Jack Cust: The anti-Astro Astro, and why this is bad — and good


There are three things that the Astros, as they have been and presumably continue to be constructed, do not do.

1. They don’t walk
2. They don’t, for a poor offensive team, strike out much.
3. They don’t hit home runs.

Now outfielder Jack Cust has signed with the Astros for $600,000 non-guaranteed plus a 2013 club option that according to agent Bobby Barad is for $1 million.

And there are three things that Jack Cust does do on offense.

1. He walks.
2. He strikes out.
3. He hits home runs, or at least he did.

While the Astros are a bunch of busy work for a defense, a Jack Cust at-bat is an invitation for defense to take a nap. If they had to find one player who absolutely doesn’t fit their mold, both in good ways and bad, it’s Jack Cust.

Despite a really down year last year, he had an on-base percentage 33 points ahead of the Astros as a team, .344 to .311.

However, he also hit .213 and struck out 87 times in 270 plate appearances. Those K’s have always been part of his game, as he led the American League every year from 2007-09, while the Astros had the 10th most of 16 NL teams last year and the fewest the year before as a contact bunch.

Plate appearances resulting in the “three true outcomes,” defense independent.

Category HR BB K Total
2011 Astros 1.5% 6.5% 18.9% 27.0%
2011 MLB 2.5% 8.2% 18.6% 29.2%
Cust’s career 4.1% 17.2% 31.7% 53.0%

Those numbers as a whole have always made Cust a valuable offensive player, but the key is in the third one. The home runs dropped from 97 in four seasons with Oakland to just 3 with the Mariners last year before he was released.

In his power will be the key. He can still walk even if he’s not a power threat, which is enough of a boon for a team that has so many impatient hitters. But to get some real value, the Astros must get some power production and hope the total of three last year was the aberration rather than the decline.

Categories: General
Zachary Levine