17 hours Ago
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Meeting with his team before its first full-squad workout, Houston Astros manager Joe Espada addressed the elephant in the room. Or, more accurately, the elephants not in the room.
Kyle Tucker. Ryan Pressly. Alex Bregman.
Espada pointed to 2020, when the Astros advanced to the American League Championship Series in their first season without Gerrit Cole, getting contributions from younger pitchers such as Framber Valdez, Cristian Javier and José Urquidy. Advertisement He pointed to 2021, when the Astros reached the World Series, with Tucker filling the void created by the departure of George Springer. And he pointed to 2022, when Jeremy Peña won ALCS and World Series MVP as the replacement for Carlos Correa.
“This team has been able to sustain those losses,” Espada said. “And it allows other people to step up and get us deep into the postseason.” OK, but is this finally the Astros’ breaking point? How long can they continue to thrive with a weak farm system? Is too much of their fabric gone? This is the first time in the Astros’ near-decade of dominance they’ve endured three major losses in one offseason — four if you count Justin Verlander, who had a 5.
48 ERA in 17 starts last season but remained a presence. Even in a sport in which all teams experience annual and often significant turnover, the Astros are taking a daunting step. Yet perhaps it’s telling that the team’s biggest addition, first baseman Christian Walker, remained bullish about his decision even as he watched the team transform.
The trade of Tucker to the Cubs, Walker said, “got my attention.” But he agreed to his three-year, $60 million free-agent contract with the Astros one week later and was not unnerved by the subsequent trade of Pressly to the Cubs and departure of Bregman in free agency. “The culture, the tradition, the history of winning, the success that this organization has, was very appealing to me,” Walker said.
“With the business of the game, people come and go. ‘Replacing guys’ doesn’t feel like the right (phrase). But you can make some moves and some adjustments and move some guys around.
Leadership, like (Jose) Altuve learning a new position for us — things like that are how you bridge the gap from losing a really good player.” The Astros certainly are different with the additions of Walker and third baseman Isaac Paredes, and with Altuve moving to left field from second base. Whether they are better is an open question.
Tucker and Bregman are two of the better position players in the sport. Pressly is the most accomplished postseason reliever in team history. Last April, after the Astros started 4-11, I wrote , “By now, we should know not to count out the Astros,” and then concluded by saying, “The degree of difficulty seems greater than it usually is for the Astros.
There’s no getting around it. Their roster is flawed.” I was right on both counts — sort of.
The Astros rallied to capture their seventh AL West title in eight years. But they did it with 88 wins, their lowest total in a full season since 2016, then proceeded to get swept by the Detroit Tigers in the Wild Card series, ending their run of seven straight trips to the ALCS. Advertisement Altuve and Yordan Alvarez remain.
So do Valdez and three younger starters who emerged to varying degrees last season, Hunter Brown, Ronel Blanco and Spencer Arrighetti. Bryan Abreu, who supplanted Pressly as the top setup reliever, also is back, as is closer Josh Hader. The overall talent is good enough for PECOTA to project the Astros to record the fourth-highest win total in the American League, behind only Texas, the New York Yankees and Baltimore.
Fangraphs has Boston, Texas, Seattle and Houston finishing with essentially the same 84-85 wins , exceeded only by the Yankees in the AL at 87. “Every player we have lost in the past, we’ve missed them. But somehow, we’ve found a way to keep going,” Altuve said.
“It doesn’t necessarily mean we’re better with or without them. But with this team, the culture is to win. I think that is why we keep going forward, regardless of who we lose.
” It’s difficult to argue with Altuve, but good luck quantifying what he’s talking about. The Astros last season benefited from the Rangers’ post-World Series hangover and Mariners’ offensive struggles, but still won the division even though it took them until June 30 to get over .500.
Espada credits the team’s resilience in part to Altuve, whom he refers to as “our leader, our core,” adding, “as long as he’s here, we still have The Guy.” Well, “The Guy” turns 35 in May, and is coming off his worst offensive season since 2015, based on OPS+. Perhaps spending the majority of his time in left field will revive him — “I think I’m going to do actually better than people think,” Altuve said, referring to his defense.
But if his offensive decline accelerates, the Astros’ demise indeed might be near. It would be unwise to bet against him, against any of them, really. At least in 2025.
Over the past three seasons, Walker has averaged 32 homers and won three straight Gold Gloves at a position where the Astros last season ranked 28th in fWAR. Paredes, a right-handed hitter who last season was third in the majors in pull percentage, is moving to a park with one of the game’s most inviting left-field porches. Advertisement The Astros historically are a free-swinging bunch.
Their average rank in pitches per plate appearance the past eight years was 27th, including 30th last season, when they fell into an early hole and tried to swing their way out. Their relentless hacking hasn’t hurt them any — their average rank in runs scored during that period was sixth. But Paredes and Walker bring a decidedly more patient approach.
Paredes was first in pitches per plate appearance last season, Walker 10th. Though Paredes, 26, is young enough to be the Astros’ next big thing, he is under club control for only three more years, the same as Walker, who turns 34 next month. What the Astros need is the kind of internal boost they received when Tucker broke out in ’21 and Peña proved such a revelation in ’22.
And it isn’t likely to come anytime soon. General manager Dana Brown refers to third baseman/left fielder Cam Smith, acquired with Paredes and pitcher Hayden Wesneski in the Tucker trade, as an “aircraft carrier-type player.” But Smith, who hit two home runs in his first two at-bats of Grapefruit League competition Tuesday, has played only five games above Class A.
The Athletic’s Keith Law recently ranked the Astros’ farm system 29th out of 30 MLB teams. The team has traded a number of prospects in recent years — pitcher Chayce McDermott for Trey Mancini; first baseman/outfielder Ryan Clifford and outfielder Drew Gilbert for Verlander; right-hander Jake Bloss, outfielder Joey Loperfido and infielder Will Wagner for Yusei Kikuchi. Let’s not forget, the Astros also forfeited their first- and second-round picks in 2020 and ’21 as part of their penalty for the sign-stealing scandal.
The players lost in those drafts might be in the majors or close to it by now. Brown, who took over in January 2023, is like many heads of baseball operations, believing his system is better than the public rankings indicate. Part of the Astros’ problem is that because of their success, they have not drafted higher than 28th in the first round since 2017.
Hunter Brown, a fifth-rounder in 2019, is the last Astros pick to produce more than 1 WAR. Adrian Houser was the last Astros second-rounder to produce an even positive WAR, and he was drafted in 2011. Perhaps Smith, whom the Cubs last year drafted 14th out of Florida State, can provide difference-making impact, but it probably would not be until 2026, at the earliest.
And even then, who knows? Can’t-miss prospects do not always develop into stars. Under previous GM Jeff Luhnow, the Astros were fortunate to hit on as many first-rounders as they did: Springer at No. 11 in 2011, Correa at No.
1 in 2012, Bregman and Tucker at No. 2 and No. 5, respectively, in ’15.
All are gone now. And the team they left behind faces perhaps its greatest challenge yet. (Photo of Joe Espada and Dana Brown: Jeff Roberson / Associated Press).
