Updated Projections - Game 29 of 162

Loperfido debuts, Caratini heroes

Composition of Projections:

2024 Actuals: 17.9%

Preseason Projections: 82.1%

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The Astros are 10-19, in last place in the AL West and 6.5 games behind the Seattle Mariners.

Fangraphs projects an 84-78 finish, 2nd place in the AL West, gives the Astros a 28.4% chance of winning the Division and a 48.9% chance of making the playoffs.

Season Projections

Added Loperfido, moved Abreu and Cabbage.

I understand Brown has pitched in some “bad luck”, but he still hasn’t been very good and it goes all the way back to last August.

Stress Index

The goal is to capture the stress put on a pitcher, rather than just a number of pitches.

The calculation is really quite simple: Number of pitches x aLI, where aLI is the average leverage index.

Surprisingly low stress from Brown.

Team average stress per start is 86.09.

Note two pitchers who average over 100 have spent time on IL and now JV is over 100 average.

Extremely high stress on all relievers last night and Hader’s is far and away the highest of season.

Astros continue to use Abreu seemingly every game, though the two days off helped.

The Game Turned When

Bottom 10, runner on third, two outs. Victor Caratini homered (Fly). Mauricio Dubon scored, improving the Astros win probability from 16.2% to 100.0%, + 83.8%, the highest of the season.

The Home Run Project

All home runs last night were above-average leverage, but Caratini’s may be the homer of the year, leverage-wise

Alex Bregman: 24-degree launch angle, 106.5 MPH exit velocity, 410 feet, 1.77 LI.

Jon Singleton: 20-degree launch angle, 114.4 MPH exit velocity, 431 feet, 1.13 LI.

Victor Caratini: 19-degree launch angle, 109.0 MPH exit velocity, 370 feet, 5.91 LI.

The Grumpy Ump

Difficult to believe Stu Scheurwater was “above average”.

Under: 17 Over: 8 Push: 3

NOTE: OVERALL FAVOR column is changed to reflect Astros only. In other words, a +0.24 in favor of Yankees is reflected as -0.24 here.

Information, except for O/U, courtesy of umpscorecards.com, just presented in a way that is easier for my brain to process.

Projected Standings and Luck Rankings

The Astros currently project to 94 losses.

68 wins is the highest projected total since April 14 (69).

The one-run win helps Houston in the luck rankings and means every team has won at least one one-run game this season.

Power Rankings

It’s May 1st so we update our Power Rankings.

Power Rankings are objective and based on expected wins, ERA+, OPS+ among other metrics.

These are not predictive, but rather identify how teams have performed to date.

Stat(s) of the Day

Before last night’s game.

Alex Bregman finishes April with a blast.

His Savant chart is below.

Data courtesy BaseballSavant.

• Astros finish April with 117 wRC+ (4th), slash of .265/.330/.419 good for 3rd, 5th and 5th respectively.

• The pitching staff finishes April with 5.01 ERA (25th), 4.29 FIP (24th) and 4.37 xFIP (27th).

• Starters thru April: 5.10 ERA (27th), 4.24 FIP (20th), 4.54 xFIP (28th).

• Bullpen thru April: 4.90 ERA (25th), 4.35 FIP (23rd) and 4.16 xFIP (19th).

Thanks for reading!