Shake It Off
The Bad Week was indeed bad. But it changed the Astros odds of winning the division very little. We should learn to take our losses right now in stride.
The good news is that the Astros broke their 4 game losing streak with a 9-4 victory over the Marlins yesterday. And the bad news. Well, you watched the game. You saw the errors, the baserunning gaffes, and the shocking 3-run home run by Bryan de la Cruz.
Dusty Baker saw all that too:
It wasn’t the best of wins, but it was a win. And a victory felt desperately needed after the Astros had dropped a series to the Mariners (27-33) earlier in the week and had lost the first two against the Marlins (27-31). And it wasn’t just that the Astros lost to a pair of below .500 teams, but it is the way that the did it. The four game losing streak featured an odd combination where the Astros were never close, yet frequently seems just a hit or two away from getting back into it. Though, of course, those hits never came.
Baseball seasons have good weeks and bad weeks. And this, this is The Bad Week.
But does it matter that it was The Bad Week. The 4 game losing streak will certainly not be something we remember fondly when we look back at the Astros 2022 season. But odds are we will not remember it at all when we do remember the season.
And much of that is the situation the Astros find themselves in after 60 games of the season. They are not only in first place, they have the largest lead of any division leader in baseball (tied with the Yankees). The Astros are all but certain to win the AL West this year. Certainly, there is a long way to go, but when the best team in the division gets out to an early lead, it’s extremely rare to lose it.
But the vibe I’ve gotten from Astros fans this week has focused on the chances of losing the division lead. Instead of all but certain, Astros fans seem to think of the team’s chances of winning the AL West as not certain. Or those who don’t focus their anxiety on the division crown focus it on how the team will perform in the playoffs, which are way off in the future.
There are certainly flaws with the Astros and this week was not fun to watch. But the huge lead in the American League West provides a unique opportunity for the Astros.
For the team, it gives the opportunity more time to work out the problem spots on the team and to make better evaluations about the players who are underperforming this year.
And for us Astro fans, it should give us the opportunity to wash off the bad losses and bad weeks quickly.
The Astros Are Near Certain to Win the AL West
So let’s start by looking at where the Astros sit in the standings, and hey, it’s actually good news. The record sits at 37-23. That puts them on pace to win 100 games this season. And they are 8 1/2 games up on the Rangers of all teams after the Angels lost the Sunday Night Baseball game. It’s an enviable position.
Some may argue that the Astros lead in the division is primarily driven by the poor performance of their division rivals. The A’s sold off their good players. The Rangers can’t develop their own prospects . The Mariners have underperformed pre-season expectations. And the Angels had a losing streak so bad they resorted to Nickelback as their slump buster. And my response is “Yes, quite true.” Winning a division is about beating the competition that you face, and the fact that the rest of the AL West has fallen flat on its face is great boon to the team that hasn’t. Our team.
Thus, the Astros odds to win the division are very high. Three websites produce daily playoff odds for all MLB teams. Baseball Prospectus says the Astros have a 87% chance of winning the AL West. And that’s they lowest of the three models. The projections at Baseball Reference and at Fangraphs say the Astros have a 94% chance of winning the division. Not certain, but all but certain.
This year’s playoff format is different than in previous year, and the top two division winners will receive a bye to the Division Series while the division winner with the third best record will have to play a best of three series in the “Wild Card round.” You want to avoid a that series, and the good news for the Astros is that the AL Central teams look likely to take the #3 seed. Projections have the Astros ahead of the Twins (the most likely AL Central winner) by 5, 7 or 9 games. That’s not an insurmountable gap, but is a large one to overcome, especially for teams with the large flaws that the Twins, White Sox, and Guardians have.
Bad Weeks of Baseball Are Indeed Bad
Looking at the playoff odds and a projected record for where the team will be in September is, of course, a long term perspective. But baseball is not played in the long-term; it’s played every day. And how can one describe the atmosphere of The Bad Week for the Astros.
In my professional life, I’m a college professor. In academia, we often develop a precise and technical language to help us distinguish between the different phenomena we study. And using theories I’ve learned from that type of academic practice, I have reached the conclusion that the appropriate term to use to describe the last week for the Astros is sucks. Of course, like any good academic, I am able to disagree with myself. So using techniques I’ve learned from competing analytic schools, I have also reached the conclusion that another term to apply to the last week of Astros baseball is blows.
