Current position player active roster, if 2025 started today. C) Caratini, Diaz Inf) Altuve, Dezenzo, Dubon, Pena, Singleton, Whitcomb OF) Alvarez, Cabbage*, McCormick, Meyers, Tucker. C, 2b, SS, RF, DH are set. 1b) a Dezenzo/Singleton platoon should be OK. However, there is definitely an opportunity for improvement and Dezenzo may be playing 3b. If Whitcomb can manage to field the position he may be a good replacement for Dezenzo, but he is probably best suited for LF. 3b) I expect this position to be filled by Bregman or another player brought in by Brown, but for this exercise I see Dezenzo given a chance to win the job in Spring Training with Dubon being the fallback if he does not impress. This is definitely an area where the team is worse off if no one is brought in. LF) I expect Yordan's late season knee injury is going to open some eyes and he will be playing less and less LF until by 2026 or 2027 he is strictly a DH. That brings its own challenges as Altuve is clearly regressing at 2b and is also likely more valuable at DH and there is only 1 spot. Ideally, Whitcomb takes this spot and becomes a slightly better than average player for the next 6 years. For now Chas is the guy, but this position could clearly be upgraded. CF) Meyers is perfectly good vs LHP. The problem is that he is bad vs RHP which is 70% of who he faces. Complicating this is that the other 2 options, Chas and Dubon, also hit LHP much better than RHP and we're well below average vs both in 2024. This position will continue to be a problem until a CF who can hit RHP is brought in/up. *I chose Cabbage over Leon as the roster sits now because he hits left handed.
I'm not here for some kind of contest. You think I'm bad - good for you. You think everyone "owns me" - good for you. I'm going to continue giving my ideas and opinions and explaining them when I get feedback. And I'm not going to lose a minute of sleep. You fan your way and I'll fan mine.
FTR You have been here less than 1 1/2 years, have posted a total of 145 times , and have fewer likes than you do posts. I have made nearly 7000 posts and have over 8200 likes. Clearly I can ignore your opinion.
This team has the foundation needed to compete. The 4 best hitters, 4 best starters, and 3 best relievers are as good as any team in the AL. That alone should prevent any team from rebuilding. The problem is that the falloff from that foundation is quite steep. Results in the playoffs are heavily determined by luck. But the deeper your roster, the more you can help impact that in your favor. So, I agree a reload is needed to maximize the chances of more rings.
This years Astros team was the most poorly balanced Astros team in years. Pitching was miles ahead of hitting. You do not go deep in the play offs without balance. At the break Brown went after pitching and gave up hitting to do it. Ignoring balance is always a mistake.
While I agree with your analysis of the team, I disagree about trading for pitching. Hitting was definitely needed and picking up Gamel and Heyward off scrap heap certainly helped but that was a small impact and after the fact. Brown failed this team by not getting an impact bat at the deadline. However, if he had not added a dependable middle of the rotation arm, this team does not make the playoffs and even get a roll of the dice.
What was needed was an inning eater. Brown got caught in a rookie mistake by swinging for the fences. Adding a pitcher had a much lower impact on the play offs and on the future than giving up hitters. That pricey pitcher is a free agent now and the team is starving for position players. Our rotation in 25 will be fine without him but I will not be surprised if Brown compounds his error by over paying to re-sign him.
2025 rotation without any additional pitchers. #1 R Blanco controlled thru 29 #2 H Brown controlled thru 28 #3 F Valdez* controlled thru 25 #4 L Garcia controlled thru 26 #5 S Arrighetti controlled thru 29 Additional 40 man roster starting pitchers available to fill in as needed. R Gusto M Ullola C Gordan L McCullers Likely additions later in the season JP France C Javier Next generation up AJ Blubaugh J Mancini E Pecko N Swanson Again it might be reasonable to add a low cost innings eater in the off season. Any more than that would be a waste of assets.
