We had by far the most injuries in baseball, leaving an insane amount of WAR on the shelf, and we were a tiebreaker away from making the playoffs. That same team who we lost the tiebreaker has a 1-0 lead in the ALDS right now.
You are incorrect on Forrest Whitley getting released. The Rays did not release Forrest Whitley; instead, after he was designated for assignment, he cleared waivers and was outrighted to Triple-A Durham by the Rays in July 2025. The team kept him in the organization, hoping for improvement, rather than releasing him to free agency. No likes on your comment, you are the one that is lost.
Toronto hired a new hitting coach (prev. with Twins) for 2025 after terrible 2024 and everybody have been praising him through season with having impact with improved aproach and results. Mets just cleaned out everybody but Mendoza, allthough he should have gone too. Guy is a fking tool. "I learned a lot from Boone". Are we not doing changes because Crane (and the Bagwells and co)know these players are uncoachable or because they are afraid to rock the boat? All the quotes no need to change anything and trying harder does't help and we are built to win makes me feel we are on road to less wins in 2026 even if more healthy. No 2 headed acemonster first half and no AA lineup overproducing and not winning every tight game first half unless Joe gets to run BP down again trying to save his job. We were asking all along how we were winning and it was not sustainable and probably really lucky run. If there is a co-clown who is tight with Framber I would hope they are out too so there is chance to have pro winning clubhouse again where players are accountable to each others. By that I mean pos like characters like Siri rapping about young girls after money in Rays clubhouse and laughing with Franco when the first accusations came out. If Framber keeps court, clean them out. Also we don't need to pay Dubon for the Yordan BFF role. Great guy but we can use another utility guy with league minimum. This manager and coaches are not demanding anything but players between themselves could make something happen but to light that fire we would have needed wakeup call from somewhere. Dana and Joe talking 2025 was just injuries is opposite of wakeup call .
A farm system that won a AAA championship just a year ago... one or two injuries sink the Mariners and Rangers. Short sample size in the postseason means a fluke team like the Rangers or Nationals can slip into the World Series.
Some Astros fans are entirely too pessimistic about the Astros. They missed the playoffs by 1 game, after having the worst injuries in the league by a long shot. The Astros will close to 100 games with average health. Yordan showed he can still hit - Altuve played a lot with a bad lower body injury, and showed he could still hit before the injury - Correa had an 800 OPS with the Astros while shifting to 3rd and looked like a GG there - Paredes showed he can hit - Jeremy Pena had a very good year bouncing back with the bat - Meyers showed he can hit when healthy. Cam Smith had an 800 OPS before he hit the wall ...... Zach Cole and Brice Matthews flashed some serious upside. Josh Hader had a great year - Hunter Brown took the next step as well. The farm system is better than a season ago ---- even the first basemen bounced back in the second half after a really bad first half. There are genuine concerns about the injuries and replacing Framber and adding another reliever and starter or two .... but overall 2026 looks a lot better than I would have expected even a year ago.
Theres enough legit concern in the pitching. They would have cruised to the playoffs IF Framber/Hunter continued to win every game (which was never sustainable). Even last year, there were people claiming they had “too much” pitching. This is the first off-season/season where they legitimately don’t have an elite starting staff (or percieved to have an elite staff), and they’re going to need to make some headway simply just to have viable starters, let alone be elite. If their pitching is elite, they can withstand any version of a lineup…. The problem was when the pitching regressed, the lineup could not carry this team for any stretch at all last year.
There is never such thing as too much pitching - even with an abundance of pitching Brown has in the past tried to add more. The Astros Have Brown at the top of their rotation and Christian Javier will figure in as a 3-4 starter. Spencer Arrighetti should be back and recently said he doesn't need surgery. Blanco and Wiesnieski should return in the first half of 2026 - but we learned the hard way to not count on that. AJ Blubaugh should get a shot to make the rotation as well. Colton Gordon, JP France and Jason Alexander are AAA type of guys. Ethan Pecko and Miguell Ullola should be in the rotation at some point next season. There is no question that the Astros will be adding someone that can get innings and slot into the #2 spot in the rotation.... they can pursue that person in trade or free agency. Based on what I have heard, they are likely to trade for the #2 starter and look at signing someone else on a good deal in free agency to try and bounce back. I think they will be very aggressive trying to get Sandy Alcantara in a trade and then look at guys like Zach Gallen and others in free agency. They have internally discussed Verlander. Jordan Montgomery is another one I have heard.... there is also Zach Littel, Michael King, Merrill Kelly, Nestor Cortes, German Marquez and others. So while the Astros have to actually do it - once they trade for a #2 starter, they should be in a pretty solid position going forward because they have a guys coming back from injury, they have AAAA depth guys, they have young guys almost ready and guys like Javier that should be better.
