A Sour 16
16 Astros are on the injured list, the most in the majors. It has cut deeply into the team's pitching and defensive abilities, forcing AAA players to be major leaguers.
You’re not just imagining it. The Astros have a lot of injured players. A lot.
The Astros have 16 players currently on the IL. Is that a lot? Yes, it’s the most in baseball right now. And the most by 2 whole players. The Dodgers have 14 players on the IL—lucky bastards.
The chart below provides visual evidence (in lollipop form) of the Astros league leading status in this measure. It comes from the Injury List Ledger at Baseball Prospectus.
Would you like some better news? Baseball Prospectus also calculates how many “wins above a replacement player” injures have cost each team. Injuries have not cost the Astros the most wins this season by this metric. It’s cost them the second most behind the Blue Jays.
Yeah, that does not make me feel better.
The Astros knew they were entering Spring Training with several pitchers out for the start of the season as they recovered from Tommy John Surgery last season—that’s the fate of Hayden Wesneski, Ronel Blanco, and Brandon Walter.
Early in Spring Training, it became clear there was an issue with Josh Hader’s recovery from a shoulder injury last year. Bennett Sousa suffered an oblique strain in Spring Training. Nate Pearson, signed in the offseason as a potential swingman, recovered slowly from offseason elbow surgery.
The Astros worked out a plan over the offseason and Spring Training to deal with those injuries to the pitching staff. What has really hurt the Astros are the injuries the rotation has suffered during the season.
These began with the shoulder injury to staff ace Hunter Brown. There is no more essential player to the Astros in 2026 than Brown, and his injury has been difficult to overcome. But it was quickly followed by Cristian Javier suffering his own shoulder injury and leaving a start in Colorado. Tatsuya Imai had a terrible outing where he did not get out of the first inning and then went on the IL with a mysterious dead arm. These have been the most painful injuries to the team’s fortunes.
To add injury to other injury, Cody Bolton, who had made two spot starts to cover injuries in the rotation, suffered his own injury after being hit by a batted ball. Put all of that together, and that’s 10 Astros pitchers on the IL. You could make your own pitching staff out of just those players.
Astros hitters began the season in better shape, with only Zach Dezenzo starting the season on the injured list. But the injury bug soon hit the team’s top defenders. Jake Meyers suffered an oblique strain and went on the IL on April 9. Jeremy Pena joined him 3 days later with a hamstring strain.
In recent days, the injury bug moved to the Astros depth options in the lineup. Platoon bat Joey Loperfido went on the IL Saturday with a quad strain. Reserve infielder Nick Allen joined him Monday with a back strain.
By Tuesday, the injury bug started affecting the team’s injury replacements. Taylor Trammell, called up from Sugar Land to replace Jake Meyers on the roster, strained his groin. He is the sour 16th on the IL.
The Impact: Lots of AAA Guys in the Majors
Technically, the Astros have not added a player to the IL every day of the season. But considering the fact that they have 16 guys on the IL and have player 26 games, you are forgiven for feeling that way.
The impact of all of these injuries is clear. It has forced the Astros to rely on a series of guys who should be in AAA like Brice Matthews. Matthews was inserted into the game Sunday against the Cardinals and was picked off first before making an error at third base, In an ideal world, Nick Allen would have been the pinch runner and then entered at shortstop, pushing Carlor Correa to third base. Instead, Allen was unavailable due to his injury.
The Allen injury also shows the roster issues created by the injury issues. Allen was on the roster on Sunday primarily because the Astros lacked a viable player to put on the active roster. Because of the glut of injuries, the Astros only have 1 position player in their minors on the 40-man roster. And because when it rains, it pours, that player—Zack Cole—is on the minor league injured list.
The injury epidemic has compelled the front office to seek out players off AAA rosters in other organizations to join the Astros 26-man roster. Over the last week, the Astros have claimed Dustin Harris off waivers from the White Sox, traded a low-level minor leaguer to the Yankees for Braden Schewmake, and signed Daniel Johnson, Jr. to a minor league contract, and then activated him and started him yesterday in Cleveland.
In the rotation, the Astros have already had 10 different players make starts this season. In addition to the five players who started the season in the rotation, the Astros have started two of their prospects who started the season in Sugar Land (Spencer Arrighetti and Colton Gordon), one signed to a small major league contract this offseason (Ryan Weiss) and two signed to minor league contracts (Bolton and yesterday’s hero Peter Lambert).
If you are looking at all of these names and thinking I made them up, I don’t blame you. I’m not convinced that they are real either.
Relying on anonymous baseball journeymen is not ideal for obvious reasons—if these players were better, they would have a stead major league job. Jake Meyers might be a flawed player who strikes out too often and hits for a low batting average. But he is a major league regular because his excellent defense and occasional power give him value. It’s certainly greater value than Taylor Trammell or Daniel Johnson—assuming Johnson exists.
These issues are exacerbated when the injured player is an All-Star like Hunter Brown and Jeremy Pena. The drop off from Pena to Nick Allen or from Brown to Ryan Weiss is large. And the reliance on anonymous AAA relievers such as Christian Roa, JP France, and Jayden Murray—all who have pitched on the active roster this year to cover injuries—exacerbates slumps like we’ve seen from better pitchers such as Bryan Abreu.
The injuries have tested the depth of this Astros team and the did not have much depth anyway. The team is off to a poor start primarily because of a terrible performance by the pitching staff, even from its healthy members intended to be on a Daiken Park mound. But the injuries, both to the pitching staff and the defense, have exacerbated this poor pitching.
Injuries happen in baseball. I just wish they would happen in a more normal manner for the Astros.