the team, even though he is getting paid to write about them.

Second, there’s Brett Wallace. You’ll want to say you were there to see the beginning of what’s sure to be a great career with the Astros, and if that doesn’t prompt you to phone 713-259-8500, I don’t know what will. 

Is it a troll? What do you think?

And then the comments section is even better amusement. Most seem impervious to his sarcasm and have taken it on face value, with some calling the Astros total no-hopers, and others echoing his 'enthusiasm' for the team. Or maybe the fans are trying to counter-troll Justice by playing along with his original premise.

My favourite is this:

I opened this article hoping to read the 50 reasons your headline offered but it looks like you had a difficult time coming up with the 6 that you did write about. Shoddy work Justice. Why not just title the article “1000 reasons to watch the 2011 Astros” if you’re not going to bother doing the work anyways.
BTW, those 6 reasons were so inspiring, I almost picked up my phone to call for tickets…do your job dude

Lordi.

Chronicle coverage improves for the better

Most of you probably also check out AstrosCounty too. And you should. It's a great hub for Astros news, and there isn't much they miss. So James Yasko will be a great addition to the Chronicle fanblogs and we look forward to reading his stuff in 2011.

Who Cares if It is Factual?

The New York Post has a piece today (h/t to Astros County), where it looks at whether Myers might be a possible trade target for the Yankees. Again, the reasoning seems to be that if you shake some magic beans in front of Ed Wade's nose, he'll give you anything you ask for.

Personally I'd like to get me some Brackman, even if that is aiming too high. Even with his stocks not being too high at the moment, he was still comfortably inside the top 100 of Baseball America's prospect list at number 78.,

Native Astro wants Manny Banuelos, but I'm pretty sure no club trades a 19 year old pitcher with the upside Banuelos has in any circumstance. Or maybe I'm over-estimating his stock right now. Or maybe not. He clocked in at 41 on BA's list, one in front of the Astros' Jordan Lyles.

Still, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of teams bid for Myers in the summer, but the Post seems to think that Myers 2-years $23m contract ends at the end of 2011, when in fact it only started this year, finishing at the end of 2012 with an option for a third year.

Do your research Yankees.

Astros' will not be trading Wandy for catching help

I shouldn't even bother alluding to it, but here is one of the most ridiculous trade ideas I have seen in a while coming out of the god-awful Bleacher Report, which is single-handedly trying to ruin baseball coverage.

As the author posits, wouldn't trading Wandy Rodriguez to the Yankees for Austin Romine, a catcher in New York's farm system make sense?

Errrr...no. True, getting something to plug the gap for a year until Castro returns in 2012 (possibly) would be great, but seems out of reach at this point considering the resources Ed Wade has at his disposal. The first reason this is dumb is because Romine finished 2010 at AA, and probably is not big league ready this season anyway. It is also a pretty poor haul for Rodriguez for just one mid-tier prospect.

Next it is equally stupid to trade a front of the rotation starter (even with the flak Rodriguez gets, he's in or around that bunch) for a catcher who might only be a marginal upgrade.

If Castro really does not make a recovery in the long-term, which is a worst-case scenario, then the Astros will likely wait for someone like Ben Heath to run through the minors. David Coleman flagged this up yesterday and was sort of suggesting that Heath's progression through the minors might be aggressive if he continues to do what he did last year in his half-season after being drafted in the fifth round out of Penn State.

The reason I think locking up both Myers and Rodriguez were such  good decisions was that it gives Wade two hot commodity's this summer if the Astros have a poor run up to July and there is a market for them. He has no pressure to deal them, but if one or two bidders are desperate for pitching help Wade can exploit a seller's market and get something very good for one or both of them. Personally I could not see either being shifted, but I can see a scenario where this happens.

Considering Happ and Norris are cheap team controlled options for the next four or so years Wade needs to fill up three more spots. Lyles will probably be in the rotation in 2012 at least, and might even be ready for a callup after the trade deadline if there is a place for him. If Pendleton or Rodriguez stakes a claim to a place then this scenario would necessitate clearing a rotation spot for Lyles.

Or if the market is not there Wade can keep hold of them both, and perhaps look to shift someone to the bullpen and have a pretty strong looking rotation over the next few years.

Lyles starting to make his case

Wade has said the job is there for him to win. Still very mixed about whether I want him starting in the majors at 20.