Monday Morning Hot Links

What with the Texans' loss, it's officially baseball season.

*You have Castro as your C1 and Max Stassi as your C2.

*Make sure you read Jeff Passan's piece on the Chris Correa and the Cardinals' climate of cheating

*Tal Smith: Database pioneer.

*The Cubs signed 2014 Astros legend Jesus Guzman to a minor-league contract.

*25 years ago yesterday the Astros traded Glenn Davis for Curt Schilling

The Culling of the 40 Man Roster Begins

The Astros are facing a pretty significant 40 man roster crunch, as noted in this BA article. To that end, the Astros announced some news

Astros have outrighted first baseman Jesus Guzman and left-handed pitcher Rudy Owens. Albers option declined, De Leon claimed by A's
— Evan Drellich (@EvanDrellich) October 9, 2014

This puts the 40 man roster at 36 for the time being. It's possible more moves will be coming, to accommodate those who need to be added prior to the Rule 5 Draft.

Guzman to DL, Santana up

Jesus Guzman has been placed on the 15-Day DL with back issues and Domingo Santana has been called up from OKC.

Yeah, you probably remember Santana's first stint in Houston, when he went 0x13 with 11Ks. Since getting optioned back to OKC, he has hit .239/.337/.324 with a .372 BABIP. So...

Astros County Roundtable: May 21

We at AC have decided to give any readers out there small a window into the inner-workings of the AC offices.  Once a week, we meet in the AC Boardroom, get Betty and Cynthia to hold all calls, and discuss pressing issues, such as How Many Altuves between the boardroom and carpark, and why the Constable keeps mucking up the donut orders.  We sometimes even get to talking about the Pressing Issue of the Week.  The results of the discussion for this week are below.

The Pressing Issue:  What happens to the first base / part-time DH platoon of Chris Carter, Marc Krauss and Jesus Guzman between now and August 1??

The Batguy:  I shake my crystal ball (which looks a lot like a magic 8-ball for some reason) and get the response of "cannot predict now." So much is up in the air with the 1B position. If Marc Krauss continues to hit as he has in May (.273/.415/.424 as of this email) I think we keep the status quo until July or August, allowing Singleton to pass the Super 2 deadline. I DON'T see Guzman sticking around much longer if he continues to not produce. Even as a platoon player he's just not getting it done and Luhnow seems to have a shorter leash with dead weight this year. Carter is safe at DH. So many people focus on his batting average (which is coming up. .263 in May) and strikeouts (which are going down. Just 13 in his last 15 games) that they dismiss the fact that his power adds more value than those two deficiencies subtract.

Ultimately, though, given that both Krauss and Singleton are left-handed hitters, I think Singleton's promotion hinges on Krauss' production. Both players probably aren't on the roster together for long unless Krauss shifts to the outfield. Guzman is probably not on the roster August 1. Carter is here at least until he reaches arbitration next year.

Masked:  Clearly, Jon Singleton is knocking on the door, and is likely to force a move sooner, rather than later, but still shortly after the projected super-two cutoff.  I imagine that the Astros will call him up no later than early August, injuries notwithstanding.  Singleton, being a lefty, matches well in a platoon with Chris Carter and Jesus Guzman, but I can't imagine that the Astros call him up to be a platoon bat.

Krauss has done enough recently to warrant a further look.  Batguy presented his triple-slash line for May, and I would like to add that he has exhibited a BABIP of .364 over that time, but is making better contact in May (26.1% line-drive percentage, versus 8.6% in April).  He also seems to be seeing fewer strikes in May (53% versus 61% in April), which is helping fuel his OBP.  At 26, his time is now, and the Astros seem to be intent on having a good, hard look at him.  I imagine that he would spend some time in the outfield should there be less playing time at first base, so an injury/DFA in the outfield may well mean more of a look.

