Another Pair of Astros Articles

First, here's a recap of tonight's win over the Angels, #101 on the year.

Next, here's a look at Justin Verlander's historic season in the context of this year's Cy Young race against Gerrit Cole.

Another Week-end Roundup

Two more pieces this week over at The Crawfish Boxes. First, a look at teams the Astros might face in the first round of the playoffs. Next, a recap of today's big 12-3 win over the Royals for the series sweep.

A lot of writing this week!

Both in number of articles and length (this week's game recap wound up twice as long as normal).

First, here's a recap of tonight's Astros game, which saw the Astros come back from a 7-0 deficit to win 11-9 in thirteen innings. I decided to write with an unusual gimmick when it looked like it would be a laugher, but decided to stick with it even after things got competitive.

Next, I did a one-month retrospective on how Zack Greinke's tenure with the Astros has gone so far.

And lastly, over at Out of Left Field, I reviewed the newest Zelda spin-off, Cadence of Hyrule!

This Week's Writing

Two more articles this week: first, here's today's recap of today's tough loss to the Tampa Bay Rays, which closes out an otherwise-great ten-game homestand.

Next, from a few days ago, here's a look at Michael Brantley's season, which might even be his best one yet. 

Another Weekly Round-up

Two more pieces for your consideration this week, both from The Crawfish Boxes. First, my recap of Monday's win over the Tigers. Next, my look at how Justin Verlander's recent run of dominance means that he could reach 3000 strikeouts a little earlier than expected.

A Much Less Overdue Link Round-Up

Only two articles this time, after the massive one from last week. First, I looked at Jose Altuve's performance since coming off the Injured List. He's kept up his power surge from early in the season, but his contact skills have returned as well!

Then, I recapped today's loss to the A's. I've been on a really rough roll the last two months or so as far as the Astros' record in games that I recap, but despite that, I still somehow apparently have a winning record on the year at 12-11.

An Overdue Link Round-Up

It's been a while since my last post linking to all of my recent writing across different sites, so let's take care of that!

Over at The Crawfish Boxes, I had pre-trade deadline features on the relief pitcher market generally and Felipe Vazquez specifically. I also contributed a series preview for the Cardinals-Astros meet-up.

And the newest feature over there is a piece looking at the Astros' chances at finishing the year with the best record in the majors, comparing their remaining schedule strength against the Dodgers, Yankees, and Twins. As a bonus, I even explained why they're favorites to set another franchise win record this year.

I also did three game recaps along the way, including a loss to the A's, a loss to the Indians, and a win over the Mariners.

If you haven't been following my posts here, I did a piece Hall of Fame weekend suggesting that other teams should follow the Mariners' lead in lobbying for Edgar Martinez, and even suggested a name for each team. And following the Astros acquiring Zack Greinke, I looked at his chances of reaching 3000 strikeouts, and the history of 3000 K teammates.

And lastly, in non-baseball news, over at Out of Left Field, I did a piece suggesting some possible (albeit unlikely) future Disney live action remakes.

Phew, that was a lot; I've been productive lately!

Justin Verlander, Zack Greinke, and a History of 3000 Strikeout Teammates

If you’ve seen any of Justin Verlander’s starts this year, there’s a good chance that you’ve seen him making some bit of strikeout history or other; he’s been climbing up the leaderboard since joining Houston, passing famous aces and various milestones almost nightly. When he came to Houston back in September 2017, JV stood at 2373 Ks, in 46th place all-time. Now, just under two years later, he’s climbed all the way to 18th, and at 2902, he should pass the historic 3000 mark sometime in early 2020.

But now, he’s not alone on the team in that regard. With the acquisition of Zack Greinke at the deadline, the Astros now have both the second- and fourth-highest active strikeout totals in their rotation (and, given that this is CC Sabathia’s final year, they’ll of course automatically take over first and third next season). And both are under contract through the 2021 season, meaning this duo should be here for a while.

Greinke is one year Verlander’s junior (well, eight months, but they fall on opposite sides of the June 30th line that’s usually used to determine a the season-age for a player), and at 2570, is even closer to 3000 strikeouts than Verlander was when he arrived back in 2017. Get ready to see a lot of the same names Justin passed coming up again (in the coming weeks, you can look forward to Bob Feller at 2581, Warren Spahn at 2583, Tom Glavine at 2607, and Chuck Finley at 2610). But it also raised a few interesting questions for me: how soon could Greinke reach 3000 strikeouts? And how often are there two 3000 strikeout pitchers on the same team?


