Space City Takes

   The news came first from a reliable source--his brother Ben Verlander.  🚨IT’S OFFICIAL🚨 @JustinVerlander  is signing with Houston Astros!! — Ben Verlander (@BenVerlander)  November 17, 2021 And then, eight minutes later, it came from an even more reliable source--Mark Berman.  MLB source:  @JustinVerlander  has reached an agreement on a one-year deal with the  #Astros  worth $25 million, with a player option for a second year.  https://t.co/9fF9KULOfj — Mark Berman (@MarkBermanFox26)  November 17, 2021 Justin Verlander is back in Houston.   In my off season preview, I wrote that the Astros rotation “lacks a “true ace,” but is deep with quality major league pitchers. The rotation proved effective in 2021 because the Astros were able to run out an average to above average starter every day….With that baseline, the front office could consider signing a top-of-the-line pitcher who could pitch Game 1 of the 2022 ALDS...

 The results of Rookie of the Year award can be quite curious .  Some years it goes to the combination of future MVP winners, like is did in 2012 when Mike Trout and Bryce Harper won it.  And some years it goes to players you forgot about very quickly, as in did in 2009 when Andrew Bailey and Chris Coughlan won it.  One explanation for these inconsistent results is the inconsistency of each class of rookie major leaguers. Some years are stronger than others.  But some of this inconsistency is based on the views of Rookie of the Year voters, who seem to shift their standards more frequently than voters for other awards.  This is different than the Cy Young Award, where voters always seem to want to identify the best pitcher--full stop. And different from voting for the MVP, which has revolved around different interpretations of value over time. In the contemporary era, most voters seem to identify value primarily with who played the best, regardless of how t...

The Astros enter the 2021-22 offseason better off than 28 teams in Major League Baseball. They won a pennant and reached the World Series. They also enter in the same place as 29 other teams—trying to win the title that eluded them in the previous season. The Almost Certain Lockout To understand what will happen this offseason, it is important to understand two elements. The first is that whatever moves they make this offseason will probably be done in a rush of a week or so. The reason for that is the looming lockout. The MLB Collective Bargaining Agreement expires on December 1, and it seems unlikely that the players and owners will reach an agreement by then as there is no financial pressure to do so on that date. But whenever the lockout is resolved (hopefully in late February or early March so that Opening Day does not have to be delayed), there will be a rush across MLB to make free agent signings and trades in a short period of time. It will look more like an NBA offseason, with...

We know the stereotype of the "old school" type, wedded to the way things were done when he was younger and getting angrier and angrier that things are changing, and knowing that all change is bad. One of the best compliments I can give Brent Strom is that despite being 73 years old, he is not an old school type. He has remained throughout his career at the cutting edge of pitching.  Strom announced immediately after the Game 6 loss that he would not be returning as the Astros major league pitching coach in 2021,  The loss of Strom is a significant blow to the 2022 Astros and beyond. Yet Strom is at the head of a strong system of pitching development in the Astros organization, a broad philosophy of pitching that is shared by the front office, the player development system, and Strom's likely successors.  The Astros remain well positioned ton continue to develop starting pitching into the future. Strom has served as the Astros pitching coach since 2014, working for 3 diff...

  No stat better sums up the Series better than the number of home runs hit by each team. The Braves his 11, and the Astros hit only 2.  In my preview of the World Series, I asked the question "What do the Braves do to score runs?  They hit home runs. They were third in the majors in homers this year with 239."  I also noted that the Braves have " some of the classic problems that big sluggers do. They are very prone to strikeouts (22nd in MLB in strikeout rate) and the have a low batting average (.244, which is exactly the MLB average). The Braves hitting stats in the World Series followed along with what they did during the regular season. They had a modest batting average, hitting .239 over the six games.  They drew few walks, tallying only 18 in the series (a 8.2% walk rate), and they averaged over 10 strikeouts per game. These are not impressive numbers. But their 11 home runs are. Hitting home runs was the key to the Braves offense during the regular seaso...