No impact bats got traded at the deadline. I keep seeing people say he should have traded for an impactful bat, but there wasn't really one to be had. We had to pay a steep prospect price just to get Kikuchi, who was a mediocre(at the time) rental starter. Who was this big bat that Brown missed out on? Arozarena posted a whopping .733 OPS with Seattle, which was worse than Ben Gamel. Loperfido sucked, and Wagner was crashing back down to earth before getting hurt, so lets not act like we trade impactful bats either.
Was trading for Randy Johnson the same mistake? I would say, the 3 prospects Brown traded are significantly less than the Astros gave up for him. Bloss, Loperfido, and Wagner are all JAGS. It would be nice to have them but none of them would have made a difference this year. And I would bet none of them ever make an all star team or have a 3 WAR season.
Just because a hitter did not perform after a trade does not mean the results would be the same on a different team. Any of Arozerana, Paredes, Winker, Lane Thomas and I'm sure I'm missing some - could easily continued their pretrade numbers or even improved. Situations, organization, and even playing fields and opponents are not all the same. You can't guarantee results would have been.
No of those guys have extended track record of being anything special. Arozarena was actually better in Seattle than in Tampa. And yes, you can't guarantee results. Over a small sample all of those guys were more than capable of being very meh(or bad) and not helping whatsoever, as I said Gamel/Hayward outperformed them. None of those guys would have been a solid expected lock to really move the meter for this offense. The Astros got bounced because the good hitters weren't good, and pretty much all teams usually fail when that happens.
Meyers needs to be gone and it wouldn't hurt my feelings if Chas followed him out the door. Also I like Singleton as a bench bat, not as a platoon guy. This team needs new blood. Particularly 3 above avg hitters if they want to contend for another championship. They tried to go with the guys they developed last year. It didn't work, so time to add guys through trades, fa. Hopefully Dana learned his lesson about the lineup being lengthened.
Not counting injured guys, your 6 man rotation next season is 4 deep - Blanco, Brown, Valdez, and Arrighetti. LOL at including McCullers in the "available" category. The rest of your "available" list are older AAA guys who weren't particularly impressive at that level, and Ullola, who wasn't even good at AA. The Astros probably don't win the division without Kikuchi. He was that good down the stretch. Pitching and pitching depth is not a waste of assets. Any team could throw up a list of OK minor league starters and make the same claim.
The Astros will begin the season with a 5 man rotation as usual. McCullers, along with the others listed are available as fill ins. The play off rotation (if needed) will more likely include JP France, C Javier or a mid season acquisition than any of those fill ins.
I think Houston’s AAA and AA depth is much better than it was going in to last season: Blubaugh: 2.79 era in 4 AAA starts in Sep Gordon: 1.52 era in 4 AAA starts in Sep Gusto: 1.85 era in 4 AAA starts in Sep Kouba: 2.57 era in 3 AAA starts in Sep Ullola: 2.81 era in 4 starts across AA/AAA in Sep Those are dominant numbers and all of those guys will be back in AAA to start next season; most teams are not bringing back that deep of a AAA rotation. JP France will also be in that mix as will Aaron Brown. The Astros have 3 major questions wrt to their big league rotation in Garcia, McCullers, and Javier. Fans arent privy to the latest information on where those guys are in their recovery. If Garcia and McCullers are on track to be fully healthy by opening day, and if Javier is on track to be back in July, then Houston’s big league rotation truly is 6 deep of guys who have #3 upside at worst plus a 7th guy of that caliber cut back at midseason, and unlike 2024 their AAA roster will be much better prepared to provide insurance against injuries. But also, it’d be foolish for Houston to overreact to this season’s bad injury luck. If you go into every season expecting 5+ SP to suffer significant injury, you’ll spend all your resources preparing for that and ignore places that you’re actually far more likely to need help (I.e., the lineup).
I appreciate your thoughts even when we have different visions of what the Stros should do. Your thoughts are reasonable and well thought out.
