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Should the Stros add one more?"on Astros NewsGame ThreadsHouston Astros Minor LeaguesAstros Game DayPodcastsBargain Bin Signings - the Starting 9's takesNew C. J. Cron Jersey ,14commentsShould the Stros add one more?CDTShareTweetShareShareBargain Bin Signings - the Starting 9's takesRichard Mackson-USA TODAY SportsIt is now March 11th, and numerous big name players are still searching for their home for the 2019 season. We decided to each take a look and see who could be picked out of the bargain bin and help improve the 2019 Astros. For a list of top 50 Free Agents who haven’t signed yet, check out this list (link).*Brian Cohn (HH)*Josh James' strain leads to bigger question marks in the starting rotation. We still have strong depth in the minors dying for a shot, but I figured this is the best place for us to reinforce.It's easy to say Kimbrel or Keuchel would be great adds, but even at bargain bin pricing, I think they'll cost too much. Luckily, over the offseason I did a ton of articles evaulating different potential options. So who is my choice? Gio Gonzalez.Why? We'll the original estimated price tag of 2/24 was not going to break the bank, but he could possibly be picked up even cheaper. Not bad for a pitcher who has averaged 187 IP and 3 WAR for the past decade. I wrote up in the article www.crawfishboxes.com/platform/amp/2018/...gio-gonzalezwhy I think he will outperform his recent history especially with Strom's tutelage.ScottydoubleDallas Keuchel. There’s a pretty cool writeup by Mike Petriello on MLB.com about the uniqueness of Keuchel. It’s not a stretch to say DK has diminished since his Cy Young season in 2015, but I think he’s become undervalued now. He’s one of the best groundball pitchers of all-timeand he produced 3.6 fWAR last year for the 103-win Astros—third-most on the pitching staff and fifth-most on the team. At this point, teams seem unwilling to forfeit draft picks to sign Keuchel to a deal he/Boras deems fit. And let’s face it, Keuchel has a Beard meant to reside in Houston.Exile in Saint LouisI would love for the Astros to sign Tony Sipp. After two bad years, Sipp bounced back to his 2014/2015 form. In his three best Astro years, he’s been remarkably consistent, totaling 1.0, 0.9 and 0.9 Fangraphs WAR. That version of Sipp is worth something like 2/12. Getting Sipp for one year for 3 million is a deal. His ERA was 1.86 and his FIP 2.41. With Peacock likely going to the rotation, the BP has some unknowns. I’d just as soon let Cionel and Framber hone their SP craft in Round Rock. Guduan is who he is at this point, a lefty who can’t throw strikes. bilbosI love Sipp too, Exile. Have written two articles on him in the last year. But I’ve also written some about Astros trades through the years, and the league is strewn with viable players who were Astros cast-offs.I say, it’s time to trust the youth again.Give em a shot. If Dallas Keuchel had come up at this time, instead of growing into a Cy Young winner, he would have been stuck in AA. You wrote a great article about giving Armenteros a shot this year.Is he the next Keuchel? We’ll probably never know, but if we add another veteran to the roster he’ll surely not get a chance, and he http://www.raysfanproshop.com/authentic-evan-longoria-jersey , or someone like him, will end up contributing for another team.Loogy could be a problem this year, but if so, get one at the trade deadline.TheoPart of me wants to say Craig Kimbrel (“Bargain Bin” is a relative term, anyway); just cut loose, go all-in on probably the biggest name that’s still available, and build a Bullpen-of-Death to help close out games. But my less over-the-top /more realistic side says Edwin Jackson: he’s flexible (could start if injuries get too dire while also having bullpen experience), plus it would tie him for the “teams played for” record, which is cool. He probably fits the “bargain bin” label a little more accurately, too.BilbosI think any free agent at this point is a bargain binner, probably desperate for any deal. Something wasn't right about Kimbrel last year. I'm not the only one to think so or he'd be signed.CKunoI would say that most free agents are, Bilbos, but if recent rumblings are to be believed Keuchel is still holding out for a deal in the guaranteed 3 to 5 year range, which I don’t think the Astros should offer him.I have to feel that if he won’t take a deal with only 2 guaranteed years then the ship has sailed on that one for Houston.That being said, I also wouldn’t mind if the team could sign Gio Gonzalez to a cheap, short-term deal.Without rereading HH’s excellent article on him, he could definitely be a solid #5 in this rotation and will probably give you in the neighborhood of 175 innings.Another thing to consider is that his biggest issue last season was that he lost some quality on his curveball and if there’s anything the pitching coaches are good at, it’s improving the spin.BilbosIf he’s that stubborn, it looks like