Nah I think you’re spot on here. I can’t think of a team that won because a player had amazing defense throughout the playoffs. It’s not going to come close to the impact Vlad had for Toronto last year or Adolis Garcia for the Rangers during their run.
Decent value there; I felt like O’Hearn would have been a really good fit for Houston’s lineup. But I’m hopeful Jesus Sanchez can be as good if Houston hangs on to him.
Yep, my take is depth and starting pitching wins divisions, hot power hitters, aces, and hot RP win playoff games.
The longer the offseason goes on showing the prices for everything, the more I am convinced that Sanchez is staying and there will be a ton of platooning in the OF. I was happy when the Astros got him and he has a proven track record vs RHP. Gotta have hope, even if I don't have faith.
Yep, it’s not a coincidence those always are the most expensive to add in free agency and at the deadline.
Wouldn’t be the first guy to struggle initially with a new team and then turn it around the following year. Look at Polanco this season - I know for a fact by reading their Reddit sub that Mariners fans hated him going into the season. Sanchez didn’t lose his skills because of age or an injury related decline. There’s a decent chance he bounces back this season and we end up liking the guy.
Jesus Sanchez projected 2026 wRC+: 110 Ryan O’Hearn projected 2026 wRC+: 112 Sanchez has a career 111 wRC+ against RHP. O’Hearn’s career wRC+ against RHP is 108. O’Hearn is 32, Sanchez is 28. It’s not wishful thinking to expect Jesus Sanchez to be as good of a hitter as Ryan O’Hearn next season.
At the end of last year, Jesus Sanchez made a perfect throw to home plate in a crucial situation (that I can’t remember anymore) and that enabled me to text “Jesus saves” to my Jewish friend who is also a diehard Astros fan. For this reason and this reason alone, I wouldn’t mind Jesus Sanchez on the team next year. (Edited - I should never make fun of data)
Urias .640 OPS in 101 plate appearances as an Astro at age 31. Dubi .644 OPS in 398!!! plate appearances. These guys aren't be paid for their offense. There's a reason one was DFA'd and the other was salary dumped for *checks notes* Nick Allen. The 2026 Astros cannot afford to waste 500 plate appearances on the utility guy.
Ok you posted it as “our lineup” so had to assume way over 30-40 games On Sanchez, regardless of the tools, he is awful. And Yordan is better than Altuve, but he still isn’t good I just think defense matters a lot more than most on here
Whatever the projections might say Sanchez doesn’t give you quality at bats. Maybe he will run into a few more long balls next year or something, but the quality of his at bats is awful
It's not like they were playing those guys for fun. All the star players were injured. Dubon and Urias combined for 2.6 WAR in those 500 plate appearances. I'm generally a skeptic of WAR, but if you trust it, that made them more valuable than most of the other Astros starters. And more than paid for themselves. The point of those guys isn't to play them 500 PA on purpose. It's so you don't have a bunch of AAAA players in the lineup when other players get injured. And in that role, they excelled. Without them, you'd have had a lot more PAs from guys like Short, Hummel, Whitcomb, Trammell, Guillorme, etc. All of those guys were below replacement level players.
Frankly, that's how the Astros have to approach their season. Several years back, the Astros were built on a bunch of underpaid stars that got big stats, and so you could spend to fill in the gaps. Now, they have a bunch of stars that are either paid fairly or overpaid. So you have to get overperformance from cheaper secondary players - you can't win if everyone on the team is paid market value. So they need cheap guys like Sanchez to work out. They can't afford to spend a lot of money on average/decent performance, even if it's fair market value, when you have reasonable alternatives. The money has to be reserved for positions you simply don't have other ways to fill.
A lot of the Astros outlook heading into 2026 is going to depend on who they get to be their #2 starter. There have been a few players they have passed on (McNeil is one) because they didn’t want to limit their ability to add another starter. They want to address the starter issue before using financial assets on a bat - and that includes Jesus. If they need to move him for money to spend on pitching, they will. Burrows was a big get for the Astros because he did not financially cost them anything. From a prospect perspective they lost Brito but Melton wasn’t as valued as ESPN thinks…. Also it allows the Astros to move someone like an Arrighetti if they need to so they get a starter.
