Falcon Points
After the off-season from hell, what do the Astros look like on the field in 2020?
Jan 29, 2020, 6:55 am
Photo by Rich Schultz/Getty Images
The Astros apparently have a new manager in Dusty Baker. They soon will have a new GM. They have the same basic lineup as last year.
So with all the off-field turmoil, suspensions that became firings and high profile scandals, how will things play out on the field where it matters most?
One outlet had the Astros as the SEVENTH best team in baseball heading into the season. We will spare you the need to click on the story, and just tell you they had the Yankees, Dodgers, Braves, Rays, Nationals and Twins ahead of Houston.
Still a potent lineup
Unless you believe the only reason the Astros hitters were any good was the cheating scandal (and hey, there are those who think that), this is still one of the best lineups in all of baseball. While decisions will have to be made after the season on several key pieces (George Springer, Carlos Correa, Yuli Gurriel and Michael Brantley most notably) for 2020 they are still loaded with Springer, Altuve, Bregman, Carlos Correa, Yordan Alvarez, Gurriel, Brantley, Josh Reddick and Kyle Tucker all returning. No team outside of LA or New York can boast that kind of lineup. Jake Marisnick is gone, but presumably that opens up innings for Myles Straw, an exciting prospect with terrific speed, something the Astros do not have at that level in the lineup.
The bigger issue
The article's main issue is with the Astros starting pitching. Behind ace Justin Verlander and Zach Greinke are a lot of question marks. But few teams can match the Astros 1-2 punch. The names behind them though hardly inspire confidence. Lance McCullers will be on a pitch count coming off Tommy John surgery. Jose Urquidy has too small of a sample size. Forrest Whitley remains a myth. Austin Pruitt could be a sneaky good addition, however, and the Astros can always add someone at the trade deadline. More on that in a moment.
What about the bullpen?
The Astros lost Will Harris, but bring back Ryan Pressley, who was dominant until getting hurt, the controversial Roberto Osuna and Joe Smith on the back end. Josh James might be a contender to start, along with Brad Peacock. If not, they will help in relief. Harris was great for them last year, but the Astros in the past have done a terrific job of finding pitchers like that. Which brings us to the final question...
Loss of Luhnow
While the loss of A.J. Hinch can be mitigated - managers are not all that difficult to replace - life after GM Jeff Luhnow is a major question mark. Luhnow could be trusted to add players at the deadline (Verlander in 2017, Greinke in 2019), find some hidden gems (Charlie Morton) and add players that fit the Astros analytics approach. Will they still be that kind of team? Will Baker buy in if they are? Pitching coach Brent Strom remains, and should continue to work his magic. But will Luhknow's replacement be able to find the right kind of arms for him? Will the new analytics team be as effective?
These are all valid questions.
However...
Putting them seventh seems more like wishful thinking from a bitter media. The 2021 Astros will have serious questions and in fact might plummet out of contention entirely, depending on what moves happen in the next 12 months. But for 2020? Sure, Verlander and Greinke could both fall off the map, the other starters fail to stabilize and the team simply does not get it done. But that is a lot to go wrong. More likely, the lineup continues to pound the ball, Verlander and Greinke carry them and someone else emerges as decent 2-3 rotation pieces. That being the case, the only team that enters the season in the AL better on paper is the Yankees, who were almost as good as the Astros last season and poached one of their best weapons, and figure to be healthier in 2020.
Distractions?
Yes it has been wild off-season. But other than Luhnow, does it have any real impact on what happens on the field? Probably not. There could be some regressions - Alvarez most notably - but the offense has more than enough weapons. Straw could wind up being a sneaky good weapon. Tucker could finally emerge. If that happens, the so-called distractions will have minimal if any impact on the product on the field.
So yes, seventh seems a but silly, but fortunately, baseball scribes with their biases don't determine what happens on the field. The players do.
And the Astros still have plenty of those.