I see about 8 paragraphs of Hunter Brown.... and maybe Javier is good enough to be a #3 (even though he's never pitched a full season as an every 4th day starter, and still has the fatigue/command issues he had prior to his surgery). Not going to hold breaths on Arrighetti (also still unproven) and the rest of the unknowns/post-injured/unprovens... especially not holding breath over an entire season any any starting pitcher (including Brown). This is the weakest collection of starting pitching any Astros team has had since Brett Myers was in the rotation.
Outside of HB, the rest of the rotation is completely unknown. -Pray that McCullers can be serviceable -Javier has command issues and is a 3-5 starter at the moment -Wesneski and Blanco are coming off major injuries -Blubaugh should get a shot -Arrighetti struggled even when he was healthy -AAAA guys (Gordon, Alexander) -Other farm system options
Trade for a SP2 Innings eater and sign another in FA and I'll take my chances. Of course I'm higher on Blubaugh and Pecko than most.
Hunter Brown is their #1 starter. Christian Javier was a #3/4 starter before he was hurt for several seasons and after he came back his advanced numbers are promising. They have Wirsnieski, Blanco and Arrighetti coming back. They only really need 1 of the 3 to be good. They have plenty of depth in AAA at the back end of the rotation and Pecko and Ullola both close to being ready to contribute and Blubaugh. They are also going to add 1-2 starters on trade and free agency. There are some real question marks but they also have a number of possible solutions. I don’t know if it was you or someone else wanting a bat - they are going to look into Luis Arráez as a possible second baseman. Not sure it’s the name people want but it’s interesting.
I wanted a player like Arraez last year as he's the guy that can get on base and put the ball in play. Astros need more of that to turn the lineup over.
I don’t think wesneski or blanco will pitch. McCullers won’t make 10 starts before he’s done. Arrighetti probably wont pitch. Walter won’t pitch. I bet Javier does ok.
IIRC Arrighetti has not gone under the knife ... yet. There is chance that he suffered a mild "sprain" or some such and will be ready to pitch start of next season. Wesneski and Blanco and Walter and Garcia all got arm surgeries, so we be fools to pencil them in for the 2026 season, albeit only the second half.
Every time I look at the project 2026 Astros roster, there is no room in the inn. C Yainer Diaz 1B Christian Walker 2B Isaac Paredes SS Jeremy Peña 3B Carlos Correa LF Jose Altuve (Yordan Alvarez) CF Jake Meyers (Zach Cole) RF Jesús Sánchez vs RHP, Cam Smith vs LHP DH Yordan Alvarez (Jose Altuve) C2 César Salazar or Victor Caratini? OF4 Cam Smith OF5 Zach Cole INF Mauricio Dubón or Ramón Urías? On the 40 man roster but in the wings: Brice Matthews, Zach Dezenzo, Pedro León, Chas McCormick, Jacob Melton, Taylor Trammell Running it back, there has to be at least one trade to settle the backup INF slot.
Sanchez will be traded. Cam Smith has to play every day. Cole can platoon a little against right handers if necessary, but Cam Smith can't be turned into a platoon player this early into his career.
The Astros were in desperate need of a LF bat, so at the trade deadline they went and got Jesús Sánchez, who still has two years of control btw. If the Astros trade Sánchez, guess what? The Astros will be in desperate need of a LF bat. Cam Smith has struggled against RHPs, of which the MLB is composed of 70+% RHPs. Maybe Cam can split time in CF (which might be part of his career trajectory) with Myers, who also struggles versus RHPs? Maybe Sánchez does not start in RF against every RHP? Or maybe Cam starts everyday in AAA RF?
