What Would It Take for the Astros to Lose the AL West?

I started writing on a regular basis about our Astros in Spring Training 2021 and my first missive was titled “Surprise! The Astros are AL West favorites in 2021.”¹

To me, the key word in that headline is “Surprise.” At the time, my opinion that the Astros would win the 2021 AL West title felt “controversial based on conversations I had with Astros fans” that offseason. The Astros were coming off of a poor regular season in 2020 when they finished second to the As in the division. And despite a remarkable run to Game 7 of the ALCS in the 2021, the prevailing mood of Astros fans during Spring Training 2021 was concern: Is the golden era ending?

We know the answer to that question—absolutely not. Since then, the Astros have gone 201-123 in the regular season, 20-9 in the postseason, winning two division crowns, two pennants, and the 2022 World Series.

As a result, it does not seem necessary on the dawn of the 2023 season to convince Astros fans that the the team is favorites in the AL West. I’m pretty sure most Astro fans think they are favorites to win not just the division, but also the World Series.

And that it not just an opinion held by Astros fans. The Astros lead the “power rankings” of MLB teams at The Athletic and ESPN.com. National reporters are nearly unanimous in picking the Astros to win the AL West.

The best example of the Astros national respect I found this offseason was an interview with Yankees beat writer Brendan Kuty on the Effectively Wild podcast. When asked “what would constitute success for the Yankees this year,” Kuty answered “finish further than the Astros do.”²

So instead of writing about why the Astros will win the AL West this season, I have decided to take on a more difficult challenge—explaining how they could fail. That is, explaining how the Astros could fall short of an AL West crown this season.

The good news is the Astros being passed by the Mariners (or the Angels, I guess) in the division this season is unlikely. Both the Fangraphs and ZiPS standings projections have the Astros five game ahead of the Mariners heading into the season. Pecota is even more optimistic. They project an eight game difference in the Astros favor.

But projections are not results. The Astros are a an obvious and odds-on favorite to win the AL West, but there is a possibility that they lose it. I explore the reasons they could.

The Astros are favorites to the logo in MLB playoff-themed marketing in the Fall. But there are reasons they could be upended.

Injuries

The first reason is the most obvious—injuries could keep the Astros from fielding their best players, leaving the team a shell of itself.

The good news for the Astros is that one injury—like the one Jose Altuve has already suffered this year—is not fatal. The depth of top quality players helps insulate the team from injuries. But unlike some top heavy teams (c.f. the Angels) one injury will not cripple the Astros.

The team’s offense include four All-Star level players in Yordan Alvarez, Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman, and Kyle Tucker. It also includes three high quality regulars in Jose Abreu, Michael Brantley, and Jeremy Pena. The rotation has two All-Star level pitchers in Cristian Javier and Framber Valdez and two high quality regulars in Luis Garcia and Lance McCullers. No team in the division features as broad a set of top level players, and few, if any, teams across baseball can match the Astros at that level.

The lineup will certainly take a hit with Jose Altuve out two months. But it is hard to think of a lineup with Pena, Tucker, Bregman, Alvarez, and Abreu will be weak.

It’s a similar story in the rotation, where Lance McCullers will start the season on the IL after suffering an elbow strain in February. Hunter Brown will fill McCullers’ rotation spot and based on how he performed in 2022, we can expect very little drop off.

The concern instead is that there are multiple injuries at the same time, depleting the Astros wide base of top level players and putting players like Brandon Bielak and JJ Matijevic on the field on a regular basis. Like most teams, when the Astros have to dip into their AAA roster, they are at a disadvantage.

For me, these concerns are most acute in the rotation. The good news is that pitchers like Valdez, Javier, and Garcia have shown themselves to be quite durable during their major league careers. All three have avoided long IL stints. Will that continue? Well, they are pitchers, so the answer to that question is maybe not.

And after two seasons of remarkable and enviable starting rotation depth, the Astros have less insulation from a series of starting pitching injuries in 2023 than they did in recent seasons. The Astros seemed eight deep in starting pitching options in 2022; so deep that Hunter Brown had to stay in AAA until September 1 despite looking ready for his big league debut for months at that point, But two members of those eight have departed (Jake Odorizzi to the Braves and now Rangers; Justin Verlander to the Mets).

The team will rely on internal options if multiple pitchers go down, starting with the aforementioned Bielak. But the less Brandon Bielak pitches in Houston this season, the better for the team’s chances of winning in 2023.

A Lack of Player Development

Last offseason, the Astros front office made little or no effort to sign Carlos Correa, the team’s All-Star shortstop. Instead, the team gave the job to Jeremy Pena. He became a star, winning the MVP award in both the ALCS and the World Series.

This offseason, the Astros front office made little or no effort to sign Justin Verlander, the team’s Cy Young winning ace. Instead, the team the job to Hunter Brown.

It’s the same modus operandi that we have seen before from the Astros front office many times now. Allow a player to walk in free agency and replace him a player from their own farm system. It worked last year. Heck, it worked when the team let George Springer go to Toronto, essentially replacing him with Kyle Tucker. They replace Dallas Keuchel with Framber Valdez and Gerrit Cole with Cristian Javier.

The internal development of Astros prospects (and their improvement while in the major leagues) has allowed the Astros to watch one young core walk out the door in free agency and another take its place.

