The one thing that might derail an eighth straight ALCS appearance for the Astros

Ok, truth in advertising, this one thing is really one area of the team, not just one player. And that one area is the starting pitching.

It is hard to see the Astros’ offense falling apart. By most statistics, their 2023 offense was in the top three in the AL, even with Yordan Alvarez and Jose Altuve missing so much time and with their manager hamstringing the usage of Chas McCormick early and Yainer Diaz late.

The bullpen could face some problems, but with a three-pronged anchor of Bryan Abreu, Ryan Pressly, and Josh Hader, they should be able to overcome most stumbles.

But the news from the first day of pitchers and catchers reporting that both Justin Verlander and J.P. France had been and/or were dealing with shoulder irritation made many an Astro fan feel a bit queasy.

Fans are a bit wary after the recent starting pitching injury problems with Lance McCullers Jr., especially last spring, where he was going to be back by the start of the season, by the second week, by the second month, etc. Considering, the 41-year-old Verlander missed almost all but six innings of the 2020 and 2021 seasons and last year did not begin his season until May for the Mets, there are already concerns for his health. France, coming off the most innings in his career (the same with Hunter Brown) is also a concern.

With neither McCullers nor Luis Garcia available until well into the season (at best), the Astros need their top six rotation fillers (Verlander, Framber Valdez, France, Brown, Cristian Javier and Jose Urquidy) to start the season healthy, wealthy and wise.

The starting pitching for the Astros already was entering 2024 with question marks. Last year’s rotation had fallen off from an AL leading 2.95 ERA in 2022 to a middle of the road eighth best 4.17 ERA in 2023. There were many potential and real “excuses” for the drop-off.

  • Justin Verlander and his Cy Young 2022 season (18-4, 1.75 ERA) spent the first four months of 2023 with the Mets and when he returned to the Astros, he was the best of a faltering rotation (7-3, 3.31 ERA), but not as good as in 2022.
  • Lance McCullers, who returned from injury and pitched well down the stretch in 2022 (4-2, 2.27 ERA) then did not throw a pitch in 2023 for the Astros after going down in Spring Training.
  • Luis Garcia was good in 2022 (15-8, 3.72 ERA), pitched so-so in 6 games (2-2, 400 ERA) and then went down for the rest of the season.
  • Jose Urquidy was solid in 2022 (13-8, 3.94 ERA), started 2023 pitching pretty wobbly for one month and then went down with an injury for three months and came back in August. He was pretty inconsistent down the stretch and ended up with a poor season overall (3-3, 5.29 ERA).
  • Framber Valdez was 5th in the Cy Young race in 2022 (17-6, 2.82 ERA) and pitched the first half of 2023 like he wanted to win the award. He melted down a bit in the second half of 2023 and ended up good, but not great (12-11, 3.45 ERA).
  • Cristian Javier was very good to transcendent in 2022 (11-9, 2.54 ERA) and being part of two no-hitters. He was almost twice as bad in 2023 (10-5, 4.56 ERA) though had much more hitting support than in 2022.
  • Hunter Brown, in a small sample, looked excellent in 2022 (2-0, 0.89 ERA). In 2023, he was pretty solid the first half of the season and then fell off hard, finishing with below-average results (11-13, 5.09 ERA).
  • J.P. France, who debuted in 2023, was a very good addition to the rotation (11-6, 3.83 ERA), so he was not an excuse for their fall-off.
  • The Astros sent quite a contingent of players to the WBC before the 2023 season, including Valdez, Javier, Garcia and Urquidy. How much that early ramp-up and extra work did to them, we do not know.
  • The league added the pitch clock, and this seemed to most affect Framber Valdez, who famously used extra time to calm himself down when he was in jams in previous seasons.
  • The league added the rule that took away Luis Garcia’s cha-cha rock ‘n roll windup. And after six games his elbow was in Tommy John hell.
  • It is also possible that the rule changes and ball changes may have affected Framber and Cristian, who were neither as effective in 2023 as previously.

Can they overcome these problems and return to the top end rotation they were in 2022? We can only hope.

In the end, keep an eye on whether the starting pitchers bounce back, get injured, or fall off when you are checking the pulse and results of this team in 2024.

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13 responses to “The one thing that might derail an eighth straight ALCS appearance for the Astros”

  1. I’m moving over the last comment from Oldpro – because this post popped up right after he posted that – and this might be of some interest.