Let’s tackle those in order. First, I don’t feel it’s too presumptuous to say that Greinke will get to 3000 strikeouts, and the only active pitchers who I think have a better chance to make it right now are the two ahead of him, Verlander and Max Scherzer (who’s currently at 2638). Greinke is basically a guarantee to reach 2600 this season, and is under contract for at least two more full years to get him even closer.

Basically, as long as you can stay productive or get close enough to 3000 that you can crawl over the line in a season or two while your arm doesn’t fall off, you can keep finding opportunities to get the rest of the way there. There’s a reason that nobody has retired with a strikeout total in the 2900s (something that isn’t true for any other hundreds before it), or that the largest gap between any two consecutive retired players on the all-time list (outside of the top five) is Jim Bunning (2855) and John Smoltz (3084). People generally want to get the rest of the way once they’re that close

And even below the 2900 range, outside of Mike Mussina, the only players who have retired in even the 2600-2900 range are the ones who saw their strikeout ability drop substantially in their final years. Sometimes it was due to injuries limiting their innings, sometimes it was their K/9 rate dropping rapidly, sometimes it was both, but neither seems to apply to Zack yet. I suppose that Greinke could finish in that range and decide to walk away like Mussina did, but I’d want to hear that from him before calling it at all likely.

As for when it will happen, just going by some back of the envelope calculations, there’s a decent chance he pulls it off before his current contract ends. As mentioned, he currently sits at 2570, and has 135 on the year. If he can pull out 60 more (just to use round numbers), that would put him more or less in line with his 2018 total (199) and leave him at 2630. At that point, he would just need to average 185 for the next two seasons, which is very much something Zack can manage. It’s looking like 2019 will be his third straight season topping that total, and perhaps even more impressively, 2019 will mark the tenth time in the last twelve years where he would top 180 strikeouts. We’ll have to see how he fares in Houston, of course (maybe Brent Strom can even help him kick things up yet another notch), but reaching 3000 by the end of 2021 looks at least doable, although it will likely come down to the wire and definitely depend a little on luck.

And of course, by the time that he reaches it, Verlander will have crossed it about a year and a half earlier, which will put the Astros in rare company. In the course of Major League history, only 17 different pitchers have reached the 3000 K plateau, which means teams with multiple 3000 strikeout guys are even rarer. You can probably think of a few examples; Greg Maddux and John Smoltz on the ‘90s Braves, Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling on the Diamondbacks, and so on. But not all of them had 3000 strikeouts yet when pitching in those duos, which would be the case if Greinke reaches it by 2021. How often has that happened?

I decided to chart out every 3000 K club member (plus likely next three in Verlander, Scherzer, and Greinke) by team over the years, as well as when they finally crossed the mark, to answer that question. Here’s as much trivia on 3000 strikeout teammates as I could find:

One Hall of Fame Candidate Each Team Could Lobby For

This Sunday marks the 2019 Hall of Fame induction ceremony, where (among others) Edgar Martinez will finally be getting his long-deserved induction. What makes his case especially interesting is that his team, the Mariners, played an unusually large role in helping to sway some of the more stubborn voters. This type of campaigning isn’t completely new (just look at Rich Lederer and Bert Blyleven a decade ago for one notable example, or any number of Veterans Committee selections who have had some connections in the voters), but it is unusual for certain teams to be the ones doing so rather than individuals.

And honestly? I kind of like it. Maybe one day, when teams are regularly pushing for bad players to be elected, it’ll be more frustrating than anything. But in this day and age, where there’s instead a huge backlog of notable candidates getting insufficient Hall of Fame attention? In truth, more teams should be doing that.

So let’s help them out! Here’s one candidate I think each team could take up to advocate for their Hall of Fame selection:



The Easy Matches, BBWAA Edition:

Colorado Rockies-There will be plenty of time to work on the Todd Helton lobby, but right now, Larry Walker is in his tenth year and desperately needs some votes whipped in his favor. The Rockies have kept Walker’s number mostly out of use since he retired, so they clearly like him. Help him out here, Colorado!

