Season Review - Infielders

A couple weeks ago, we took an early look at what happened to our pitching staff in 2011. Now we shift our focus to the other eight positions on the field.  We'll look position by position comparing expectations, reality, and possible path forward to 2012.


At catcher, the earliest hopes were that Jason Castro would have a solid first full season, but early on those hopes were snapped along with Jason's ACL. With Castro out for the season, we were looking at a combination of J. R. Towles and Humberto Quintero.  We knew with Quintero we were going to have a solid defensive but weak hitting catcher, best suited for back up duty. Towles, we hoped, would regain his confidence and finally become what we all hoped he would be in 2009. After a promising April he quickly disintegrated and was sent back to Oklahoma in July. That left Quintero to carry the bulk of the duties behind the plate, where he's essentially been what we expected. As backup, Carlos Corporan has received entirely too much playing time as he's "hit" .192/.257/.258 and thrown out less than 20% of basestealers in 49 games. Any hope of improvement next season lies with Jason Castro both recovering from a severe knee injury and living up to our expectations.


At first, Brett Wallace was going to be given every opportunity to establish himself as a major league hitter. After a hot start, Wallace cooled off in June and was demoted to OKC in July as Carlos Lee became our 1B1.  I, for one, still don't understand this move by the front office.  Even with his struggles in June, Wallace was still a roughly league average hitter in his first full season. He may not have shown much power, but his on-base skills were still solid. Perhaps they just needed a spot for Lee's contract bat. Admittedly, Lee has been better than many expected at first. He's still getting paid too much, but he's arguably been our best offensive weapon since Pence and Bourn were traded. I would not be surprised to see Lee be our first baseman again next year with Wallace languishing away in AAA, hopefully finding the power stroke the Astros want him to have.


At second, Ed Wade decided Jeff Keppinger wasn't a starter, despite his outstanding season in 2010, and signed Bill Hall. Hall was said to be bringing a power bat and that all important veteran leadership. Hall showed none of the power we were looking for, but made up for it by striking out alot and refusing to take a walk. Hall was released in early June. Keppinger then stepped in and continued hitting like he did in the previous season, stabilizing the position for a month before getting traded to San Fransisco. That opened up the starting spot for Jose Altuve, promoted from AA Corpus. Though he's been slumping the last couple weeks, Altuve has more than held his own following the two level jump, and shows a lot of promise heading in to 2012.


Shortstop saw us looking to Clint Barmes, who had a reputation as a good fielder with some pop at the plate, but overall a below average hitter. After missing a month early with a broken hand, Barmes has slightly outperformed expectations. By some measurement, he has been the second best fielding SS in the NL, and is a better than average hitting SS as well. Barmes is a free agent at the end of the season, but has expressed an interest in returning to Houston. With no prospects knocking on Houston's door, the Astros could do a lot worse than bringing him back for another year or two.


Third base was a position of both promise and concern coming in to 2011. Chris Johnson gave us some hope with a good late season showing last year, but there were indicators that it was luck driven and a regression was expected. Just how much remained to be seen. After a brutal April, Johnson showed good improvement in May and June. In another inexplicable demotion, Johnson was sent down in July with Wallace and Jimmy Paredes was brought up from Corpus. Jimmy is doing his 2010 Chris Johnson impersonation with a good showing so far driven by an unsustainable BABIP to go with strikeout rate of 25% and a walk rate of 5%, which is actually higher than is minor league BB%. I suspect next season's starter will be decided in spring training, with an edge given to Paredes due to his age and prospect status.


Outfield review to come...

Season Review-Pitching

With roster expansion just a few days away, it's time to start reviewing the season. Heading into 2011, Astros fans had good reason to feel a little torn between hope and fear. On one hand, we had another magical run to finish out 2010. Fueled by the beginning of the youth movement, the Astros surged to a 40-33 record after the All-Star break. However, that same youth movement led to a lot of uncertainty for this year. So, what were we hoping would go right to feel good about 2011? We'll look at pitching in this installment and position players in the next.

Pitchers

Starters

For the first time in a couple years, we weren't scared of our starting rotation. Gone were Shawn Chacon, Russ Ortiz, Mike Hampton, Brian Moehler, and Brandon Backe. In their place were J.A. Happ, Bud Norris, and Brett Myers, plus a surprising Nelson Figueroa, a new ace in Wandy Rodriguez. Yes, pitching was going to lead our fight for respectability. Instead, the Astros are currently next to last in quality starts with 61 and last in the NL in ERA, with starters ERA coming in at 4.69.

