Whoever the Astros hire as its new general manager in the offseason, I hope one of the first decisions is to revamp the outfield.
Nelson Velázquez, LaMonte Wade Jr., Daulton Varsho, Cam Smith, and Taylor Trammell all received at least one plate appearance in this game. Wade had a pinch hit, RBI single in the eighth, but he didn’t take the field this time around. The rest of the group? 0-for-10 with six strikeouts. Simply abysmal.
Oh, Jake Meyers is only trusted for his defense late in games.
By FanGraphs’ WAR, there hasn’t been a team to receive less value from its outfielders than the Astros. Offensively, by wRC+, there hasn’t been a worst position group in baseball, with Houston’s outfielders posting a 74 wRC+. While former general manager Dana Brown did attempt to address the pitching staff last offseason, any efforts to improve the outfield were too little, too late. Even with Brown gone, the front office decided to claim yet another outfielder in hopes of improving even in the slightest measures.
Needless to say, the Astros had a hard time against Eduardo Rodriguez and the Diamondbacks’ bullpen. Two runs on seven hits and two walks isn’t exactly an encouraging display. And 12 strikeouts to boot, with half of those coming from your outfielders. On the plus side, Jose Altuve had three hits in a game for the 225th time, tying him with Craig Biggio for the most in franchise history.
The pitching staff fared better, although it wasn’t quite enough. Peter Lambert has recently scuffled, but he bounced back with seven innings of three-run ball, striking out six in the process. A perfectly fine quality start. Miguel Ullola and Bryan Abreu each threw scoreless innings. Again, it wasn’t a pitching problem for the Astros on Sunday.
Alas, both the Rangers and Mariners won on Sunday, trimming one game from Houston’s AL West lead. A tough six-game road trip to Philadelphia and Tampa beginning on Tuesday looms large.
Feature photo from Astros on X
Have you researched whether or not this outfield group is the worst offense of the decade?
JP3, hitting in front of Yordan, 1-13 in the series.
Joey Loperfido began Monday’s action with a slash line of .292/.385/.406 over 52 games (235 PA) for the Triple-A Sugar Land team. He is on the 40-man roster, offers solid defense at all three outfield positions and first base, runs well, and is healthy.
He might not be the solution for the Astros’ everyday lineup, but neither are Nelson Velázquez, LaMonte Wade, Taylor Trammell, or the recently acquired José Barrosa. All four arrived in Houston after being designated for assignment or released by their previous teams.
Sometimes, it is difficult to understand the Houston front office’s way of operating.
(Astros Coverage)
Espada don’t play young players. They would suck pine until Brown demoted them. Cam Smith being the exception for obvious reasons.
And then Joey went 0 for 4 with 2 Ks, dropping his OPS in the hitter-friendly PCL to .776. He’d be a very slight marginal improvement at best over Trammell or Ward, the other LH options. No help down on farm really.
SSS. 1 game v. 52 games
No, the .776 OPS is season-long. 239 PAs. Not a SSS. I like Joey, but he’s not going to provide much of an offensive boost, if any.
Not only were the outfielders offensively inept again (other than Wade’s pinch hit), Velasquez dropped a fly ball, which cost a run in a 1-run game. Add to that Altuve’s failure to field a ground ball that led to another run, and it was defense — in addition to hitting — that cost this game. As to hitting, if the outfield hitting woes are exacerbated by infielders Pena’s and Walker’s slumps (their numbers for the last month are terrible … .586 and .456 respectively), the results will not be good. I’m thrilled we’re in first place in the AL Worst, but this just isn’t a very good team.
Those are OPS numbers for Pena and Walker.