San Francisco Giants-After years of waiting (I guess for the Hall of Fame to induct him?), the Giants went ahead and retired Barry Bonds’s number anyway. Starting to push for his Hall election would be a next step.

Houston Astros-I think Lance Berkman wouldn’t be a bad Hall selection, but he’s not an especially pressing case and he’s now fallen off the writers ballot. Meanwhile, Billy Wagner is still on the ballot (entering his fifth of ten chances), and now that Mariano Rivera, Lee Smith, and Trevor Hoffman have gone in over the past two years, Wagner is probably the best closer not in Cooperstown.

Atlanta Braves-Andruw Jones might be the best fielding outfielder of all-time, hit 434 home runs, and is in danger of falling off the ballot in his third attempt this winter. His strong connection with Atlanta could help, especially since his ‘90s co-stars Chipper Jones, Bobby Cox, and The Big Three are now all accounted for



The Easy Matches, Veterans Committee Edition:
Detroit Tigers-Now that Alan Trammell and Jack Morris are in, the obvious next step is to advocate for their long-time teammate Lou Whitaker, who is more than deserving.

Chicago White Sox-An early star of integration, Minnie Minoso has come to be a regular appearance on Veterans Committee ballots and Hall of Fame snub lists. The White Sox love him, and have retired his number, so maybe it helps him out one day the way it seemingly did Harold Baines this year.

Kansas City Royals, New York Mets-I have a feeling that one or both of these two might have to take up Carlos Beltran, but they have a few years until he hits the ballot. Or maybe Beltran does better than I’m expecting and goes in quickly. Who knows. In the meantime though, I think Bret Saberhagen is a deserving modern starter who fits the “high peak” Hall profile. And Keith Hernandez is the type of “doubles-and-fielding” star who gets overlooked, especially at positions like first base, plus the Mets already have his #17 out of circulation.

Toronto Blue Jays-I think either Dave Stieb or John Olerud works here. I don’t think that Stieb is as good as Saberhagen, or that Olerud is as good as Hernandez, but both have similar cases to those two, and I think they’re still good enough for Cooperstown.

Minnesota Twins-I guess they could try and push for Johan Santana (see above) when he finally hits the Veterans Committee ballot, but maybe they would be better served gearing up for Joe Mauer in a few years. I also foresee that one being a bit of a struggle.

Los Angeles Angels, Baltimore Orioles-Both teams are a little leaner in their options, but Bobby Grich is a strong second base option who split his career fairly evenly with both teams, so either could take up his case convincingly.

Oakland Athletics, Texas Rangers-For both of these AL West teams, you could argue for either a slugging steroid era first baseman (Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro) or an expansion era third baseman, since the position has been pretty overlooked (Sal Bando, Buddy Bell).

Cincinnati Reds-The Reds finally retired Pete Rose’s number a few years ago after holding off for decades following his ban from the game. Maybe the next step is petitioning Cooperstown to finally electing him? Failing that, I could see them pushing for Dave Concepción, although I’m less sold on his Hall case.



The More Complicated Ones, BBWAA Edition:

Cleveland Indians-I’d like to see the Indians take up the case for Kenny Lofton when he hits the Veterans Committee ballot in a few years, but realistically, their primary focus would probably be Omar Vizquel until he’s no longer on the BBWAA’s ballot.

New York Yankees-Similarly, I think the Yankees could do good things for the cases of guys like Thurman Munson or Graig Nettles, but the main focus would probably be Andy Pettitte while he’s on the Writers’ Ballot. I do think Pettitte is a better Hall choice than Vizquel, though, so I mind this a little less.

Boston Red Sox-Manny Ramirez and Roger Clemens are both still on the ballot, but neither has a great relationship with the Red Sox, to my knowledge. The uncontroversial option would probably be to take up the VC case for long-time Red Sock Dwight Evans.

St. Louis Cardinals-Scott Rolen is still on the ballot, and I think he’s more closely associated with the Cardinals than his other teams. As a fan of both Rolen and the Cardinals, I’d love to see this happen, but his short tenure with the team might hurt him. If not Rolen, then among VC options, they could try with the unfairly-one-and-done Jim Edmonds, or put real effort behind finally pushing Ted Simmons or Ken Boyer over the line.

