General fandom is mad at Bagwell more for his ridiculous defenses of the signing.
Separate the playing career & Bags not great as the public face of the 'Stros.
That game Bags did the color commentary for he sounded depressed.
A few dumb defenses of Abreau led 2 general comments on getting old.
I liked it at time. I thought batting average up and power down but still near 20 HRs.
After the All Star break his contract will be easier to suck up by the day.
I think he’s just backing him, just like anyone would do. He’s certainly not going to say “he sucks” and “I made a mistake.” Bagwell knows just like everyone else he hasn’t been good.
Read the other day that the MLB Network had a stat where they took the 25 best pitchers in all of MLB for the '21 season and who had the highest OPS+ against these pitchers? Abreu was #1 in all of baseball (.359)
My bad that stat was for the '22 season
I’m sure behind closed doors Bags,Dana and JC have been candid about it turning out to be a bad signing….but yes, they will never say it publicly….not because they are afraid to admit a mistake but to not embarrass Abreu.
I have heard several people on Twitter this season talking about how “all the signs were there “ that Abreu was gonna flop….bat speed, etc.
At the time of the signing I don’t remember hearing that? Was there?
I read some opinions that his recent downturn pointed to the start of a decline rather than a blip on the radar, but “the back of the baseball card” was the prevailing thought.
The thing that bothered me about it was that he seemed a lot like the same offensive player we were letting go, with the possible upside being that he was earlier in his career arc.
I didn’t really disagree with the signing and don’t fault them for making the deal. The issue with Bagwell is that he’s been going around talking about how the thing that made the last GMs successful was kind of stupid (analytics). It turns out that ignoring that info leads to a higher risk of a bad signing. If you’re going to judge the front office on their performance, then Bagwell is going to have to wear it, regardless of what he did as a player.
Remember, Bagwell is an assistant of Jim Crane. He can take some of that “blame” too. The buck stops with the owner. The owner deserves credit when things are going well but it works the other way too.
Only thing I’d say on the Abreu deal is that some of these international guys have lied about their age in order to appear as more attractive prospects. So I think teams should be weary of signing aging international stars as you can’t fully be sure of how old they actually are. Take the Pujols contract that the Angels gave him. As bad as that contract was it would be astronomically worse if he really was 3-4 years older like some people have alleged. Food for thought.
Bagwell brings it on himself. When you wanna be seen in the king’s court every night you need to be able to take the heat when you hatch a mutant failure from your behind. And he hatched both Abreu and Montero.
If Abreu’s swing can be “fixed” in 3 weeks in Florida…what the hell were they doing in Spring Training?
On another note, why not play Dubon or JoeLo at 1st? Why Singleton?
I thought Caratini has played 1st base.
Once again, most liked these signings when they happened. Bagwell can’t play for them.
Kyle Tucker sure likes the crawford boxes.
That is a great question 51!
And 2 of 9 off some 18 and 19 year olds not good enough for full season ball doesn’t scream “fixed”.
I agree. They can’t go on the field for them. I would take exception one thing. There were a lot of people that raised their eyebrows on the Montero contract. I liked the Abreu signing. What I didn’t like was throwing mud in the bath water by playing a guy for extended periods who was playing poorly simply because they owe him money.
I didn’t say anything at the time because I didn’t want to bum anyone out about Singleton with what we had gone through with Abreu already……but part of me thinks Singleton hitting those three HR’s the week after Abreu split was probably the worst thing that could happen.
What we are seeing now is what Singleton is….He’s a guy that struggles to hit .200 that runs into a HR every now and then.
You don’t see Dubon/Joey over there because of that one good week Jon had….now we are gonna spend the next 30-40 games seeing if he is something he is not.
If I’m wrong then I have no problem eating a crow sandwich with a side order of turd.
Recency justification. Did you see how far he hit it?!
Tucker still blasting it off the scoreboard hitting second and Bregman back in the clean-up. Lol
Here’s what I would do. Now that Myers is above 300 move him up behind Altuve…like the Mets used to do with Dykstra and Backman. Let Peña hit third (Mookie) and Tucker hit clean-up (Strawberry/Carter). Yordan would have a chance to drive in runs if fifth (Hernandez). Move Bregman back to sixth. Diaz seventh. Singleton 8th and Chaz last.
Although the Mets sometimes mixed up Mookie-Dykstra-Backman and Carter and Strawberry in 4-5 they usually had maximum speed in 1-3. And maximum power in the 4-6.
And Johnson was not afraid to move people around based on how hot or cold they were. Example: Hernandez sometimes 3-4, Mookie sometimes 3 or 6. Just drive in the two fast guys.
Note: and he bunted like a demon in the 1-2 slots to get those guys on. (I would like to see Myers and Peña bunting back to back sometimes.)
Reverse jinx worked.
Big Jon hit that 2 the Big Thicket.
Near 50 games in. Meyers getting alot more wood on the ball.
Doing something to get more square.
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