    1oldpro says:
    February 17, 2024 at 1:13 pm
    The Astros traded money for a prospect a few days ago. Oliver Carillo is a 22 year old who has only played in the Dominican Summer League for San Diego. His numbers there have been very good, but, why was he available.
    Anyway, here is the scoop:
    https://www.mlb.com/astros/roster/transactions

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  2. OP I saw this additional info on Carillo which I think was re-posted from 790 AM

    The Houston Astros have acquired minor league outfielder Oliver Carrillo from the San Diego Padres in exchange for international bonus pool money. The announcement was made by Astros General Manager Dana Brown. Carrillo will report to Astros minor league camp.

    Carrillo, 22, has played the last two seasons on the Padres Dominican League teams, appearing in 91 games, while hitting .315 (85×270) with 20 homers, 75 RBI, a .505 OBP and a 1.116 OPS. He had a huge season in 2023, hitting .303 (44×145) with 11 homers and a .542 OBP in 53 games in the DSL. Carrillo, a native of Mazatlán, Mexico, was originally signed by the Padres as an international free agent on Dec. 14, 2021.

    *****************************************************************************************

    I’m guessing a couple things here – first 22 is pretty old for DSL and second Padres need some extra international bonus money for a specific reason (though I would think we would too).

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  3. It’s amazing we used only seven starters in 2021 and one of those starts came from Tyler Ivey, in his only appearance as a major leaguer.

    We used 11 in 2017, led by 153.1 innings from our old friend Mike Fiers, who never pitched again for the Astros, as he was left off the post season rosters in 2017.

    And 14 different starters helped us win 107 games in 2019.

    So it’s probably premature to get too worried yet. Bielak, Blanco and Dubin have given us starts, certainly with mixed success. But at least they have the experience. And Martinez could get stretched out this spring. Then there is Arrighetti.

    I suppose both Verlander and France could miss Opening Day. I’m probably more concerned about France. And yeah, I’m quietly hoping guys like Urquidy and Brown are 100% ready to throw and pitch better than they did in 2023. I guess that goes for Framber and Reptil too.

    On the bright side of things, if we get all of our starters healthy after the All Star break, we could end up with a heck of a pen too.

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  4. No need to worry about Garcia and McCullers because they are out until they aren’t.
    In answer to your question about France and JV, I say you just do what you can to get them ready to pitch when they can. The Astros have four pitchers in their Top 30 prospects who are 24-25 years old and are listed as AAA starting pitchers. They are Arrighetti, Gordon, Kouba and Tamarez.
    These 4 pitchers are all non-roster invitees and they are all going to have used up their allotted free MILB terms at the end of 2024. They will be eligible for the rule 5 draft, which has had little bearing for the Astros in the past, but might have some at the end of this year.
    I recommend the Astros treat these four players as if they were major league guys in their buildup during camp to insure the team that we have guys ready to go in case of injury.
    You just get them ready in case they are needed to become what they have been training for most of their baseball lives.
    Hopefully, they get to be in the Sugarland starting rotation come April and the Astros have their own guys ready by opening day.

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  6. Old Pro – I like the idea that if someone(s) miss the beginning of the season – that this is a shot to develop some newbies at the MLB level.
    Obviously, the only way they would factor in the eventual (potential) return of Garcia and LMJ is by not picking up any veteran starting pitching help – ala Odorizzi a few seasons ago.

    They could do this with the thought of trading them away at the deadline, but….chances are by the deadline they will not know whether Garcia and/or LMJ are back for good.

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  7. I didn’t remember to post on Breggy in enough time, so please bear with me. Anyone seen him up close in real life? I ask, as, meandering through stats and the like, it says on both baseball-reference and Wikipedia that he stand s 6’ 0” tall …. which to me looks faintly silly. He seems when I see them on the field to be only a couple or three inches taller than Jose. Who might or might not be actually 5’ 6” ….

    Just asking, you know. Just asking ….

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  8. And speaking of draft picks …. was not our fan favourite Phat Albert picked in the 13th round or something? So we had 12 or 13 chances to draft him? Clearly a worse mistake than most of those early draft misses.

    And even Mike Trout wasn’t a first or second pick ….

    To me it looks like the MLB draft is a very risky and poor return business. If only there was a way to get better at it.

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  9. Good morning!

    I love Spring in baseball, even as it’s still cold and dark back in the real world. There is so much optimism in Florida and Arizona!

    Jeremy Pena has got a brand new swing.

    Spencer Arrighetti has a fifth pitch.

    Jose Abreu is an entirely new man after finding pilates over the winter.

    Framber Valdez lost his dreadlocks. That’s a saved second on the clock.

    Alex Bregman is going to lead us to another World Series win and earn a 300 million dollar contract somewhere!

    Alas, Kyle Tucker sounds as if he’s all business, both on and off the field. We already know we can count on him for another excellent year as an Astro.. We can also count on him taking big money to the bank at some point.

    And we do have a baseball game to play on Saturday!

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