Astros’ off-season: A few questions….

This is a reflective time for those of us who follow the Astros as an advocation. And in reflecting about it and about the newly completed World Series between the Los Angeles (spit!) Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays, a few questions came to mind.

Do you wish the Astros had a 2025 post-season like the Blue Jays just completed?

This seems like an insane question, but really would you have been ok with going through their success followed by a heart wrenching conclusion? In many ways, Astro fans already went through post season like this.  The 2019 World Series Astros’ loss to the Nationals held a lot of similarities to what the Blue Jays just experienced.

Both teams had a 3-2 lead in the series with two home games left to clinch the title. Both fan bases showed up in masse to root their teams on to the trophy. And both teams were crushed in Game 7’s where they blew a late lead and ended up losing in the end. Of course, the Blue Jays in leaving so many runners in scoring position seemed to be channeling the 2025 Astros, not the 2019 variety.

But my question still stands, would you want to go through another heart breaker like 2019 or not?

How close or far away are the Astros from being a team like Toronto or Los Angeles?

Is it as simple as having better injury luck this coming season? The Astros certainly don’t have anything close to the offensive fire power those teams possess, but what about with a healthy Yordan Alvarez, Isaac Paredes and Carlos Correa? The Astros had a better ERA than either of those teams and yes, they have to figure out how to replace Framber Valdez, which for his first half would be difficult, but for his performance down the stretch exceedingly easy. 

Can they find some health elixir for 2026 and maybe pick up some reasonably priced help?

And my biggest question of the day – what do you want this blog to address this off-season? What types of subjects?

This has been a difficult time for your head writer and maybe with a little push in the guise of subjects to address, Dan P will be rolling along again.

So, please help me with this. Give me two or three potential subjects each and I swear I will get rolling on them.

Anyways, thanks for any help you can provide.

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18 responses to “Astros’ off-season: A few questions….”

  1. The Astros free swinging and lack of making the opposing pitcher work could be better at least a little with the right hitting help from coaches. Who will these hitting coaches be?

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  2. WalkerJanek is projected to be MLB ready by 2027. He is doing really well in the Arizona Fall League and is one of the best, if not the best defensive catcher in the minors. He has a strong arm and can throw out baserunners with a decent percentage. Do you think he has a shot at being in Houston sometime next season. Also, what are the chances the Astros bring back Maldonado as a coach for our catchers?

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    • And maybe Michael Brantley as a hitting coach. Good players don’t always make a good coach/manager but it might be worth a try in this case.

      As for the Blue Jays they looked more like the Astros in their last two games. Base running errors, mental mistakes, poor decisions, bad results with RISP, and terrible luck.

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  3. Toronto fans have to be dying right now:

    • Game 6 – down 2 runs in the 9th – runners on 2nd and 3rd with nobody out. And like the Astros so often – nobody scored
    • Game 7 – Up a run in the top of the 9th – two outs away from the championship and they let slap hitter Miguel Rojas hit a homer to tie it
    • Game 7 bottom of the 9th – bases loaded and 1 out and apparently pinch runner Isiah Kiner-Falefa does not take much of a lead off third – hitter hits a grounder to second – the 2B stumbles but still throws out the runner at home by inches
    • Then the next hitter kills one to the left center wall and the CF catches it crashing into the LF
    • Then down 1 run in the bottom of the 11th and runners on first and third – they hit into a double play.
    • Plus there were many other failures with runners on – and let’s face it – they had the loss in the 18 inning game where they could not score against a mediocre Dodger bullpen.

    It must be killing them

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  4. Sure, I would have taken a 2025 heartbreaker, and an extra inning game seven loss on Saturday night, although physically, it might have been damaging to my health. That would have meant a bunch of Astros stepped up throughout the month. But alas, we did not have enough of those guys to make a Jay’s type run. So moot point.

    I lament, having reached 70 this year, that I’ve seen the best of the Astros in my lifetime. But I sure do appreciate the remarkable run that I was here to witness. I don’t see us putting together another decade, or even half a decade of excellence anytime soon. The Dodgers are far too deep in funding, in the minors, and pretty much have a monopoly on Japan at this point. They will be in the hunt annually. The Jays might be much like the Rangers have been since winning in 2023. They might not be back anytime soon.

    Question requests for the blog?

    That’s tough. Let’s go back to The Ghost’s (was it Justin?) concept of trading Yordan and discuss that one further.