Jesus Guzman has just hit the 1000-plate appearance threshold for his career, and has an overall triple-slash of .255/.320/.410.  He is hitting more line-drives in 2014 (28%, versus a 21% career mark) and keeping the ball on the ground more often (1.73 GB:FB ratio, career 1.21).  However, his .217/.278/.328 rates for 2014 are dragged down by a slow May (.179/.281/.214).  He hasn't been good - even in part-time duty - since 2011, with only 0.8 WAR accumulated over 729 PA since then.  A near 30% strikeout rate is what is holding him back, and he may find himself cut loose when Singleton is called up.

Chris Carter has compelling RH pull power.  He also strikes out a ton.  The various Astros commentary teams have mentioned him hitting up-the-middle and to the opposite field more recently, something when anecdotally seems to have been the case.  But I have noticed him seemingly missing fat pitches recently, and popping up more, which is also supported by his lower line drive rate and higher infield fly-ball rate in May versus career (LD: 13.6% v 21.2%, IFFB 28.6% v 13.1%).  So Carter, like Guzman, is not making great contact, but has the advantage of being a better player to start with, and being 2 years younger.

Briefly put - the chances of Krauss or Carter being effective Major League talents are higher by virtue of both age and career, so they stay.  Carter may slide more toward Guzman's platoon-bat role, but that would be a misuse of his talents.  Guzman is on the hot seat.

Il Constable:  This is the most frustrating position for me as a fan. If I check my licensed NFL.com BIG BOARD against my ESPN Bracketology Bracket, I see that Guzman is the First Man Out. His OPS is .583 (61 OPS+) and he's had one extra-base hit this month. Two of his seven walks on the season came in the same game (May 18). Krauss, despite the dream I had in which he tried to kill my daughter, has begrudgingly done enough to warrant some extra time. I agree that Singleton isn't going to come up and platoon, and it's not like Krauss is "blocking" Singleton, anyway. So I see Carter going to full-time DH (or at least one large piece of a revolving door at DH), with Krauss serving as a utility player. So, once that Super Two cutoff is passed, Guzman probably needs to have a Go-Bag ready.

(Not Hank):  I think Singleton is up soon, first couple weeks of June at the latest. He has cooled off a bit, but is still getting on base at an impressive clip, and seems to have gotten the strikeouts under control. When he is up, I'm not sure what will happen. Carter is the DH, and will be just fine. Krauss seems to be at a disadvantage because he bats left, as does Singleton. They won't call Singleton up to platoon, but I think they would like to be able to get the bat out of his hand against really tough lefty relievers. Guzman hasn't shown the same success against lefties that he has in the past, and in fact has shown a pretty intense reverse split. However, at just under 100 at bats, that's probably just noise. Plus, Guzman can serve as an emergency 3B, something I would not like to see Krauss try. On the other hand, the team has more invested in Krauss, who arguably has more upside. Lot of words, which taken together, mean...I don't know. 

Cockroach:  ... has been sent out for more donuts, because Il Constable again got too many glazed donuts, and not enough filled ones...

When does Small Sample Size stabilize - Hitters K%

As Aaron has touched on already, early in the season it's easy to get wrapped up in a poor start and think the sky is falling and forget that there's still a lot of season left for things to turn around. So, when do we reach the point where what we see is what we get? Is it a third of the way through the season, as we've heard the broadcast team say so many times already this season? Is it a month? Do we wait until the All-Star break? Well, at the risk of sounding like a cop-out, it depends. Thankfully, people much smarter than us have done the research and found the following stabilization points for various rate stats. You can't argue with science, right?

Baseball Prospectus has an excellent post that gets into the messy, mathy stuff, if you're so inclined. If you don't have a B-P subscription what's wrong with you FanGraphs has a more concise post on the same research. Here's the gist, lifted directly from FanGraphs:

Stabilization Points for Offense Statistics:

• 60 PA: Strikeout rate
• 120 PA: Walk rate
• 240 PA: HBP rate
• 290 PA: Single rate
• 1610 PA: XBH rate
• 170 PA: HR rate

• 910 AB: AVG
• 460 PA: OBP
• 320 AB: SLG
• 160 AB: ISO

• 80 BIP: GB rate
• 80 BIP: FB rate
• 600 BIP: LD rate
• 50 FBs: HR per FB
• 820 BIP: BABIP

Stabilization Points for Pitching Statistics:

