With three games left, it appears that the Astros season’s stressful ending will be drawn out, perhaps to the last day. As the Astros prepare to play the Angels, the downhill spiral from solid and attractive playoff odds began last weekend with the sweep by the Mariners leaving the Astros apparently shell shocked. It took the first two games of the A’s series to regain their footing. And that was too long by one game. Winning only the third game of that series left the Astros depending on other teams
to make it possible to get into the playoffs.
Maybe the drawn out dwindling odds gives time for Astros fans to move through the grief process to acceptance. But for Astros players, it means a furious effort to win the remaining three games in order to keep post season hopes alive. Or at least, that should be their mindset. There is no time for anything else in the Angels’ series.
According to the Fangraphs playoff odds, the Astros now have a 28% chance of capturing a Wild Card spot. So the odds are uphill. A better than 1 in 4 chance at the playoffs isn’t nothing. They still have a puncher’s chance at the playoffs, but those odds are anything but comfortable.
If the Astros want the best chance of getting into the post-season, they need to sweep the Angels. With an Astros sweep, the Astros will need either Cleveland or Detroit to lose 2 of 3, or for the Tigers to sweep the Red Sox. Sure, there is still a possibility if the Astros only win 2 of 3, but it’s a pretty tough bet. In that scenario, The Astros would require either Cleveland or Detroit to be swept. Am I skeptical of the Rangers sweeping the Guardians? Sure, we know how much the Rangers want to help the Astros. But, then, Rangers’ manager Bruce Bochy called out his team, trying to light a fire under them in the last few days. We’ll see how that goes.
Two recent fangraphs articles have some interesting points that relate to the contenders’ playoff performances. First, “Let’s Judge Mid-Season Trades Now,‘ graded the mid season deadline trades based on players’ WAR subsequent to the trade. The Astros graded fairly well with 1.5 WAR added. But unfortunately for the Astros, the Mariners graded even better with 2.3 WAR. The Brewers graded the best at 3.5 WAR. The Royals had the best mid season impact (2.6 WAR) in the AL. Almost all of the Astros trade WAR came from Carlos Correa’s performance. Correa brought the 3d best WAR added with 1.4. Only Josh Naylor and Harrison Bader produced more WAR after they were traded (1.5 WAR).
Second, the Fangraphs article, “Heroes and Zeros of September,” highlighted two Astros who plummeted at the same time (and the worst time—September), Jose Altuve and Framber Valdez. “ The two worst WPAs among playoff contenders belong to Astros.” Altuve: “ he’s just had a bummer of a month, and done so with a lot of runners on base at the top of an order in dire need of offense.” As for Valdez: “I don’t know how you explain being the best post-break pitcher one year, then one of the worst post-break pitchers the next year, without admitting that variance is scarily important.”
Batting with Runners in Scoring Position
I always like to focus on a batting or pitching stat. And, given the recent offensive outages by the Astros, we hear a lot of discussion about the Astros’ failures with runners in scoring position (RISP). So, let’s look at Astros’ hitters’ wRC+ with RISP. Given the sample size problems in partial season splits, the list below shows the full season RISP split.
RISP (Above Avg. wRC+)
Pena 204
Smith 116
Correa 109
Caratini 106
Walker 104
Diaz 101
RISP (Below Avg. wRC+)
Paredes 91
Altuve 86
Meyers 81
Dubon 51
Pena has been spectacularly good with RISP. This makes me wonder if he should be batting in the 3 or 4 spot, instead of lead off. But providing 2 times the league average offense with RISP is just exceptional.
In addition to Pena, Smith Walker and Diaz have all elevated their RISP performance relative to their average full saason wRC+. (Full season wRC+: Walker 95, Smith 91, Diaz 89).
Among the below average RISP batters, three are normally above average on the season (Full season wRC+: Paredes, 131, Altuve 113, Meyers 107). And Dubon has a weak full saason wRC+ (84), but his RISP wRC+ is “Yikes!”
Any surprises in this list? Anything that should affect the batting order?
