If you're a good vibes only Astros redditor or season ticket holder, you might want to skip this one. I know starting pitching injuries have hurt us, but the decision making process this year is giving shades of Knicks/Marlins/Mets.

1. Declaring Hader the closer instead of making it a competition

Rushing to name Hader our closer was disrespectful to Bryan Abreu and incumbent Ryan Pressly.

Josh Hader: 19.2 Career postseason innings, 3 ER, 1.37 ERA. It's good! Regular season?

2023 Regular Season: 1.23 ERA 2023 Postseason: N/A 2022 Regular Season: 5.22 ERA 2022 Postseason: 0 runs, 5.1 innings

Abreu has been the most dominant regular season pitcher over the last 2 years in this list. Though his 2023 ERA was slightly higher than Hader's in 2023, his WHIP was slightly lower. He did allow 4 runs over 8 innings in the postseason but penalizing him for this is asinine given that Hader got the 2023 postseason off.

Bryan Abreu: career 2.66 ERA in postseason

2023 Regular Season: 1.75 ERA 2023 Postseason: 4 runs, 8 IP 2022 Regular Season: 1.94 ERA 2022 Postseason: 0 runs, 11.1 innings

There is simply no debate on which guy has been the most dominant in the postseason. Ryan Pressley has given up 1 RUN in his LAST 30 POSTSEASON INNINGS. 1 RUN. ONE. 0.30 ERA. 80% lower than Hader's unworldly 1.37

Ryan Pressly:

2023 Regular Season: 3.58 ERA 2023 Postseason: 0 runs, 6 IP 2022 Regular Season: 2.98 ERA 2022 Postseason: 0 runs, 11 innings

Naming Hader "THE" closer over two arguably more deserving guys instead of making it a friendly game within the game to see who EARNS it was not only bad player management but also bad baseball. With nothing extra to prove, all 3 started the season rusty and their numbers showed. I can't imagine a scenario where Once Hader's was named closer officially, Abreu and Pressly know that wrestling it away is damn near impossible as it HAS BEEN for Abreu to wrangle from Pressly despite Pressly's regular season woes. So much for buffing those stats like saves that Cooperstown & numberphiles fetishize alike.

Not a coincidence that all of the names above have ERAs over 3.5 this season, and our 2 best relievers (sub 2.5 ERAs), Martinez and Scott, were never apart of the closer role conversation and instead just came to play.

I know I'm a voice yelling in a cave but if one of Jim Crane's find this message in a bottle, you know what to do.

2. The Jose Abreu sage & double standards

With our batter's, they have to an extent allowed position battles and given incumbents a fair shot instead to secure their role instead of making kneejerk declarations. What could go wrong?

Letting them play and rewarding the losers, that's what. Look no further than 1 J Abreu. Abreu's brief call up to AAA to prove himself has been management's "SIKE!" moment of the year. As of this writing, Abreu is hitless in 5 at at bats with 2 strikeouts and a walk. If i am Ryan Pressly, i would be livid about the double standard

Abreu was in the bottom 1% of the first 8 columns of baseballsavant's percentile rankings when he was sent to Camp Bagwell. Waiting for things to literally hits rock bottom show a bias that Espada's seems unable to shake after sharing a bench with these guys for so long.

3. Ousting Loperfido in favor of less productive options

Consider that Salvador Perez's (does he ever age?) .330 wins the batting title if the season ended today. Meanwhile Loperfido was called up and casually hit .333, provided our lineups with another opposing pitcher rhythm preventing left hand bat while he made circus catches on D, proved he's twice as fast as Grae or Dubon (Espadas first choices for pinch runners) and refusing to try him at 1B when our current guy there is a liability defensively (not an opinion, check the data). Singleton is more of a Prince Fielder than a 1B and by that i mean better as a DH. Loperfido's athleticism at 1B could actually boost our defense there if anything.

Swapping the speed demon batting title candidate for our worst batter in recent memory is an awful move.

4. Not stealing s**t

Elly De La Cruz on the Reds has 1 fewer SB alone than our our entire team has combined. And surprise, he scores a ton of runs, top 10 in the league in the fact despite playing for the reds and only batting .250. It's almost like stealing bases leads to more runs.

5. Batting Order BS

3 pointer here A. Our fastest guys Pena, Meyers, Loperfido all bat in the second half of the lineup

B. Bregman is firmly entrenched at the 4 hole batting clean up but is bottom 1% of the league in xwOBAcon (Expected Weighted On-Base Average on Contact) — A metric that removes strikeouts, walks, and HBP to measure the productiveness of a hitter when they put a ball into play. https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/alex-bregman-608324?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb

2024 Bregman Batting Order Position:

• 4th: 33 games (128 ABs): .188 Avg, .492 OPS, 0 HRs
• 5th: 1 game (4 ABs): .500 Avg, 2.000 OPS, 1 HRs
• 6th: 4 games (15 ABs): .400 Avg, 1.371 OPS, 2 HRs

Bottom line: move Bregman down in the order to make him mad and turn into the Hulk.

C. If they slot Abreu in at DH AND we miss the postseason despite the good fortune of Pena, Meyers, Tuckers & our beloved Ronel Blanco's breakout campaigns — this season will be a case study in managerial incompetence.

tldr; This is some Michael Scott level bullshit and I don't mean our 86 Cy Young winner.

The 2024 Astros Office, starring:

• Joe Espada as Michael Scott
• Dana Brown as Jan
• Jim Crane as David Wallace
• Josh Hader as Ryan
• Ryan Pressly as Tony
• King Tuck as Jim
• Julia Morales as Pam
• Air Yordan as Andy
• JP France as Dwight
• Jeremy Pena as Kelly
• Jose Abreu as Phyllis