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Astros’ 2025: Talking me down from the ledge

A few days ago, I was feeling particularly down about his year’s Astros, so I wrote a pretty depressed-sounding post.

After a few days of much more serious things happening in the world, especially in the aviation world, I decided to give myself a talking to about the positives heading into 2025.

  1. Tradition – As Tevye sang about in Fiddler on the Roof – the Astros have tradition on their side. No matter the injuries, no matter the free agents leaving, no matter the roster changes, the Astros have been to the playoffs eight seasons in a row – nine of the last ten seasons – seven ALCS appearances – four WS appearances – two parades.
  2. A great starting pitching base – Framber Valdez, Hunter Brown and Ronel Blanco were all terrific in 2024. Valdez was seventh in the Cy Young Award voting, Blanco was frankly just as good and after a rough start to the season, Brown may have been the best of the three after April. Arrighetti hit his stride after the All-Star break (3.18 ERA) and, at times, was a strikeout machine for the Astros. Newbie Hayden Wesneski frankly put up much better numbers than former ace Justin Verlander did in 2024, and with the Astros’ knack for making almost all pitchers better, it could be a solid piece come 2024.
  3. Somehow, in some way, I believe that someone will come forward between Lance McCullers, Jr., Luis Garcia, Cristian Javier, and J.P. France to help this starting staff in 2024.
  4. The bullpen will be just fine. Josh Hader and Bryan Abreu will anchor the back of the bullpen. Maybe one of Tayler Scott, Kaleb Ort and Bryan King will regress a bit, but perhaps the magic coaching staff will hit gold with one of Forrest Whitley, Nick Hernandez, Shawn Dubin, Ryan Gusto, Colton Gordon, Luis Contreras or even non-Roster (but paid plenty) Rafael Montero.
  5. The Astros did play well without Kyle Tucker in 2024. They were 39-39 with him and 49-34 without him. Why? I have no idea.
  6. Even without Tucker and Alex Bregman (likely), the Astros still have a lot of talent on the offensive side. Yordan Alvarez, Jose Altuve and Yainer Diaz are a great returning core. And now they have added Christian Walker who has been a consistently good hitter, especially the last three seasons and Isaac Paredes who seems built to hit in Daiken Park.
  7. I’m saying right here that the 2023 Chas McCormick will return for 2025. And this is the season that Jeremy Pena takes the next big step in his development. Write it down.
  8. And screw the low rankings of the Astros minor leagues. They have brought up a lot of talent that was not highly considered, who have shown well in the majors. Maybe it will be Zach Dezenzo, Jacob Melton or Pedro Leon helping out a weak looking outfield. Maybe it will be A.J. Blubaugh or Micheal Ullola helping them on the mound. Maybe it will be Shay Whitcomb or Brice Matthews or Cam Smith propping up the infield. Somebody will need to step up this season and somebody will.
  9. The manager Joe Espada has room to grow and I believe he will. He did a good job in 2024 dealing with an injury deflated roster and should do better in 2025 especially if the injury bug goes lighter on his team.
  10. The front office under Dana Brown has done a good job of finding players from the depths of nowhere (Blanco, Scott, Ort, King, heck – even Jon Singleton) to contribute. They will continue to do this and the owner Jim Crane has shown a willingness to open the wallet when needed.

So, I have talked myself down off the ledge. For now.

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17 responses to “Astros’ 2025: Talking me down from the ledge”

  1. Dan, I don’t really have a comment here because I’m not all that concerned. I just hope the Astros don’t get sucked back into a six year Bregman deal. 2025 might be a real battle, but we’ve got a pretty good club. And with so much more (hopefully) financial freedom going into 2026, our club might be a lot of fun to watch.

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  2. I agree with you daveb7 about the Astros being better than what a lot of people think. But there is a good chance Bregman will swallow his pride and accept the six year Astro offer.. If so, the second half of the contract will most likely not be good. I agree also that the Astros would probably be better off to play with what is already on contract and have all that free space next year.

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    • Spot on to both of those comments. It’s not about what you’ve done for us in the past but what you will do for us in the future. Bregman has been in decline for the past few years. Don’t misunderstand me or others as we appreciate what the guy has done for the Astros but he is not what he was. Therefore it’s time to move on.

      Altuve (IMO) is not worth the 125MM that he got for his next 5 years but there’s a lot to that and I’m sure his past performance, HOF potential , etc plays into that contract. I do like the idea that it has declining balance owed despite the AAV. Bregman should have thought about that before dreaming of 200MM contracts.

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      • Frankly, I’m insulted by the message going around that Bregman was insulted the Astros were asking him to take a pay cut. Obviously it’s a matter of semantics, but I thought his original extension was too much money. I really hope the Astros offer is not, in fact, still on the table and they are too polite to correct the people reporting that. Let him go to Detroit instead of preventing Houston from bringing in other players who can help the team.