Individually, each loss was painful to watch. All losses are. Collectively, they were even more frustrating because they all tended to feature the same pattern—the Astros would get down early because the starting pitcher had a bad night. And the game was never close, in large part because they Astros were spectacularly poor at getting base hits with runners in scoring position.
The Astros are indeed in a good position to win the division in the projections. But the projections didn’t watch our bats keep striking out with a runner at 3rd and less than two outs. It was indeed brutal.
Bad Weeks Affect The Standings Very Little
The Bad Week was indeed bad, as the Astros lost both of the 3-game series they played. It leaves them now 9 games ahead of the Angels; that actually a half-game better than where the Angels were last Sunday. The Rangers did make up a game in the standings and are now in second place in the division. And the Mariners also made up a gain in the standings. As much as The Bad Week was bad, it had little effect on the Astros place in the standings. They entered the week with a big lead in the AL West and they left it with a big lead in the AL West.
Baseball is a sport that can be played daily and it usually takes a long time to determine the best team. Small samples can lead to outlier results. So a bad week can simply be a bad week.
And besides, we all know that in baseball, momentum is your next day’s starting pitcher. Which seemed to be the best analysis of today’s game. Until the fluke Bryan de la Cruz three-run homer.
The Team Can a Long Perspective on Fixing Their Flaws
Much of the social media conversation among Astros fans I saw over the bad week focused on potential solutions to the slump. The two most common I saw were demands to move specific players down in the lineup and others to move up. Some called for players to be demoted to AAA Sugar Land and others to be promoted. And others wanted to make trades sooner rather than later.
Some of these ideas I agree with and some I do not. But broadly speaking, there is no good reason to do any of these right now. The big lead in the division gives the front office in particular the ability to assess the team’s flaws with little risk to the team’s eventual place in the standings at the end of the season.
There are clear places where the current team is underperforming. But I would argue there is time to assess if the issue will resolve because the players return to their historical level of performance before making a change.
For example, Yuli Gurriel is playing well below his usual level on offense, and many are advocating for the Astros to upgrade at first base on the trade market. And I do think that’s the best place for the Astros to target on the trade market. But the big lead in the division and the near certainty of making the playoffs gives the front office time to see if Gurriel will get back to his normal level of performance. And it is worth noting the the price for sellers goes down the closer we get to the deadline.
Alex Bregman has done well at drawing walks and making good decisions on when to swing, but his power is way down from previous years, and with it, his offensive value. Some have called for him to move down in the lineup, which may be warranted. But the value of doing that today seems low. For good or for bad, Dusty Baker prioritizes stability in his lineup construction, so moving Bregman down would be highly unusual. There is plenty of time to do that if his power outage continues.
Or take the case of Jose Urquidy. I noted in my last post how poor he was performing this year due to a combination of not missing bats and giving up hard contact. Should he be moved to the bullpen in favor of pitching prospect Hunter Brown? Well, Brown’s big weakness is his command. The bad news is that Brown is walking 11.0% of the batters he has faced this season at Sugar Land. The good news is that his walk rate has come down in recent starts, so he’s improving. But it seems he needs more seasoning before he will debut. The Astros have time to see if Urquidy can turn it around before making this move.
The cases for each of these moves exists, and if the urgency was greater, these arguments would be more persuasive. But with a big lead in the division, there’s is every reason to give Gurriel, Bregman, and Urquidy more chances to return to the form we have seen.
Shake It Off
So The Bad Week was indeed bad. The team lost two series and only broke the streak via an “ugly win” yesterday that seemed to exacerbate more than relieve the fanbase’s frustration with the recent play of the team. All of this sucks. Or it blows. Or both; it’s really just semantics.
But a big picture view shows that the Astros remain near certain to win the AL West. Despite all of the flaws on the team, the team has a lot of good players. And while they are capable of nearly blowing a seemingly secure lead even with Justin Verlander on the mound, they are also capable of hitting three-run home runs an inning later to restore order and a big lead.
The big picture view does not obscure the warts that exist on the current team. One can be very aware of the underperformance of players like Gurriel, Bregman, and Urquidy and even be in favor of moves to address these flaws.
But a big picture view does suggest that we Astro fans should take the losses in stride, even if there are too many of them. The bad week did little to affect the long-term standing of the team within the division or in the American League playoff picture. Losses happen in baseball, and the first third of the 2022 season has confirmed what early season projections saw—the Astros are a good baseball team; the best in their division. A bad week does not take that away.
So perhaps the best way to address the Astro losses, even in any future bad week, is to take the advice of Taylor Swift: Shake It Off.