• 70 BF: Strikeout rate
• 170 BF: Walk rate
• 640 BF: HBP rate
• 670 BF: Single rate
• 1450 BF: XBH rate
• 1320 BF: HR rate

• 630 BF: AVG
• 540 BF: OBP
• 550 AB: SLG
• 630 AB: ISO

• 70 BIP: GB rate
• 70 BIP: FB rate
• 650 BIP: LD rate
• 400 FB: HR per FB
• 2000 BIP: BABIP

Generally speaking, until we reach the stabilization point for a given rate stat, we can expect a player to "regress" towards their career averages going forward. With those numbers in mind, I'm starting a series that will look at these stats as we reach the above listed thresholds to see what, if any, meaningful numbers pop out. 

Today we'll look at K% for hitters, as seven Astros have reached 60 PA and another four are between 50 and 60.

	2013 K%	2014 K%	Difference	Career	MLB Average During Career
Altuve	12.7%	7.8%	-4.9%	11.9%	19.5%
Dominguez	16.3%	20.2%	3.9%	16.6%	19.5%
Fowler	21.3%	22.3%	1.0%	22.3%	18.8%
Carter	36.2%	35.9%	-0.3%	34.8%	19.3%
Castro	26.5%	27.8%	1.3%	23.5%	19.3%
Villar	29.5%	28.2%	-1.3%	29.1%	20.0%
Presley	20.0%	19.1%	-0.9%	19.3%	19.3%
Krauss	30.8%	30.5%	-0.3%	30.7%	20.0%
Grossman	24.3%	30.9%	6.6%	25.4%	20.0%
Springer	27.3%	28.3%	1.0%	28.3%	20.8%
Guzman	24.8%	33.3%	8.5%	21.7%	19.0%

I threw career and MLB average rates in there for context. Also, since there's no history at the major league level, Springer's 2013 is from the minors. As we can see, most everyone is around 1% of last season and pretty close to their career average, with a few exceptions.

Altuve stands out for very positive reasons. He's cut way back on swings on pitches outside the zone this season, which is good as he's seeing fewer first-pitch strikes. Getting ahead in the count early is forcing pitchers to throw more hittable pitches in the zone.

Dominguez is on the other side of the pendulum. He's swinging at more pitches outside the zone, fewer pitches inside the zone, and making less contact on any of them. He's seeing a high percentage of first pitch strikes, getting behind early, and hasn't been able to make adjustments during the at bat.

Grossman is particularly worrisome. After seeming to figure things out after rejoining the club in July last season, he's seemingly gotten very passive. He's swinging at fewer pitches, and making less contact when he does swing. It was often noted after his return last year that he was more aggressive at the plate; it would seem that his struggles again relate to being too passive.

Which leaves us with Guzman. Guzman's K% has gone up every season he's been in the big leagues. This season his contact rate is actually up, but he's swinging at far fewer pitches, particularly in the zone. Opposing pitchers have already clued into this, and they're pumping 71% strikes in on the first pitch, putting Guzman behind from the get-go.

Astros proceeding without Amador

Jeff Luhnow held a press conference this morning,(which is basically, like, three guys) and the main topic of conversation was 1B candidate Japhet Amador.

According to basically everyone on Twitter, Amador is in Mexico for unspecified family reasons, and will not be reporting to Spring Training. Luhnow said:
He’s not going to be here, and we don’t know what the next steps are with him. For now, he needs to spend some time with his family, so he won’t be showing up here today. Other than that, we expect everybody else to be here...When things happen to your family, you tend not to think about next steps. We’re going to give him the time that he needs, but right now we’re proceeding as if he’s not going be here during Spring Training.

So obviously this is terrible, and we hope for nothing but the best for Japhet Amador and his family.

It also means that the 1B job got a little more interesting. A few short weeks ago the Astros had the following candidates to play first base:

Japhet Amador
Jesus Guzman
Marc Krauss
Jon Singleton
Brett Wallace

Well. Wallace was optioned off the 40-Man roster, and now Amador will not apparently be participating in Spring Training. So that leaves Guzman, Krauss, and Singleton (I'm proceeding as though Chris Carter will be the rotating DH, and get some time in LF and periodically at 1B).

