How the West Was Won...With Pitching and Defense

The offense took a step back from the Astros traditional hitting dominance. But the pitching stepped up--thanks to the return of Verlander, the growth of Framber and Javier, and an improved bullpen.

The golden age of the Astros has centered on their offense. The 2017 team—the first of the string of five straight full season AL West champions—scored 5.5 runs per game, the most in the majors. Astro hitters put up 4.9, 5.7, and 5.3 runs per game as they won the AL West in 2018, 2019, and 2021.

This year, the offense has lagged, scoring 4.6 runs per game, the fewest the Astros have scored since 2016. Yes, the team has scored even fewer runs per game this season than they did in dreary 29-31 pandemic season of 2020; they averaged 4.6 runs per game.

The 2022 offense has lagged behind the usual (and very high) standards of recent Astros teams. Yet on Monday night in St. Petersburg, the Astros won their 97th game of the season and clinched the AL West championship with 14 games left in the season. The win also clinches a bye into the American League Division Series, avoiding the Wild Card round of the playoffs. The victory also puts the Astros 8 games up on the Yankees for home field advantage in the American League Championship Series, a lead that is hard to overcome this late in the season.

How did the Astros easily outpace their foes in the AL West and outrace the rest of the teams in the American League to be its team if the offense has taken a step back? The pitching staff, backstopped by an outstanding defense, improved significantly from the 2021 season. The Astros went old school in 2022, winning the division on pitching and defense.

The chart below below shows the stats and ranking among the 30 MLB teams for the pitching staff in 2022 and the pitching staff in 2021. The numbers are universally better, and the numbers in 2022 are near the top of the majors in just about every category.

The team has allowed 3.22 runs per game this season which is 0.84 runs less than they allowed in the 2021 season. They trimmed their team ERA below 3, which is always a remarkable accomplishment.

ERA+ is a stat that is scaled so that 100 is league average, and each unit measures how much better (or worse) than average a performance is. The Astros pitching staff was 14% better than league average in 2021; they are 32% better than league average in 2022, a remarkable and notable improvement.

The pitchers have cut the rate of home runs they allow from 1.2 per nine innings in 2021 to 0.8 in 2022, the best in the league. They have reduced their WHIP to 1.09 and held opponents to a .210 batting average in 2022. They have increased their rate of strikeouts to the top third of the league.

The only pitching category in which they remain in the middle tier of the majors is BB/9. But the pitches have also improved in that category, reducing their rate of walks by 0.5 per nine innings from 2021.

In the last two rows, I included the ERA for the Astros starting pitchers and the team’s relievers. Both went down significantly from 2021, indicating that the improvement we see in the rest of the numbers is not limited to a few pitchers. Instead, it is spread out across a large number of pitchers on the team.

The Starting Rotation

To look at this in specifics, the chart below shows the Games Started and ERA for the starting rotation in 2022 (on the left) and 2021 (on the right). It is sorted by the number of games started in 2022, and I kept the same pitcher on the same row for 2021 for easier comparison of their performance in the two seasons.

The first thing to note in this chart is that the Astros have used only 8 starting pitchers in the 2022 season, and only 9 in 2021. This is a very low number,¹ and it reflects two things. The first is the pitching staff has been relatively healthy. And second, the pitching has been pretty good. The front office has had little reason to call up the Sugar Land rotation to cover up for minor injuries or ineffectiveness.

The second thing I note is that having Justin Verlander in your rotation really helps. He essentially took Zack Greinke’s spot in the rotation this year, and has cut the ERA from that spot from essentially league average to the best in the American League.

It has also benefitted from the improvements of Framber Valdez and Cristian Javier, both of whom have lowered their ERAs significantly in 2022 from 2021. In Javier’s case, he has staked out a permanent place in the starting rotation thanks to his ability to improve his control.

Both Jose Urquidy and Luis Garcia have seen their ERA go up this season, but only modestly so in both cases. And certainly not enough to alter the broader pattern of the rotation—a decrease in their collective ERA from 3.63 to 3.04.

