Breathin' Orange Fire

In 2017, Francis Martes appeared to be the future of the Astros pitching rotation. In 2021, Martes walked 23 batters in 14 2/3 minor league innings and was released last week .  At one point, I wrote that Martes was "a very important player" on the 2018 Spring Training roster because "Martes represents the best bet" to take a spot in the 2019 or 2020 Astros rotation "after [Forest] Whitley." Today, I not only acknowledge that that take didn't hold up [ editor's note: It really didn't ], but that Martes's release is not a big deal to the future of the Astros.  Francis Martes never realized his potential.  Martes was a highly rated prospect. In 2016, Baseball America ranked him as the 20th best prospect in baseball. In 2017, he moved up the list, landing at 15th. He made his major league debut in 2017, and looked like he would play an important role on that team shuttling between Houston and the AAA team in Fresno. But then Martes was derai

What's the greatest honor a player can win?  For Jose Altuve, it was the American League MVP Award. For Zack Greinke, it was the Cy Young Award.  And earlier today for Jake Meyers, it was the YouTube MVP award, given to the player of the game as voted on by fans watching the broadcast on YouTube. Meyers went 2 for 5, but his hard hit ball off of Royals reliever Joel Payamps brought home Alex Bregman for the walk-off 10th inning win.  Jake Meyers and His YouTube MVP Award. Meyers's good game today was not a fluke. He his now slashing .316/.344/.526 in 61 plate appearances since being called up from Sugar Land on August 1.  The Astros traded Myles Straw for Phil Maton because James Click thought that the combination of Chas McCormick and Meyers would produce as well as the combination of Straw and McCormick. So far, that component of the trade has worked as planned. Meyers has hit well, and McCormick has slashed  .333/.379/.467 in 66 plate appearances this month. The Kyle Tucker

 One of the major analytic developments of my lifetime as a baseball fan has been the third time through the order penalty. First discussed in  The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball   by Tom Tango, Mitchell Lichtman, and Andrew Dolphin, the penalty is faced by pitchers who pitch against batters for the third time in a game. Starting pitchers do significantly worse their third time facing a hitter. This season,  major league starters  give up an OPS of .701 their first time facing a hitter, then .743 the second time and .774 the third time. Batters are 6% worse than average their first time facing a pitcher, but 13% better the third time they face a starter. This season, Jake Odorizzi has been hit particularly hard by the third time through the order penalty. His first time facing a batter, Odorizzi is giving up a slash line of .218/.293/.387 for an OPS of .680. His second time through the order, Odorizzi allows a slash line of .235/.307/.452, which is an OPS of .759. But his th

 The origins of the term "dog days of summer" comes from the fact that Sirius, the "dog star" would "rise" into the night sky in the middle of summer in the Northern Hemisphere. The ancient Greeks connected the dog star with "heat, drought, sudden thunderstorms, lethargy, fever, mad dogs, and bad luck." In short, the dog days are August in Texas. And based on how the Astros have been playing recently, Astro fans can be forgiven for identifying with the lethargy, bad luck, fever and madness associated with the dog days of summer. The series this week in Kansas City was certainly maddening. The Astros played 4 close games against a team well out of the playoff picture, losing 3 of them. The losses combined bad BABIP luck and a set of of questionable pitching decisions (keeping Jake Odorizzi in too long on Monday; using Blake Taylor in a high leverage situation on Wednesday) that did not pay off for Dusty Baker.  And the series against the Royals

  Who should the Astros start in Game 1 of a playoff series?  This question has come up a good bit recently. Jake Kaplan put that question as  the lead to his mailbag column  today. Radio talk show host Sean Pendergast asked the question in a weekend twitter poll.  #Penderpoll  … Astros starting pitcher in Game 1 of the playoffs (or a wild card game) … WHO YA GOT? VOTE: — Sean Pendergast (@SeanTPendergast)  August 14, 2021 I have three reactions to this question 1.) It's too early in the season to answer this question, even if we are getting to back half of August; there's still a lot of season to go. 2.) I'm sure that Dusty will go with McCullers; playoff experience will matter to him, and  3. This is a difficult question to answer because the Astros have a very unique starting rotation this season--one with lots of good pitchers but no ace. Taking a look at all American League pitchers by Wins Above Replacement, it's clear that the Astros have no candidates to receive

With a loss last night at Dodger Stadium, the Astros completed their West Coast road trip at 4-4. The end of the road trip marks a clear inflection point in the season. It ends a trip where the Astros battled three playoff contenders, including the team with the best record in the NL (Giants) and the NL's World Series favorite (Dodgers). It marks a shift in the Astros schedule to series of games in the bottom half of the standings. And, most importantly here at the Breathin' Orange Fire blog, it marks the end of the fourth sixth of the season. The Astros have not played 108 games, exactly two-thirds of their scheduled 162 on the season.  In the fourth sixth of the season, the Astros took control of the American League West race, putting distance between themselves and the As, their biggest contender for the division crown.  As a reminder, here at Breathin' Orange Fire, we divide the baseball season up into sixths.  Each sixth is 27 games, which is very close to a month. I u

 Like most Astro fans, I've been paying close attention to the team's moves at the deadline, writing up analysis of how  Kendall Graveman has improved  this year and  the rationale  for the Myles Straw for Phil Maton deals here on the blog. I have also written a take on Yimi Garcia on Twitter  (I'm more skeptical of this move ).  But I also pay great attention to the moves of the other American League West teams. The path to the playoffs in the two wild card era is through winning the division title. I want to understand not just where the Astros stand, but also where they stand in relation to the other four teams in the division.  The most interesting and consequential move made in the AL West this trade deadline was the Oakland A's trade of Jesus Luzardo for Starling Marte. It was a win-now move designed to help the A's hold off the Yankees, Blue Jays, and Mariners for the second AL Wild Card.  It is also a move that is good news for the Houston Astros over the lo