Kuechel is about to enjoy life in early retirement. Is there precedent for the 2018 Drop in offense at Chase Field not related to the humidor ?"The simple answer to the question in the title is YES, there is precedent for large drops in offense and the components of offense at Chase Field prior to 2018.The traditional formula for basic park factors measures what a team does at home and on the road, against what they allow to their opponents in home and road games.The formula looks like this:((homeRS + homeRA)/(homeG)) / ((roadRS + roadRA)/(roadG))This is the most simplistic form, and what you will find at ESPN Stats pages.These are single year park factors.Remember, 100 = neutral,the more over 100 Jonny Venters Jersey , the more hitter friendly, the more under 100, the more pitcher friendly. Also, while Chase dimensions have not changed and for the most part games are played indoors, the league around them DOES change.These numbers are all relative to the league. So while Chase itself may not be changing, how it plays relative to the other stadiums in the league DOES change. Baseball-Reference uses a more complex set of calculations, and uses a multi year weighting system, which you can read about here. (Warning, NSFMA, or Not suitable for Mathaphobes).Fangraphs also has park factors, but they don’t show 2018 and they don’t show their calculation method. However, for the very specific purpose of this post, I am using the simple one year park factor calculation to illustrate a point:SUDDEN DROPS IN CHASEPARK FACTOR HAPPENED THREE TIMES IN LAST 10 YEARS.Lets look first at Homeruns.Below you can see clearly the HR hit and allowed by AZ hitters and pitchers at Chase, against what the AZ Hitters and Pitchers and their opponents produced in DBacks road games.A you can see, the HR factor at Chase showed precipitous drops in 2013, 2015, and of course 2018. But of course offense isn’t only about Homeruns.Below table shows the park factors for 10 years over each major component, and also wOBA, which includes everything. The range in wOBA is tighter than the range in runs, which is interesting.The color coding is simply to help highlight how big the drops were in 2013, 2015, and 2018 compared to previous seasons.Chase is always a triples friendly park, but the swings are large, due to sample size issues.Hits and Doubles more or less track with Runs and wOBA Matt Moore Jersey , (except 2015 doubles), and Chase has been surprisingly walk friendly the last 4 years compared to the previous 6. Now at this point I think we also need to take a look at the Baseball-Reference single year and multi year park factors.Because we reference OPS+ and ERA+ a lot and of course bWAR, it’s important to note that BR uses Multi Year park factors to calculate those.However because the multi year park factor uses 3 seasons, the season immediately before and immediately after the season you are measuring, it creates an obvious problem.2019 hasn’t happened yet.So the “multi year” park factor for 2018 is really only 2017-2018 combined at the moment.As the 2019 season progresses and is later completed, it will actually affect the multi year park factor for 2018, which will in turn retroactively alter the 2018OPS+ and ERA+ and WAR numbers, (everything that is subject to park adjustments) .Depending on how you feel about things, this can be both a feature and a bug.The underlying premise is that the park factors are not precise enough to rely on one year of data. However BR determined the most accurate way to measure is using the season before and after. Which means we need to actually wait until the following season (in this case 2019) is complete before we can take a truly final look at 2018.It can be confusing. So what the hell am I talking about ? Look at the table below first, which are the BR Single and Multi year factors:As you can see here, while the single year factor for 2018 dropped quite a bit from 2016-17 levels, they are roughly the same as 2013 and 2015, the previous years of “lower offense” generated at Chase.But the MULTI year didn’t really drop much at all because it’s only using 2017-2018 data.HOWEVER.....if the humidor effect was real, and therefore offense stays down in 2019 and does not pop back up like it has in the past, then we will have a greatly reduced multi year park factor for 2018.And if that happens, you will see the2018 hitters OPS+ and WAR Rise, and the pitchers ERA+ and WAR decrease, all retroactively. If this were to occur, it would actually give us a more accurate view of 2018 performance........just delayed. SUMMARY:Clearly offensefactors relative to the rest of the league were lower in Chase field in 2018 compared to most seasons. But this has happened several times before in the recent past.So while most pundits will attribute the drop in offense factors to the humidor, we actually need to see at least one more consecutive season of this reduced level of offense at Chase to be able to say with any certainty that it is due to the humidor.