Philadelphia Philles-Both Rolen and Curt Schilling are on the ballot, and spent a plurality of their careers in Philly, but I don’t think either left the city on great terms? So maybe there’s too many hard feelings here. I’m not a Philadelphia native though, so maybe I’m interpreting things wrong. I guess they could just start gearing up for Chase Utley in 2024 instead.

Arizona Diamondbacks-Similar to Rolen and St. Louis, maybe Arizona takes up Schilling’s case instead. His shorter time in Phoenix means more in the context of a younger team, if nothing else, especially given his role on the 2001 champions.

Miami Marlins-The Marlins don’t have a ton of great options, because, well, you know. But it would be both kind of funny and actually interesting if they took up Gary Sheffield’s case while he was on the ballot. Sheffield was kind of a mercenary during his career, but the Florida native played more games in Miami than anywhere else, joined the team in their debut season, and was on their first championship team in 1997. I always kind of wondered if he would have stuck around longer (or at least liked the option to do so) had Marlins ownership been a little less wildly cynical.

Chicago Cubs-Sammy Sosa seems like the obvious choice, but Cubs ownership still doesn’t like to acknowledge him for whatever reason. So failing that, I guess they could go in for Rick Reuschel?



¯\_(ツ)_/¯:
Seattle Mariners­­-I can’t think of any good options here, but since they started this idea and got Edgar inducted, I’ll give them a pass for the time being.

Tampa Bay Rays, Washington Nationals-The Nationals don’t really acknowledge the Montreal years, so they have under two decades to work with. The Rays will probably get their first good candidates in a few years when Evan Longoria retires.

Pittsburgh Pirates, Los Angeles Dodgers-I could see them pushing for Dave Parker and Orel Hershiser or Fernando Valenzuela. They’re all kind of stretches, but they’re Veteran Committee ballot regulars, and neither team has a stronger candidate.

Milwaukee Brewers, San Diego Padres-I’m totally at a loss for these two right now. I guess starting building your casebooks for Christian Yelich and Manny Machado?

Weekly Review

This week, I did a couple of summaries for the Angels series, including Monday's loss and Wednesday's big win. The latter marked my first recap of a win in over a month!

I also contributed to The Crawfish Boxes' Trade Deadline preview, where we each picked our ideal and most likely trade targets.

And in case you missed it on this site, here was my two-part series looking at managers, retired numbers, and which managers might get their numbers retired.

Which Active Managers Could Get Their Numbers Retired? Part Two

In part one, I looked at what it generally takes for a manager to get their number retired by a team. Now that we have a framework established, we can pretty easily go through each team’s manager and see which ones measure up. Of course, in some cases, the manager is relatively new, so I also threw in a few other recent managers for some teams who seem to fit at least one of the major criteria. There’s a lot to get through here, so let’s get to it:


Red Sox-It's still way too early to say for sophomore manager Alex Cora. Obviously, winning a title in your first season is a pretty good start, but the last guy did that too, and he was let go after five years with a .533 record. Cora definitely seems better than that, of course, but it's still going to be an uphill battle.

On the subject of recent managers, while he was technically three managers ago (already???), he's still active with some pretty good credentials: I'm speaking, of course, about Terry Francona. He didn't even make it to a decade in Boston, which might seem a little short, but it was actually the second-longest managerial tenure the team has ever seen (and the longest excluding player-managers). Two World Series, including the one that broke The Curse, should be more than enough to smooth over whatever anger ownership felt towards him when he retires (also, like Cora and John Farrell, Francona won a World Series in his first year with the team. That means every manager since the curse ended except Bobby Valentine did that. I don’t know that it means anything, but it’s weird that it’s happened three times now). They might wait for him to make the Hall first (which he seems like a lock for), and we'll get to his Indians number later, but I expect #47 to get retired shortly after Francona hangs it up for good.



Orioles-Brandon Hyde was just hired this past offseason, and it’s too early to call whether he’ll still be in place by the end of the Orioles’ present rebuilding, let alone anything beyond that. His predecessor Buck Showalter had the second-longest Orioles tenure ever, and is second in team history on wins (both behind Earl Weaver), but it’s hard to see him getting a number retired given the lack of pennants.