Internal development has also enhanced the depth of the Astros roster. Players like Chas McCormick, Jose Urquidy, and Seth Martinez are not star level players, but they are average or near-average contributors. Not every player can be a star, but keeping a roster spot from being a complete scar is really important to good teams.

Can the 2023 Astros continue their remarkable record of player development? Brown is the team’s top prospect and while it is unreasonable to expect him to replace Verlander, the team needs him to be healthy and effective in the starting rotation this season.

Brown is not the only inexperienced player with little major league experience who will play key roles for the Astros this season. David Hensley will be the utility infielder and will get more PAs with Jose Altuve on the IL. Jake Meyers will likely be in the starting lineup while Michael Brantley is on the IL. Yainer Diaz made the opening day roster and will be a bench bat.

If these players do not develop this season into contributing big leaguers, it will greatly retard the quality of the Astros. They have not had this issue much in recent years,³ and need to avoid it again this year.

The Mariners Pass Them

So far, I’ve discussed things that the Astros could do to fall below their expected win total and slip behind either the Angels or the Mariners. But what if the Astros have an expected year and win something like 95 games, but the Mariners have a great year and win 98 games.⁴

I am skeptical that this will happen, not just because the Astros are such a heavy favorite in the AL West, but also because of the way that the Mariners are constructed. They are a team with one big star on offense (Julio Rodriguez), and one high quality pitcher who could become a star (Luis Castillo). After that, they have a handful of good players, but not enough to be a great team.

In 2022, the Mariners got quality contributions in the lineup from Eugenio Suarez (3.9 bWAR), Cal Raleigh (3.9 bWAR) and Ty France (3.1). Among their pitchers, Logan Gilbert was the only player with more than 3.0 bWAR in 2022.⁵

For the Mariners to have a great season in 2023, they will need these players to avoid regression and maintain this high level of play, and have other contributors step up to this level. Candidates to do that for the Ms this season are limited, but include George Kirby, Teoscar Hernandez, and Kolten Wong. And I guess Jarred Kelenic could surprise us and develop into a quality regular.

In short, I am skeptical that the Mariners can do this. They have only a handful of candidates to make big improvements and their top players last season are likely to regress. But there is a small possibility that the Mariners avoid regression and get big contributions from the players I mentioned. A small but real possibility.

Baseball Happens

Former Astros radio broadcaster Milo Hamilton loved to quote former Astros pitcher Joaquin Andujar as saying “You can sum up the game of baseball in one word: 'You never know.’”

Baseball is of course a game of bad hops, bloop hits, funny bounces, unpredictable weather, and the belief in doom that friend of the Substack Ben DuBose calls “Because Of Course.”

Ben DuBose @BenDuBose

Had a terrible feeling about this run scoring from the moment that awful 0-0 pitch somehow hit the knob of Altuve's bat for Strike 1. #becauseofcourse

We are not supposed to blame things on luck because it’s bad form. But luck happens in baseball. We want to believe that luck evens out over 162 games, and it usually does. But not always. The one thing we know about baseball is the one thing we know about life—there are no guarantees.

And then there is another factor that may be luck and may be something more substantive—regression. The win total projections that I referenced in the introduction are based on projections for how individuals players will perform. But if a bunch of players are below their projections, it could be that the assumptions in the projection were off, or that the players just had the bad luck of underperforming.

The Astros lost the AL West in the pandemic shortened 2020 season to a very good A’s team.⁶ Why did they underperform in 2020? It could just be regression, though losing Justin Verlander was certainly a big factor.

Can the Astros avoid regression and bad luck in 2023? I don’t know. It’s not something one can usually predict. We have a little better luck in predicting injuries, but not that much. I mean, Jose Altuve is a pretty durable player, but that fastball from Daniel Bard was apparently more durable.

Will the young players perform well? I think so. I’ve written this offseason that I’m optimistic that David Hensley and Jake Meyers will be contributing players. But I could be wrong.

Will the Mariners rise up? I wrote that I don’t think so, but it is a possibility.

In short, there are a number of reasons why the Astros could lost the AL West in 2023. Some of the factors I have identified will likely not happen and some—like luck—will likely even out.

If things go according to plan, the Astros will win the AL West again. Let’s just hope that they do.

1. My plan at the time was to write regularly at AstrosCounty. Five days after I wrote that piece, James Yasko ended that blog. That compelled me to create my own space (briefly at Medium, then at Blogger.com, and since November 2021, here at Substack). Having done the work to create my own website also compelled me to write more, having put in the work to start the thing. So direct thanks to James for giving me a place to write while Astros County was live, and indirect thanks to compelling me to write more regularly by shutting it down.

2. You can find the Effectively Wild question and Kuty’s quote at the 1:03:00 mark here. Chandler Rome did the Astros preview on Effectively Wild and his reply to the “How does this team define success question was “You never want to get into the World Series or bust…if you don’t reach the World Series, the season is a failure. But that Astros have kind of reached that point where it is.” The question and Rome’s response at at the 56:55 mark at this link.

3. And when they had those issues, such as with Niko Goodrum, the front office was quick to make a change, as they did last May in acquiring Mauricio Dubon to take Goodrum’s roster spot.

4. I’m highly skeptical the Angels ceiling is this high. So I’ll focus on the Mariners here.

5. All together, the Mariners had five players with a bWAR over 3.0. For comparison, the Astros had eight. In fact, six of those Astros had a bWAR over 4.5. Only one Mariner managed that.

6. Well, good in the regular season.