    How much rope do Dana and Joe get this year? Could they both be moved during the season if things start in a grim way?

    Do we ever get into a situation where full rebuild ( or almost a full rebuild) is necessary?

    Dan, I already think we’ll have plenty to talk about once things percolate a bit in the coming weeks. I think we’ll see some winter surprises.

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  5. My father-in-law asked the other night if I’d ever heard of a split-fingered fastball before. I proceeded to ask if he’d ever heard of Roger Craig and told him of how Mike Scott turned his career around and became of Cy Young winner. The FOX announcers were amazingly bad this year. Given the success of Yesavage and Yamamoto I suspect we’ll see a number of guys come to spring training next year trying out a new pitch. Per baseball savant, Yamamoto threw 23 splitters in the strike zone during the World Series and 42 out of the zone. However, this doesn’t factor in how many chases he got out of the zone. Hitters just weren’t going to do anything productive against those pitches. Across the regular season and early part of the playoffs his pitch selection was pretty varied.

    I’m glad we didn’t lose in such a fashion as the Jays did this year. I don’t think we’re a player or two away from the WS for largely what I just wrote above. The Astros never showed the patience to defeat a pitcher like that this year. We can change out the roster, but it’s not likely going to be through established bats. At this point I think I’d be fine with a few guys who don’t have great OPS but manage to make pitchers work. I tired pitcher may leave a slider over the heart of the plate and let Altuve make contact.

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    • Yeah Devon the splitter used to be the “IT” pitch, but you don’t hear about it as much. And in the copycat league it will get more attention soon like you say. Of course people say that Mike Scott threw more of a scuffer than a splitter with Roger Craig (who taught him when he was not affiliated with another team) always having him inspected for sandpaper.

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  6. Hey, I noticed Bregman officially opted out of his contract. Perhaps Crane should go after him. That would give the Astros depth at 3B. As Correa and Bregman age, that would give Paredes lots of prep time to recover from his injury and adjust to the daily grind of MLB.

    Morever, if all of them fail, there is still Cam Smith.

    Then, they can turn their focus to 2B and build more depth at 1B behind Walker. Don’t worry about the cap/luxury tax. It’s just money! Crane’s money!

    ———————————————–

    Levity, Dan, that’s what I’m going for here. Maybe a suggested full blog entry of levity and outrageousness for the Hot Stove offseason.

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    • Thanks Chip – I do like levity and I surely could use more of it with the way the season came to an abrupt and unsatisfying end.

      Maybe we could start a whole infield of 3B’s Bregman at 3B, Correa at SS, Cam at 2B and Paredes at 1B after we ship Pena and Walker away – maybe if we add Pena to the Walker trade we could actually get someone to swallow Walker’s salary.

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      • My friend Emily says she loves Leviity. Did you know that in Israel, the Jewish priests could only come from the tribe of Levi? If you were from some other tribe, sorry. You had to be born into it. You had to have Levi’s genes! What’s that? You said levity? …never mind!

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    • Let’s bring back Tucker at at 7 years @ 35MM/yr, Throw in Cody Bellinger at 7 for 30MM/year. That’s good for RF and CF. Now we need some pitching. Let’s give Framber 6 years at 35MM/year, Dylan Cease for 7years at 30MM/year, and Ranger Suarez for 6 @30MM/yr. Got to have some good arms in the BP so how about Edwin Diaz for 5 years for 20MM/yr, Greg Soto for 4 at 10MM/yr, and Ryan Hensley for 4 at 12MM/yr. At catcher we have JT Realmuto for 3 years at 10MM/yr and finally we can keep Dubon for a measly 3 years at 6.5MM/yr. Oh I forgot we want to get rid of Walker so we’ll need a first baseman. Let’s see, hmmm, Pete Alsonso for 7 years at 25MM/yr. How about Luis Arraez at 2nd (since Altuve is on the downside) for 6 year at 30MM/yr.

      Then we can all sit back and watch the fun begin as we just created the most expensive Astro team ever. But it’s only money Jim. Com’on man!

      How’s that for levity?

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  8. Dan and Chip …

    Thanks for such a super blog, all year every year.

    Let us know if you need any help at any stage with anything.

    Suggestions for off-season topics:

    Division opponents, one by one.

    Overall AL possible competitors in the playoffs

    Position by position analysis, us and them

    Management – discussion and options and ideas

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