DAT 7/27: Off Day

Just listened to Dana on Salisbury. Not a whole lot there this morning. They really didn't hammer on the deadline stuff much but he mentioned adding a big bullpen piece and a starter and that was about as deep as he got.

quote:

---

Astros GM Dana Brown on the trade deadline: "We have guys coming back that will really add to the club. If we can add a big bullpen piece or a starter in the pitching dept, it'll be huge. It can push a starter to the bullpen and help the guys that are taxed."

---

quote:

---

Since we already won this series (even though a sweep would be nice) it would be good if they can see some action to chip the rust off before the Rays series.

---

This actually could be a deterrent to activating them. I can just see this management saying “well, we’ve already won the series…no sense pushing it.” We’ve seen this philosophy before running out a Sugar Land team when we had a chance to sweep.

We always just do Priceline for 4-5* hotels downtown, can usually find a quality room for around $150. I've never had an instance of filling unsafe walking around downtown Houston

Eno Sarris wrote an article about 10 smaller trade deadline deals that could make an impact

Astros get Michael Lorenzen

quote:

---

The co-creator of Stuff+, Max Bay, now works for the Astros. In a possibly related matter, the Astros have the best Stuff+ in baseball.


Lorenzen does not have the best Stuff+ on the market. That belongs (of course) to Shohei Ohtani. He also doesn’t have the second-best. That’s Dylan Cease. In fact, he’s not in the top five of this handy chart created by throwing most of the starting pitchers on Jim Bowden’s available list onto a custom leaderboard on FanGraphs. What you might notice is that Lorenzen is one of eight starters with above-average stuff that’s available this deadline, and as a rental without a long track record, he has to be one of the cheaper gets on the list.

He has sneakily good stuff thanks to a sweeper he added in 2022.


But he also throws five or six other pitches that are all close to league-average by Stuff+. That represents an opportunity to tweak a pitch or the mix to coax more strikeouts out of the 31-year-old righty. An added benefit is that he has experience in the pen and the rotation, and could easily be a big glue guy for them in the postseason.

---

I hear you

I stayed at a brand new hotel last time I was in Houston for business and someone tried to smash my windows. Didn’t have trouble before that but I’ve been skeptical

Park in the garage of whatever hotel and it shouldn’t be an issue in there

The minor league affiliate in Asheville has already named their field after Chas.



The bathrooms are named after fricko.

Asheville was on the verge of losing the team after this season due to the current state of the stadium. Glad they got things worked out. I enjoyed watching a game there a few years ago.