The Bullpen

I made a similar chart for the relievers, and the pattern is the same as the starters, but with even starker improvements.

The bullpen has seen significant improvements from two holdovers from last season in Ryne Stanek (from 3.55 to 1.09) and Bryan Abreu (from 5.75 to 2.06).

And some of the improvements in 2022 come from the fact that some of the pitchers in the 2021 bullpen had poor ERAs in Houston despite being better overall pitchers than what we saw in Houston.²

But the new pitchers in the bullpen this year have made significant contributions to improving the team’s pitching line. Rafael Montero has been a revelation this season as the set-up man, overcoming a poor season in 2021 that got him DFAed by the Mariners before he got injured shortly after his trade to the Astros. Hector Neris has been very effective after signing as a free agent in the off-season. And it is a similar story for Will Smith, who has improved since coming over at the trade deadline in exchange for Jake Odorizzi.

And one of the new pieces is a pitcher they developed on Seth Martinez, who has come out of nowhere to post a 2.09 ERA in 38.2 innings. The 2022 bullpen is a story of good pitcher after good pitcher.

Even Phil Maton, who has seemed like the bullpen whipping boy all season, has improved from a 4.97 ERA with the Astros in 2021 to 3.75 this season.

Maton’s ERA is better than league average. In fact, just about every reliever the Astros have used this season has been above average. Only two Astros relievers this season have posted an ERA+ below 100 (i.e. league average). And those two relievers (Ronel Blanco and Pedro Baez) pitched only 8.2 major league innings this season.

Fielding

Any discussion of the Astros ability to prevent runs is not complete without noting the contributions of the fielders. The Astros have one of the best defenses in the majors, and the numbers below provide evidence of that.

There is a difference between the defense and the pitching staff: the defense was also top tier in the majors in 2021. And while most of their personnel returned, they did lose the AL’s Gold and Platinum Glove winner in shortstop Carlos Correa. They replaced him with Jeremy Pena, who has upheld the team’s great defense—he leads all major league shortstops with 15 Defensive Runs Saved.³

By maintaining a high level of defense, Astro fielders have supported the strong efforts of the pitching staff. They rank in the top five in baseball in each of their four advanced defensive metrics listed in the chart. Through aggressive shifting and prioritizing defense in their player evaluations,⁴ the Astros have been able to keep runs off the board with their gloves.

This season, the arms joined in, pitching the team to the best record in the AL and a division crown.

I do feel that it has been a different experience watching a pitching and defense first team that the sluggers-first squads that we watched from 2017 to 2021. For one, the modest run scoring totals have kept games close—the Astros lead the majors in team saves. The modest runs scored totals seem to have created more frustration among Astros fans than a 100+ team warrants.

Bur regardless of the close games and social media commentary, the pitchers continued their dominance throughout the season. We saw that again last night. Luis Garcia lacked command and walked four batters. But he was effective when needed, getting a strikeout of Randy Arozarena with 2 runners in scoring position in the 1st. The defense helped thanks to nice plays by Jose Altuve and Yuli Gurriel.

Hunter Brown was the piggyback reliever, allowing only a single baserunner in each of his three innings while striking out three. Hector Neris, who never made the playoffs in his eight seasons with the Phillies, finished off the shutout.

The offense had a good, but not great effort, as they scored 4 runs. But the game last night, and the AL West title, was won thanks to the Astros pitching and defense.

1. For example, the 2017 team used 11 pitchers, and they were of course very good.

2. For example, Brooks Raley has a 1.98 ERA this year in Tampa Bay and Yimi Garcia has a 2.59 ERA in Toronto this season.

3. Pena actually 2nd amond Major League shortstops in Fielding Runs Above Average with 9.

4. It’s a big reason why they acquired Mauricio Dubon, who is a plus defender at shortstop, second base, and in center field.