On the bright side, Wandy and Bud have performed as well if not better than expected. Among qualified starters, Wandy is currently 17th in the NL in K/9 and 18th in ERA, though a closer look at his peripherals suggest he's been a little lucky this year. Wandy has more or less lived up to our expectations.

Bud Norris has taken a definitely step forward this season, finally starting to realized some of his potential. Norris is 7th in K/9 and 25th in ERA, while lowering his BB/9 by a full walk this season. His peripherals indicate he may be a tad lucky, but he truly has reached a new level of performance this season.

Not many people really expected Brett Myers to repeat his career year of 2010, it's safe to say we were hoping for more than we've seen this season. He's still eating innings at a high level, which is a plus given our bullpen, as we'll discuss in a minute. Myers is striking out fewer while giving up more home runs, and his woes seem to be driven by a decrease in the effectiveness of his off-speed offerings. He may not be as good as he was last year, but I think he's a little better than he's shown this year.

Brace yourself, it's not pretty after this.

J.A. Happ...where to start. It was fairly well known that Happ had likely been lucky in his young career, but he seems to have regressed enough to make up for his two previous full seasons. He got himself so far out of sorts that the Astros sent him to Oklahoma City for three starts in an attempt to clear his head. His strikeout rate is up, but his walk rate jumped more, up to almost 5 walks per 9 innings. Happ has been a big disappointment in 2011, and he must improve his command if he's going to contribute going forward.

Nelson Figueroa, in the words of Denny Green, was who we thought he was. Why Wade ever thought he was worth almost $1 million we'll never know. He lasted 8 games and 5 starts before getting demoted and, a few months later, released. Moving on...

The Astros have also seen a trio of new young starters take a few turns in the rotation this year.

Jordan Lyles is the one who's debut everyone was waiting for, and he has certainly held his own. As a 20 year old who doesn't depend on blowing hitters away, Lyles gave the Astros something to look forward to. His K% should improve a little as he learns how to pitch to major league hitters. His HR% and LOB% indicate he's experienced some bad luck this year, as well.

Henry Sosa was acquired in the Jeff Keppinger trade and, despite having been a reliever all season in the Giants organization, joined the rotation after just one start in OKC. The jury is definitely still out on Sosa, as he hasn't really succeeded or failed in the rotation. With a continued look over the last month of the season and the likelihood of the continuation of the rebuilding effort this winter, he will probably get a look at the rotation next spring.

Aneury Rodriguez was selected in the Rule 5 draft from the Rays organization, and has served as a long reliever/spot starter in 2011. At this point, The Aneurism is a replacement level pitcher with a cool nickname, but he will need to reach a new talent level to contribute long-term.

Bullpen

We knew going in to 2011 that our bullpen was for the most part inexperienced, but what we had seen was serviceable at worst. What we got instead this season was a league worst save %, a 4.28 ERA, and good evidence to support the belief that relievers are a fungible and fickle group.

Brandon Lyon blew the first save in the first game of the season, and it never really got better for him before he hit the DL after 15 games and an 11.48 ERA. No, my finger didn't stutter, that's really an eleven. He has one year left on his contract, so hopefully the repairs to his biceps tendon and labrum will get him back to a respectable level next season.

We were hoping Jeff Fulchino would return to 2009 form, but instead he replicated 2010 as he bounced back and forth between the Astros and the RedHawks, pitching to a 5.18 ERA through 33 major league innings.

After a promising 17 inning call up last year, Mark Melancon has been thrust into the closer role this season due to Lyon's injury, and it's safe to say the results have been mixed. He has a 3.29 ERA in 63 innings, with 15 saves versus 4 blown saves. He's also lost a few games that were tied when he came in. High leverage shakiness aside, he's basically fulfilled our expectations this year.

Fernando Abad looked good after a solid 2010 debut, but he's bounced around from Houston to Oklahoma to the DL and back, and has struggled accordingly. He's given up 5 HR in just 19.1 innings, leading to a 7.32 ERA for the Astros.

Wilton Lopez showed unbelievable control in 2010 and looked like a potential back end piece, and, while not quite as much of a control artist this season his results have been roughly what we were hoping for, posting a 2.79 ERA through 61.1 innings.

The rest of this year's bullpen was essentially unknown coming into the season. The good of the unknown include Fernando Rodriguez (3.29 ERA 46K/22BB in 41 IP), Sergio Escalona (3.00 ERA 25K/11BB in 27 IP), and David Carpenter (2.65 ERA 15K/7BB in 17 IP). The bad would consist of Enerio Del Rosario (4.50 ERA 26K:25BB in 46 IP) and Jose Valdez (9.00 ERA 15K:7BB in 14 IP).