Marc Krauss hit .209/.267/.366 in 52 games (146 PAs) for the Astros last year. Small sample size and all that, but he also only hit .111/.183/.185 with almost as many walks (5) as hits (6) at Minute Maid Park. He hit .275/.326/.488 on the road.

Jesus Guzman at least played in 126 games for San Diego last season (318 PAs) and hit .226/.297/.378 and seriously can somebody just get on base. He did seem to be hamstrung by Petco Park, though, hitting .164/.248/.209 at home, while hitting .279/.339/.526 on the road. All nine of Guzman's homers came away from Petco last season.


Everyone knows Singleton had a bad year, mainly due to the 50-game suspension, and didn't hit well during the season. But he regrouped in the Puerto Rican Winter League, hitting .268/.396/.537. But Singleton hasn't arrived at camp yet, which he should probably do fairly quickly, seeing as how today is the report date for all players.

Brett Wallace has a chance to earn the spot back, I guess, but first he'd have to earn a spot back on the 40-Man roster. Which means someone would have to earn a spot off of the 40-Man roster. Japhet Amador is not on the 40-Man, so today's news doesn't exactly open a door for Wallace - not that it really would, anyway, since it's not as though the 1B job was ever Amador's to lose.

Gonna be interesting to see how this plays out.

Astros Avoid Arbitration In Its Entirety

The Astros only had two players up for arbitration, Jesus Guzman and Jason Castro. They settled with both prior to the 1 p.m. eastern deadline. They have therefore avoided having to tell a newly acquired player and 2013 team MVP why they aren't worth as much as they think in front of an arbitrator.

Jon Heyman reports that Castro got $2.45 million. A real bargain for a 4 win catcher. Guzman's deal was not disclosed.

Feldman's deal is front-loaded

We've been talking about this for a long time: Why don't teams front-load contracts? You pay for the performance you're going to get immediately, and if it doesn't work out quite as you had hoped, said player can be traded with an easier contract to take on. I know we talked about it with the Crawfish Boxes on the Astros Boxes Podcast.

Well, that's what the Astros have done with Scott Feldman's contract, according to Evan Drellich.


Scott Feldman’s three-year, $30 million deal is weighted slightly toward the start of the deal.

So the Astros have a little less than $10m to spend. Where does that leave the Astros with Shin-Soo Choo?


I think it’s natural that when a player is still out there of his caliber that a lot of teams are going to be associated with it, but beyond that, I don’t comment on particular players. He’s a good player and he’s going to have interest from a lot of clubs. 

We also learn:
*Jesus Guzman can either platoon with Wallace at 1B, or Wallace can play 3B or Guzman can play in the OF.
*Singleton is probably going to be a mid-season call-up.
*Colorado's Collin McHugh will be developed as a starter.

Ryan Jackson for Jesus Guzman Swap

The Astros pulled off a swap yesterday with the Padres, exchanging Ryan Jackson for Jesus Guzman. Ryan Jackson, you might remember, was claimed off waivers after being DFA'd by the Cardinals on November 20, 2013. Almost, but not quite, made it a month with the Astros. He is considered a defense first shortstop, who has not hit very well in AAA the past couple years, putting up a 89 wRC+ each of the last two years. He was projected to serve as Villar's backup and handcuff. That job will apparently be handed back to Marwin now.

In return, the Astros got Jesus Guzman. Guzman is a 29 year old 1B, who had a lot of success in his first season in the majors, putting up a .312/.369/.478 line in 2011, but has struggled to hit consistently in Petco. In 2013, he hit only .226/.297/.378 in total, but put up a .279/.339/.526 line on the road. In addition, he has a career .286/.358/.460 line against lefties (on the road, he has crushed lefites to the tune of .321/.383/.505), and Luhnow hinted yesterday he could serve as a platoon partner with Wallace, who is useless against lefties (and not so great against righties either).

This is not really a major move, and there was real value in having Jackson bolster the shortstop position. However, Guzman's bat has shown promise, and might just need regular at bats away from Petco to really blossom.