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After a well-timed All-Star break for them, the Astros get back to work with what is merely their biggest series of the season to date, three games at the Seattle Mariners. The Astros staggered into the break with a 1-5 homestand, while the Mariners pasted the best team in the American League (Detroit Tigers) scoring 35 runs in a three-game sweep. Net result, the Astros AL West lead stands at five games entering play Friday night. That is down from the season best seven-game cushion they enjoyed going into last weekend, but still a fine spot in which to be. Last season the Astros came out of the break one game out of first place, also resuming play in Seattle. They beat the Mariners in the first two games to leapfrog into the division lead. The Astros didn’t stay in first the rest of the way, last waking up in second place on August 7 one game into an eight-game August winning streak that gave them control of the race which they would not relinquish. The Mariners shoot for role reversal this year. Their starting pitching has rounded into near-full health and makes them a potential danger. The Astros’ starting rotation presently is Framber Valdez, Hunter Brown, and a bunch of question marks. Even Brown showed some vulnerability by getting hit hard in his last two starts, a minor taint to his brilliant pre-All Star Game season.
It’s not a must for the Mariners that they take at least two out of these three at T-Mobile Park, but it would be a huge body blow to them if the Astros take the series, especially given the Astros are still without Yordan Alvarez, Jeremy Pena, and Jake Meyers. The trade deadline is two weeks away. Astros general manager Dana Brown is on the hunt for a left-handed hitter. They certainly can’t believe their best option is to promote Jon Singleton from the minors, though taking some playing time away from Christian Walker at first base is warranted if he doesn’t step it up. Still, it’s an outfield or second base bat that is a more pressing need. Counting on production from Jacob Melton once healthy would also be a dubious plan, but it would be the cheapest way to go. The Astros are presently just a couple of million dollars below the first Collective Bargaining Agreement tax threshold, which Jim Crane definitely prefers to stay under since the Astros would pay a repeater-tax penalty tax rate of 30 percent. Adding five million in salary would incur about a million and a half in tax. That is chump change, though going over the first tax threshold again this year would mean doing so again next season would result in a 50 percent tax rate. Still, unless going well over the threshold, that is pennies and nickels for a franchise Jim Crane and his partners bought for 610 million dollars and could now likely sell for between two and a half and three billion. However, willingness to pay tax doesn’t mean the Astros can just snap their fingers and make any preferred acquisitions.
What the Mariners try to accomplish before the deadline is a big question. Their payroll sits about 60 million dollars below the Astros’. In the offseason the Mariners “big” additions were laughable. Rowdy Tellez was big only as in overweight. He was last good in 2022, was lousy for the Mariners, and was released late last month. Seattle enthused exactly none of its fans by adding 37-year-old Donovan Solano. He has an OPS worse than Christian Walker’s. The Mariners have one of the best farm systems among the 30 big league franchises, the Astros have one of the worst. Any player the Astros seek, the Mariners could make a better offer. That is true of most teams relative to the Astros, but it’s the Mariners the Astros have tormented in recent years. Seattle has finished second to Houston in the AL West in three of the last four seasons, and the one season in which the Mariners made the playoffs as a Wild Card, the Astros began their run to 2022 World Series glory by sweeping the M’s in three games. Mariners’ fans should be steaming if the franchise doesn’t take a good-sized swing at an upgrade or two to at minimum strengthen their pursuit of a Wild Card.
The Astros won four of the first seven meeting with the Mariners this year, so splitting the remaining six would give the Astros the tiebreaker should it come into play at season’s end. After this weekend, the remaining series between the two arises at Daikin Park, September 19-21.
Through a different lens
Nobody knows when the Astros get back Alvarez, and at what level of performance. Yordan’s career-high for home runs in a season is the 37 he smashed in 2022. That is one way of placing in perspective the ridiculous season Mariners’ catcher Cal Raleigh has going. Raleigh has 38 homers as play resumes. That’s on pace for 64 which would break Aaron Judge’s American League record of 62. The single season mark by a player who caught the majority of his games played is the 48 posted by Salvador Perez in 2021.
For Astro-centric conversation, join Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and me for the Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast which drops each Monday afternoon, with an additional episode now on Thursday. Click here to catch!
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