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  3. I wonder if Bregman would be “insulted” if the Astros offer had been for what he made in 2024 or slightly more, but then dropped off towards the later years – like his buddy Altuve agreed to…..

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  4. Maybe this will help a bit. Fangraphs’ Szymborski, using his ZiPS projections, has this to say of the 2025 ‘Stros:

    The Astros’ projection won’t match that of the best National League teams, but right now they project as the American League’s best, about one to two wins better than the Orioles and Yankees on the strength of their spare starting pitching, which ZiPS sees as deeper than what the other two teams boast. It doesn’t make them overwhelming favorites in the AL West, but with the Mariners and Rangers failing to take big leads forward, ZiPS still sees the Astros as a tier above their divisional rivals.

    The only caveat is that this was written before the Pressly trade, but even so the Astros are basically as good as anyone in the AL. They just don’t meet the elite standard we’ve grown accustomed to over the last decade or so.

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  5. There are interesting questions to pose.

    Framber Valdez is a 31 year old pending free agent. Does he take the next step from perennial 5thish place finisher to CYs and win one, jumping into a new pay band? I’ve written extensively in the past about Framber’s ability to win games – the cliff notes version – since 2020 the Astros have a .625 winning percentage in games that he throws the first pitch. The Astros turn into a 100 win team anytime he takes the mound. He is that good. Finding guys that have a +.600 percentage in an extended period is difficult. Blake Snell, for example, in that same period, his teams are 52-51, and he hasn’t exactly been pitching for the Florida Marlins. The guy has been a big part of the success. I don’t know what that means for beyond 2025, but he has been more valuable to our success than any other single player. He has also been a part of, and played a big part in, losing playoff series. That might be what he is remembered for.

    But when your headliner is a .625 pitcher, you are starting on the right foot. Hunter Brown appears to have taken a step. The team was still only 14-16 in his 30 starts, but a lot of that damage was done early when he couldn’t hit a barn standing 30 feet away. One day, that control just turned on and he was hitting spots like he was a 26 year old JV. In April he had a 60.2% strike rate, in August he was up to 65.1%. More interestingly, in 477 April pitches, he gave up 21 line drives, while in more pitches in August (498) he gave up 15. Not only was he throwing more strikes, he was throwing better strikes. He just simply became a pitcher instead of a thrower.

    Arrighetti and Blanco give you guys that make very solid rotation pieces, especially if Spencer can avoid the big inning that has plagued him some last year and Ronel can avoid the 28 pitch inning. Wesneski looks like a 5th starter. That’s fine, that’s what they are asking for, hold the fort down until Garcia or McCullers are ready. Given those two, that might mean waiting on France or Javier, which means he could get 25 starts. Do you want Hayden Wesneski making 25 starts? That’s why Gordon, Blubaugh, and Gusto become important, much less if there is an injury.

    The concern is how many of those top 4 had career innings last year, which was 3 of them. It wasn’t for Framber but Framber is among the league leaders in innings the last 4 years and has a lot of playoff innings in that too. Framber had 2598 pitches last year, Hunter had 2889, Ronel had 2751 after never crossing 2000 as a professional, even Arrighetti had 2505, a career professional high. Protecting these guys has to be a forefront thought when you are dealing with the Astros and recent pitching injury history.

    So, yes I am with you. You can certainly be half empty about this team. It’s not the 2019 or the 2022 squad. It is one or two pitching injuries from tragedy. But I am the glass half full guy about this team. Paredes and Walker extend this lineup. The rotation is arguably in the top 3 rotations in the AL. The bullpen isn’t spectacular but they look steady. They should win this division.

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  7. When Trammell was traded, I thought his LH bat would get him some outfield time. I still see that as one scenario.

    I believe the Astros would still like to have Bregman back and make a couple of trades to fit him in under the luxury tax line. Just my opinion.

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  8. Taylor Trammell is like buying someone’s lotto scratch off where all the spots are scratched but one. There could be a million bucks behind it but the chances are pretty remote. Dudes got talent. But a couple of teams have tried that scratch off to the tune of a negative war. Who knows though maybe it’s the one last slot holding the money. What’s great is the worst cost is a roster spot, not much to pay just to peek under the hood.

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  10. Number 5. how did they overcome Kyle Tucker’s sprained ankle, shin contusion, sore tooth, or whatever??? Bizarre. Probably the pitching staff recovering from the dismal performance the first two months is primary reason for improved W-L record. That and maybe because it was a tough schedule early on combined with it being one of those statistical outliers that happen in baseball

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