Three days and three nights in Tampa, three games and three losses for the Astros.
Tampa is no doubt a good team. The kind of team you’ll eventually see in the playoffs, if you make it, but you have to come away with at least one win there.
Let’s start off with the basics: Batter and Pitcher projections 92.6% of the way through the regular season.
That means 92.6% of this is actual performance and 7.4% is projection.
Yordan is down to a projected 39 homers, 100 RBI and 1.013 OPS. Still lofty, but a decrease across the board.
Kind of crazy to project no pitcher with more than 8 wins, though wins is an almost useful stat these days.
September wRC+
The team has a 91 wRC+ for September and the big names have failed to produce so far - Yordan, Altuve, Walker and Pena.
Quality Starts
In the preseason I looked at the quality starts projected by, two projection systems, STEAMER and THE BAT.
STEAMER projected 73 quality starts (not sure how they came up with that number) and THE BAT came up with 44.
Obviously THE BAT was closer, and as a matter of fact could theoretically be EXACTLY right.
The Astros simply aren’t getting enough quality starts.
Win Shares
Yordan leads the way obviously, put treading water lately with his “slump”, while Isaac making a push.
Lambert leads the arms, but Josh Hader with 6.1 wins tells you what kind of season he is having.
AL West Playoff Update (as of September 13)
First, let’s take a look at what fangraphs.com says about a potential playoff run (through games of September 13):
Projected Remaining Record: 6-6 (Previous 9-9)
Projected Final Record: 81-81 (Previous 82-80)
Win Division: 73.3% (Previous 76.2%)
Wild Card: 2.8% (Previous 2.4%)
Make Playoffs: 76.1% (Previous 88.1%)
I’m also projecting an 81-81 record and AL West crown.
If the Astros Go…
A little game I like to play.
Every Astros win adds immense pressure to Texas and Seattle, as illustrated by the graphic below.
A simple .500 record means the Rangers have to win 2 of every 3 and the Mariners 11 of 12.
Go 7-5, and the pressure is really on the other two.
I’m travelling to Houston this weekend for two games of the Braves series, so the next update will either be a brief one on Thursday/Friday featuring playoff odds or next Tuesday.
Thanks for reading!