Updated 5 year outlook

I will prolly take another look and post after thanksgiving. I actually think we will find out a lot in the next few weeks. Verlander negotiations could move quickly and what happens there will define Houston’s offseason. We will know how bad Maldy is hurt and whether or not he is retiring. We’ll probably have more info on the manager and GM situations. In the meantime, the changes have mostly been very positive (Pena, Javier, Abreu, Brown, McCormick) since I posted this:

 

I was very confident Houston would get at least 1 extension done so I was waiting to update this thread. I'll post how I see the outlook after the Javier extension, with the hopes that it will quickly need updating due to add'l extensions:

2023:
C: Maldonado, Lee; 1.5 fwar, $5.2M
IF: Abreu, Altuve, Bregman, Pena, Dubon, Hensley; 14.6 fwar, $65.5M
OF: Tucker, Meyers, Brantley, Alvarez, McCormick; 14.5 fwar, $41.6M
SP: Valdez, McCullers, Javier, Urquidy, Garcia, Brown; 12 fwar, $41.8M
RP: Pressly, Stanek, Neris, Maton, Montero, Abreu, others; 3.5 fwar, $42.1M

Projections: 48.2 fWAR, $195.5M
Summary: This currently another 95-105 win team with $20-30M in payroll flexibility, assuming Crane is willing to flirt with going over the competitive balance tax threshold. There is upside in the rotation and at SS; the downside only really lies in potential injuries. This is another true World Series contender.

2024:
Losses: Maldonado, Brantley, Maton, Neris (if he doesn't trigger his option), Stanek
Prospects ready: Yainer Diaz, Joe Perez, Pedro Leon, Justin Dirden, Forrest Whitley, Shawn Dubin, JP France, Misael Tamarez
Arbitration class: Tucker, McCormick, Dubon, Valdez, Garcia, Urquidy, Bryan Abreu
Projections: 51 fwar, $188M
Summary: 95-105 wins with $20-50M in payroll open. Valdez and Tucker will carry significant arb salaries. But the holes are minor; the farm should be able to backfill the bullpen departures, and surely a bat will emerge from the current AAA group to replace Brantley. The real question is starting catcher. But even if they do nothing, they will still field a roster on part with all the great teams since 2017 so long as the farm fills in the bullpen. It is unquestionable that they should still be contending and if things break right, this could be one of the all-time great rosters.

2025:
Losses: Altuve, Bregman, Neris, Pressly (if he doesn't trigger his option)
Prospects ready: Will Wagner, Zach Daniels, Jordan Brewer, JC Correa, Grae Kessinger, Jaime Melendez, Spencer Arrighetti, Jayden Murray, Jairo Solis, other pitchers
Arbitration class: Tucker, Meyers, McCormick, Dubon, Pena, Valdez, Urquidy, Garcia, Abreu
Projections: 45 fwar, $166M (includes Pressly's $15M and Neris' $8.5M)
Summary: Losing Altuve and Bregman drops the projection to 90-100 wins, but those 2 also open up some payroll, although some of that will be eaten by recent extensions and projected arb raises. The emergence of Pena, Brown, and Javier and extending Alvarez means this team is still very likely to contend, although unless they spend significant money or have a prospect break out then this team won't quite be on par with previous years. Aside from 2B and 3B, the roster projects to be stacked, but losing both Altuve and Bregman is bound to be felt.

2026:
Losses: Tucker, Jose Abreu, Valdez, Urquidy, Montero, Pressly
Prospects ready: Cristian Gonzalez, Colin Barber, Drew Gilbert, Jacob Melton, Ryan Clifford, Tyler Whitaker, Colton Gordon, Andrew Taylor, Alex Santos, Miguel Ullola, Alimber Santa, others
Arbitration class: Lee, Pena, McCormick, Dubon, Yainer Diaz, Hensley, Meyers, Hunter Brown, Luis Garcia, Blake Taylor
Projections: 38 fWAR, $109M
Summary: Here's where things get dicey, as it is difficult to confidently project a surefire contending Astros team that does not include Altuve, Bregman, Tucker, or Valdez. Making no moves, the team would project for 85-95 wins with over $100M in available payroll. The rotation would still feature McCullers, Javier, Garica, and Brown, while the stock of arms currently in the upper levels of the farm would indicate the bullpen should be plenty healthy. So whether or not Houston can continue the dynasty would depend on the long-term core of Pena, Alvarez and prospects. They will have money to patch a couple of significant holes, but they will need 1-2 prospect to pan out into above average regulars or better to be as good as they've been since 2017. The good news is that by this point the farm should be on the upswing as they will have (hopefully) had 5 straight years of drafts with a full complement of picks.

2027:
Losses: McCormick, Dubon, McCullers, Garcia, Bryan Abreu
Prospects ready: Kenny Gomez, Dauri Lorenzo, Luis Baez, Sandro Gaston, Jose Fleury, others
Arbitration class: Lee, Pena, Yainer Diaz, Hensley, Meyers, Hunter Brown
Projections: 36 fWAR, $81M
Summary: The losses on the position player side should be easily absorbed by the farm, and I am fairly optimistic in the farm's ability to replace McCullers and Garcia, so how they address the 2026 holes will likely also determine how 2027 looks, and for now they'd project to 80-90 wins. Still, there will be loads of payroll flexibilty, so the 2027 outlook should be very similar to 2025 and 2026; the team will be good, and a rebuild is very unlikely to be necessary, but it remains to be seen if they can get enough via player development, trades, extensions, and free agency to keep these teams on par with 2017-2023.

 

Absolutely. Draft production usually ends up being super concentrated into just a few players, across all teams, but in terms of “average”, a team should expect:

-their 1st round pick to be an average regular (although there’s tons of variance in expectation between the top, middle, and end of the round)

-their 2nd round pick to be a fringe regular or bench player

-and that from round 3-10, a few guys will reach the majors as bench/AAAA/cup-of-coffee guys.

In terms of averages nothing should be expected after the 10th round.

 

The 2020 draft was essentially a lottery where the Astros didn’t have a ticket; there should have been no expectation they’d get anything out of it. But I think it’s premature to write it off. The 2021 draft was built around Whitaker and he was considered a fairly long term project due to needing his swing rebuilt, so it’s too early to judge. But really it doesn’t make sense to me to label a team as having “whiffed” on a draft where they didn’t have 1st round or 2nd round picks.