Blue Jays-Charlie Montoyo is another first-year manager, so again, it’s probably not worth getting too into. I got into it last time, but their interesting manager in recent history is Cito Gaston, who won two World Series managing the Blue Jays from 1989 to 1997 (then came back for a second, less successful fun from 2008 to 2010). He’s also the all-time winningest Blue Jays manager. I’m not sure why they haven’t retired his number yet, but they did add him to their “Level of Excellence” that seemed like their twist on retired numbers right up until they actually started to retire numbers as well. So we’ll see how that goes in the next few years, I suppose. I still think they’ll eventually retire his number, unless they’re leaving retired numbers to Hall of Famers exclusively (Gaston might not make the Hall, but I haven’t looked at his case too hard yet either way to be 100% sure of that gut reaction).



Rays-Kevin Cash is only four games above .500 at the moment and had a tough first three years, but the Rays have looked like a strong team since last year, so maybe he’s on the upswing. If he brings the Rays their first World Series, he’ll likely also take over their franchise win record, so that would make him a strong contender.

Joe Maddon is also interesting, as the current franchise win leader and the guy who brought Tampa their first pennant. If Cash actually wins a World Series, it takes a lot of the luster off of Maddon’s achievement. Conversely, if Maddon makes the Hall (which still seems pretty feasible), the Rays may honor him for getting his start there. I can see it going either way.



Yankees-Aaron Boone, again, seems like he’s off to a decent start, but just winning a World Series doesn’t seem to be enough for the Yankees, so he has a tougher hill to climb than just about anyone else. His predecessor Joe Girardi managed the team for a decade, but his lone title probably isn’t enough for their standards. Maybe it could happen if the owners decide they like him more in retrospect, like with Billy Martin.

What Does it Take for a Manager to get Their Number Retired?

Earlier this season, manager AJ Hinch moved into the Astros’ franchise top three in all-time wins with the team, passing Art Howe with his 393rd win in Houston. Inspired by that, I wondered if Hinch is the best manager in Astros history. Looking into it and asking around, the answer was… a pretty resounding yes. After moving into third place already this year, he’s already four wins shy of tying Larry Dierker (435) for second place. Barring anything unforeseen, he should pass Bill Virdon’s 544 wins sometime next year. And of course, no other Astros manager has won a World Series, only one other one has a pennant (Phil Garner in 2005), only Virdon has managed the team for more seasons (8 to 5), and the only manager with a winning percentage higher than his .583 mark is Salty Parker, who went undefeated in one game in 1972 in between Harry Walker and Hall of Famer Leo Durocher (who I hadn’t even realized managed the Astros for just under 200 games).

So, uh… yeah. Glad I could answer that question. But I wanted to dig into the topic a little more. So, in typical me fashion, I decided to look at it from the perspective of retired numbers: which current managers have a shot at getting their numbers retired by a team? (It may not seem like it, but this is probably a more interesting question than making the Hall of Fame, to be honest, since the standards are more ambiguous.)

That of course brings up the question of “what does it take to get your number retired as a manager?” The easiest thing to do would be to look at managers who already have their numbers retired, but that can be something of a difficult question given the number of people with a retired number who served as both a player and a manager. Would players like Dierker (#49) or Red Schoendienst (#2, Cardinals) have gotten their numbers retired if they didn’t also have notable playing careers with their teams? Or even further, is their honor entirely due to their playing days, with managerial achievements serving just as icing on the cake? And this isn’t even getting into old-time player-managers where the two components are even more intertwined, like Bill Terry (#3, Giants).

You kind of have to play it by ear a little bit, but there are some trends you start to notice:

1) Win multiple World Series titles.
This is the surest route. 23 managers have won more than one World Series, and 9 of them have gotten their number retired.* Which doesn’t sound great, until you consider all the complicating factors. Two manages on that list are still active (Bruce Bochy and Terry Francona, both of whom have pretty compelling cases). A number of other notable ones never wore uniform numbers, including Joe McCarthy (most World Series wins as a manager) and Connie Mack (most wins). That accounts for another six managers. Now to be fair, John McGraw never wore a number either, and that didn’t stop the Giants from adding him to their retired number section, but the Giants are not the norm in that regard.

