Rightly or wrongly, there were always two good arguments about why the Astros could survive after letting Justin Verlander go to the highest bidder.
1) The Astros had a lot of starting pitching depth with Framber Valdez, Cristian Javier, Lance McCullers Jr., Luis Garcia, Jose Urquidy, and Hunter Brown.
2) The Astros’ offense would pick up some of the slack with the addition of Jose Abreu’s big bat and the return of Michael Brantley, who only played 64 games in 2022. Hey, and Jeremy Pena, who excelled in the playoffs, would bring more juice in his second season in the majors.
So, how is that working for the Astros?
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