The Astros at Memorial Day. Theme #1: As .500 a team as a .500 team can be
The 2025 Astros are right about .500 as they reach Memorial Day. And have been right about .500 all season. I examine how .500 the Astros have been in 2025.
My production for this Substack in May has been, let’s say modest. I wrote one piece back on May 4. And have not written anything else from that point to now. Frankly, I didn’t write a lot in April either.
Part of the reason is that real life got in the way—May is a busy month in my professional life—and part of it is because to this point, the 2025 Astros have been…will you accept just about average as a good description?
As I write, the Astros stand one game over .500 at 26-25 after splitting the first two games of their series against the Mariners. That’s obviously not a bad record, but it’s not a good one.
That the Astros have been average this season is not just reflected in the end product—a record right around .500. It is also reflected in how they have gotten to this point. The Astros have been right around a .500 record every day of the 2025 season. The lowest point for the Astros has been 2 games below .500, which they first reached after being swept by the Giants on April 2. Their highest point is three games above .500, which they reached on Monday of this week when they won the opener against the Rays.
How is a team able to stay very close to .500 every day of the season? Simple, by avoiding big streaks of any kind. The Astros’ longest losing streak is 3 games, and their longest winning streak is 3 games. Perfectly balanced. They have 2 3-game losing streaks (the sweep by the Giants and against the White Sox and Brewers from May 4-6. They also have 2 3-game winning streaks (a sweep of Toronto from April 21-23 and over the Royals and Tigers from April 27-29). Again, perfectly balanced.
The perfectly balanced nature of the Astros season so far has made it difficult to do detailed baseball analysis on the team. Do I highlight the good things—like the excellent work of the bullpen? If so, that seems to be pushing the scale toward the sunshine pumping. Do I highlight the bad things—like the slumps of hitters like Christian Walker and Yordan Alvarez? Then I seem to be all doom and gloom.
The good things and the bad things have mostly balanced out so far this season, so that presumes I should write about both at the same time. And that is difficult to do with a reasonable word count.
Further, one thing I like about sabermetric analysis of baseball is that it can supersede ones emotions about baseball. It sucks to lose a tough one-run game, but analytical though helps one understand it’s a long season. Sometime, analytical thought can confirm your worst emotions. I have written pieces here urging Astros fans to shake off losing weeks and to lean in to their fears that a bad start might doom the season.
But this year, it’s been hard for me to get a handle on what the emotional state of Astros fans is. At one level, it’s hard to get too high when the win streaks are modest. And it’s hard to get too low when the losing streaks are short. Yesterday’s loss is today’s win…and that’s been the case a whole bunch for the 2025 Astros.
Yet, I feel sense among fans more negativity that the record justifies. The Astros are not performing up to their standards of the Golden Era. They are not on pace to win as many games as they did last season. No one needs to feel awesome about a 26-25 record.
But negativity seems off. The near .500 start has not cost the Astros much of anything so far. The Astros are only 3.5 games back of the Mariners for the AL West lead. That’s an edge that is clearly surmountable over another 112 games.
Further evidence of that the Astros have done little to affect their long-term fortunes via their near .500 start is provided in this skeet by Friend of the Substack Astros County. According to Fangraphs, the Astros playoff odds have barely moved so far this season. They’re up a scant 4.4% since Opening Day.1
Obviously, you’d rather be the Tigers, who have gotten off to a really hot start and have increased their playoff odds more than any other team, but the .500 start has cost the Astros very little. But on the other hand, you sure wouldn’t want to be a Rangers fan. In addition, I’ll note their playoff chances have gone down 17.2% since opening day.
I will note that there are some signs this team is slightly better than its 26-25 record. The first is that the Astros “expected,” or “Pythagorean” record is two games better at 28-23. This record is created by a formula based on the number of runs scored and allowed. Over the long haul, teams should play closer to their expected record as it is a better reflection of the team’s quality. The Astors expected record leads the division, which is not surprising since the Astros also lead the division in run margin at +23.
Even more encouraging news is provided by the Astros “third order” record. This takes the quality of each team’s run scoring and prevention activities, taking out luck factors such as sequencing and batted ball luck relative to the strength of their schedule so far. This measure, hosted by Clay Davenport, finds the Astros “should” be 29-21 so far this season, a 94 win pace. Again, teams should play closer to this record over the course of the season.
Most importantly, by both expected and “third order” record are the best in the division. There is reason to think our team is still the best in the AL West and that they have a long runway of a season still to prove it.
With the season approaching Memorial Day, it is starting to get to be time to take stock of who the Astros are, and, just as importantly, who they can be over the remaining two-thirds of the season.
I am going to try to make up for the lack of posting over the early part of the season with several days of posting, addressing some of the biggest themes about the 2025 Astros so far. I’ll look at the strong bullpen performance, the slumping offense, the improved defense, and a starting rotation hanging by a thread.
Each has played an important role in 2025 Astros and, unsurprisingly, they are also in balance. Two of these trends are quite positive—the excellent bullpen and the improved defense. Two are negative—the slumping offense and the injuries to the starting rotation.
In writing these, I hope I can address why the team is a near .500 team so far this season, and address if the optimism I wrote about in looking at the expected and third order data is justified.
James published that post before last night’s loss, so these numbers have changed slightly since then.
Thanks for the summary and totally agreed. Sort of “Meh,” season. A hot streak would really ignite the fan base, but the win one, lose one pattern is tough to be excited about.