* That list includes: Casey Stengel (#37, Yankees and Mets), Walter Alston (#24, Dodgers), Joe Torre (#6, Yankees), Sparky Anderson (#10, Reds; #11, Tigers), Tony La Russa (#10, Cardinals), Tom Kelly (#10, Twins), Tom Lasorda (#2, Dodgers), Danny Murtaugh (#40, Pirates), and John McGraw (see above). All of them won multiple World Series with those teams specifically except for Stengel and the Mets, and Anderson and the Tigers, but we’ll come back to that.

The remaining six managers are interesting exceptions to use as case studies:

-Cito Gaston had two titles for Toronto and was added to their Level of Excellence, which seemed like their version of retired numbers until they suddenly retired Roberto Alomar’s #12 in 2011. Who knows if they honor him again one day, but he’s far and away their most successful manager.

-Bucky Harris’s biggest success came with the Washington Senators (their only World Series, two of their three pennants, eighteen seasons total), who no longer exist. His other World Series title came with the 1947 Yankees, but he only helmed them one other season before new ownership decided to replace him with Casey Stengel, and it’s gonna take a lot more than one title in two seasons to stand out among Yankees managers.

-Ralph Houk had quick success as the Yankees’ manager, winning the 1961 and ‘62 World Series as well as the 1963 pennant, but then moved into the front office. He returned to a second, longer managerial stint with them to much less success (only finishing above fourth place once in eight seasons) before becoming the first of many managers to leave under the new Steinbrenner administration (and his nine years after that with Detroit and Boston, which saw him finish with a losing record, did little to remind anyone of those early titles).

-Bill McKechnie’s success was spread out: he won one World Series with the Pirates (1925), one pennant with the Cardinals (1928), and a Series and another pennant with the Reds (1939-40). Cincinnati might make sense as an option, except that his #1 was later retired in honor of a different manager (Fred Hutchinson, who’s successful stint was brought to an early end by cancer).

-Billy Southworth was the manager of the Cardinals during their early 1940s dynasty, winning three straight pennants and the ‘42 and ‘44 World Series. He left after his seventh season with the team for the Boston Braves, where he was okay (1 pennant and a still-winning record over six years), but his reputation was probably hurt by the fact that the team continued fine without him, winning the World Series again in their first year without him. He was sort of forgotten for a while after that, only getting elected to the Hall relatively recently back in 2008.

-Dick Williams, like Southworth, left a dynasty team mid-run, leaving the A’s after a spat with owner Charlie Finley. In three seasons in Oakland, Williams had three playoff appearances as well as the 1971 and ‘72 World Series, but his successor immediately continued with another title in 1973. Williams also brought pennants to Boston (1967) and San Diego (1984), but never managed anywhere for more than five seasons (his Expos stint was five exactly, but they, again, no longer exist). His overall success got him elected to the Hall, and he did well considering he worked mostly for expansion teams and the Yawkey-owned Red Sox, which put him at a disadvantage. But his spat with Finley, his short overall stint in Oakland, and the team’s immediate success without him all probably hurt his reputation at the place where he was most successful.

So, to try and draw summaries from them: don’t tick off the owner, don’t get shown up by a successor, and make sure that your team is both willing to retire manager numbers and continues to exist. Also, the Yankees seem to be a little stricter than other teams.

This week's round-up

Over at The Crawfish Boxes, I wrote about the Astros' first half stars who could be gunning for post-season awards, including Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole, and Yordan Álvarez. Go check it out!

Also, I'll be recapping tonight's game against the Rangers, so be sure to check that out (and I'll add it in here once it's up). EDIT: I hope that, one day, I'll get to cover a win again.

Another Writing Roundup

Once again, it's time for this week's writing:

First, here's my recap for today's Astros loss to the Angels.

Next, here's my piece looking at whether Andrew Cashner could be a bargain deadline pickup for Houston.

And lastly, in non-baseball writing, here's a piece I did looking at indie games that combine multiple genres and mechanics to make new and interesting experiences.

The Weekly Astros Post

I got my two Astros articles this week in back-to-back. Here's a recap of Wednesday's game against the Pirates, and here's a piece looking at Tanner Roark as a trade candidate.