Breathin' Orange Fire

James Click is a product of the Rays front office. It showed on Thursday.  Click made a surprising move right before the trade deadline sending starting CF Myles Straw to the Indians for reliever Phil Maton and minor league catcher Yanier Diaz.  The Rays are well known for trying to trade players at the peak of their value from the surplus areas of their team. The Rays did this again yesterday when the traded their closer Diego Castillo to the Mariners for another reliever and a prospect at 3B. Few expected Castillo to be traded, but having received excellent performances from a number of relievers, the Rays dealt from their surplus to gain a prospect.  Click did something similar here, seeing a surplus (even if a small one) in his stable of center fielders. The Astros will now make Chas McCormick their regular center fielder, and have called up Jake Myers from Sugarland to serve as the team's fourth outfielder.  McCormick has been a revelation this year as a fourth ...

Kendall Graveman is a different pitcher now.  I mean, he's an Astros today after being traded yesterday afternoon. The oddness of players being traded to the team they are playing was a major theme of yesterday's game, as Joe Smith and Abraham Toro played for the Mariners (and then presumably went back to the Astros team hotel...I'm pretty sure they were traded after check out time).  Graveman touched on his mixed set of emotions in a pre-game session with media from both Houston and Seattle.  An emotional Kendall Graveman was shocked to be traded from Mariners but excited for new opportunities with the Astros pic.twitter.com/3lVaMizuvs — Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) July 28, 2021 But Kendall Graveman is a different pitcher in his pitch mix and approach this season. In particular, Graveman is throwing his slider  harder and more than ever.  Kendall Graveman in his new duds.  Graveman, who was part of the package Oakland received for Josh Donaldson...

The present for the Houston Astros is pretty good, as the team is tied for the best record in the American League and holds a 5 1/2 game lead over Oakland for the AL West lead. And the recent past is also pretty good; the Astros have been to the playoffs in five out of the last six seasons and have made four straight appearances in the American League Championship Series.  But the future...could still be bright.  The championship window is still open for this franchise. This point was driven home for me last week by the publication of Fangraph's annual Top 50 trade value list. The authors--this year they were Ben Clemens and former Astro front office executive Kevin Goldstein--try to determine "how much value...a team [could] expect to get in trade for each player on the list. So in short, the list asks if each player in baseball was on the trade market, who would get the most back in return.  The list is dominated by two types of players--the very best players in baseba...

  After today's game, Chandler Rome noted how much the Astros bats have been slumping in July.  The Astros got four hits and scored three runs in their win today against the Rangers. They are slashing .214/.282/.380 in 19 games in July for a .662 OPS. The only major league team with a worse OPS this month? The Rangers at .610. — Chandler Rome (@Chandler_Rome)  July 25, 2021  Rome has been noting the Astros offensive woes recently. Before the Rangers series, he compared the Astros offensive output in July to its output in June.  The Astros are averaging 4.2 runs per game and slashing .213/.274/.381 in 16 July games. In June, they averaged 6.1 runs per game and slashed .294/.378/.488 in 28 games. — Chandler Rome (@Chandler_Rome)  July 22, 2021 After the White Sox series, Rome first noted the Astros offensive struggles in June.   The Astros are slashing .195/.261/.345 in July. Their .606 OPS is the lowest in baseball this month -  https://t.co/3...

In April, I assessed the state of Astros bullpen. I made five arguments in that piece about the Astros bullpen: It has not been as bad as many fans perceive it,  The bullpen is still performing at a below average level That level is meeting pre-season projections, if not expectations; There is reason to believe the bullpen could improve as the season goes on, and Even with improvement, the bullpen will still be a liability. Today, I return to evaluating the Astros bullpen, and find that I agree with 4 of those 5 statements today, three months and 80 some odd games later.  The bullpen is still this team's biggest liability.  Yet my hope in statement 4 that the "bullpen could improve" has not borne out.  With Myles Straw and Chas McCormick exceeding expectations in the outfield, the bullpen is clearly the team's biggest need heading into the trade deadline.  The State of the Bullpen My headline on the April piece was "Better Than You Think, but Not as Good as Y...

With his bases clearing double, 2 out double in the 7th inning last night, Myles Straw broke open the game last night against the White Sox, and allowed Astros fans to relax at least a little while the bullpen worked. The big hit, combined with Lance McCullers 10 strikeouts in 7 innings, propelled the Astros to a 7-1 win. Straw's big hit prompted Kevin Bonda to post this clip from Happy Gilmore on behalf of #AstrosTwitter.  Astros Twitter to Myles Straw… pic.twitter.com/mwqgIMIhQk — Bonda (@BenOndaTop) July 17, 2021 Of course, the sentiment that Bonda's tweet represents seems an accurate reflection of the sentiment of Astros fans about Straw over the course of this season. After the signings of Michael Brantley and Pedro Baez this off-season, it became clear that Straw would be the everyday centerfielder, as the front office was not going to go over the luxury tax threshold to sign a free agent like Jackie Bradley, Jr.  Myles Straw hits a bases clearing double.   Straw ...

 On July 22, 2018, Mike Petriello of MLB.com posted an article headlined "5 best relievers you don't know who may get dealt."  The first reliever he discussed in the article--Ryan Pressly. Petriello noted that Pressly, then of the Twins, had the 7th best spin rate in MLB on fastballs and 2nd best on curveballs. Petriello concluded his write up on Pressly by saying "it's easy to see progressive teams...like the Dodgers or Astros being extremely interested here." Petriello's guess was right. A progressive team like the Astros was extremely interested in Pressly--the Astros traded for Pressly five days later, in exchange for prospects Jorge Alcala and Gilberto Celestino.  Needless to say, it's been a good trade for the Astros. In his 4 seasons with the Astros, Pressly has pitched 133.2 innings with a 2.02 ERA, and a 0.90 WHIP. He's struck out 12.0 batters per 9 IP, while allowing only 1.8 BB/9, for a 6.59 ratio. Opposing batters are slashing .191/....

As the calendar turns to July, the focus of the baseball world turns toward the trade deadline.  Contenders  are assessing their team weaknesses and potential fits that struggling teams might be willing to deal. For the Astros, most of that focus has been on potential additions to the struggling bullpen.  The Astros ability to acquire help at the trading deadline is heavily constrained by previous choices the front office made. The first is that they seem to consider the luxury tax threshold of $210 million as their salary cap.  And the second, is that they chose to give more 2021 salary to Justin Verlander than any other player, making it much more difficult for the Astros to acquire a reliever and stay under their self-imposed salary cap.  A sight for sore eyes. Verlander in an Astros uniform. The Astros signed Verlander to a two year, $66 million contract extension in Spring Training 2019 . The $33 million average annual value was at the time a record for pi...

And so, the first half, and the third sixth, of the season ends not with a bang, but with a whimper. The Astros lost last night to the lowly Orioles to extend their losing streak to 4 games. The Orioles series was one of the most annoying of the year, as not only did the Astros lose, but the slow pace of play and the closeness of the games through the middle innings made the losses even more excruciating. And despite last night's loss, the game last night marked the end of the most successful sixth of the Astros season. The losing streak came after an 11 game win streak, featuring consecutive sweeps of the Rangers, White Sox, and Orioles. The Astros also won series in Boston, Buffalo (against the Jays), and Minnesota,  The losing streak, and the terrible series against the Os, suck.  But taking a look at a slightly bigger pictures shows that the Astros are a good team that improved their stock in the last 27 games. It just doesn't feel that way. As a reminder, here at Breathin...