 They hit.  After two straight nights of not hitting and scoring only two runs, the Astro bats returned on Sunday night. They recorded 12 hits, including 3 doubles, drew 6 walks, and scored 9 runs. They came back twice, from a 4-0 deficit in the first and a 5-4 deficit in the third to beat the Braves 9-5. The Astros bats woke up from their slumber of Games 3 and 4, and not a moment too soon.  Hand shakes and high fives after Game 5 Throughout the regular season, I always maintained the position the occasional hitting slumps that the team would go through were not very interesting to discuss. The Astros have a good offense and if you just wait a few games, the bats will regress to the mean, and that mean is having one of the handful of best offenses in baseball. And over the long run, that proved correct. The Astros led major league baseball in runs scored in 2021. In the long run, the Astros bats will score runs. But the playoffs are a bunch of short series, and an offens...

They just haven't hit.  There's more complicated analysis that we can go through, but the Astros are down 3 games to 1 in the World Series because  they have scored only 11 runs in the 4 games than they have played. In their two games in Atlanta, they have scored 2 runs, losing a pair of games in which the pitching staff held the Braves to only 5 runs. With an offense as good as the Astros, that should be more than enough.   It is easy to find speculation, quick fix solutions, armchair psychology from Astro fans on social media, text threads, and conversations at sports bars across Houston.  Some of these discussions may be right, but most are wrong. Most are attempt to apply some type of theory or explanation to something that is simply what happens in a short samples.   Baseball games are turns of probability, and teams to try acquire and develop players who stack the dice in their favor. Better hitters are more likely to get on base, though most of ...

 Some postseason games turn on a big hit late, or a pitcher getting out of a big jam to save a game. Some are won because relievers stem the tide in the middle innings to give the offense a chance to come back, and many are won today because a manager chooses the right reliever for the right spot, or the wrong one in the wrong spot.  Games 1 and 2 of the 2021 World Series had none of those elements. In each game, one team played a lot better than their opponent, and they won as a result. In Game 1, the Astros pitched poorly and hit poorly.  Or the Braves hit well and pitched well.  In Game 2, it was the opposite.  Win Probability--Game 1 In Game 1, the Braves jumped over Astros starter Framber Valdez early, touching him up for 5 runs, 8 hits including 2 home runs, and a walk. Eight of the 12 balls the Braves hit against Framber were hard hit--with an exit velocity over 90 mph.  The bullpen limited the Braves to a single run the rest of the way, but it did n...

 Spurred by  a big turnaround  by their pitching staff in the last three games of the ALCS and an offense that has scored 5 or more run in 9 of their 10 playoff games, the Astros have advanced to the World Series.  They will be joined by the Braves, who upset the 106-win Dodgers in the National League Championship Series. And just like you watched on WTBS at 6:10 pm on a random Tuesday night in June 1985, it will be Braves taking on the Astros. No word on if Bob Knepper and Rick Mahler are available to be the starters. The Braves were once a familiar foe to the Astros. Both played in the National League West from its founding in 1969 to the three-division realignment of 1994. After that, the Braves were a frequent playoff opponent of the Astros. The two teams met five times in the NLDS between 1997 and 2005.  Today, that familiarity has disappeared. The move to the American League means we only play the Braves once every three years in interleague play, and...

 Baseball was at the beginning of our relationship. Shortly I moved to New York in 2007 to take a job as a professor at John Jay College, CUNY, one of my colleagues—a Red Sox fan—invited me to go to a Red Sox bar in the middle of Manhattan to watch Yankees- Red Sox. And Erin, another new professor in our political science department, was also a Red Sox fan, so she was going to come with. Sounds great. The first colleague got delayed, so Erin and I took the subway to the Red Sox bar, had a great time, had our first two beers and great conversation before our other colleague got there. Earlier that summer, I looked the schedule and found out that the Astros had a September series at Shea Stadium. I bought two tickets before I got to New York, figuring one of my new colleagues would want to join me at a ballgame.  And since the Red Sox fan was single, a woman, and into baseball, it seemed obvious to invite her. And by the 4 th  inning, I knew I wanted to ask Erin out on a fo...