WAR is a controversial stat in baseball, and I will be the first to say that it is not always very accurate when comparing certain players. But in general, it is a decent way to compare the value of players across positions for a season.
Today, we will take a few minutes to look at the Astros’ top 5 position players and top 5 pitchers across a few recent seasons, from the 2022 Championship season up to 2025. Note – All numbers are taken from baseball-reference.com.
2025 – Top 5 Position Players
| Player | WAR | Games |
| Jeremy Pena | 5.6 | 125 |
| Yainer Diaz | 2.7 | 143 |
| Jake Meyers | 2.4 | 102 |
| Isaac Paredes | 2.3 | 134 |
| Cam Smith | 1.9 | 133 |
Total Position Players 2025 – 19 WAR
If you want to see the big difference between a 2022 Championship team’s position players and a 2025 team that misses the playoffs, look at those WAR numbers: 30 vs. 19. Also, Jeremy Pena is all alone at the top – no one above 3 besides him. In 2022, the top five position players were 4.5 and above. The biggest surprise here is seeing Cam Smith ranked in the top 5, and not Jose Altuve. That is a testament to the difference in their fielding impact.
2025 – Top 5 Pitchers
| Player | WAR | Games |
| Hunter Brown | 6.1 | 31 |
| Framber Valdez | 3.8 | 31 |
| Bryan Abreu | 2.6 | 70 |
| Josh Hader | 2.3 | 48 |
| Bryan King | 1.7 | 69 |
Total Pitchers 2025 – 21.7 WAR
Probably most telling is that there are only two starting pitchers in the top 5 in this list. This reflects how many pitchers had to rotate through those three or four starting spots behind Hunter Brown and Framber Valdez. Just like Pena, Brown totally stands far above the others in the top spot. Another point of note is Abreu edging out Hader for the third spot. Hader’s injury was the difference there as he pitched in about 70% as many games as his bullpen mate.
2024 – Top 5 Position Players
| Player | WAR | Games |
| Yordan Alvarez | 5.4 | 147 |
| Kyle Tucker | 4.7 | 78 |
| Alex Bregman | 4.1 | 145 |
| Jeremy Pena | 4.1 | 157 |
| Jose Altuve | 3.4 | 153 |
Total Position Players 2024 – 26.3 WAR
A much stronger WAR season for the position players. Alvarez and Altuve play almost full seasons, and of course, Tucker and Bregman were still with the team. Tucker may have put up the most amazing number here – 4.7 WAR in only 78 games. If you factor that up to 150 games, that would be around 9 WAR, in Aaron Judge’s neighborhood.
2024 – Top 5 Pitchers
| Player | WAR | Games |
| Ronel Blanco | 4.4 | 30 |
| Framber Valdez | 4.4 | 28 |
| Hunter Brown | 2.6 | 31 |
| Tayler Scott | 1.7 | 62 |
| Bryan Abreu | 1.6 | 78 |
Total Pitchers 2024 – 16.9 WAR
Overall, the pitching was much worse in 2024 than in 2025 for the Astros. Imagine what it would have been without Ronel Blanco, who was at the top of their starters with Framber the whole season. Josh Hader did not crack the top 5 with a 0.6 WAR, trailing fellow relievers Scott and Abreu in his first season with the club.
2023 – Top 5 Position Players
| Player | WAR | Games |
| Kyle Tucker | 5.5 | 157 |
| Alex Bregman | 4.9 | 161 |
| Yordan Alvarez | 4.5 | 114 |
| Jeremy Pena | 3.9 | 150 |
| Chas McCormick | 3.4 | 115 |
Total Position Players 2023 – 31.5 WAR
Oh, Chas-man, what happened to you? 3.4 WAR in 115 games (because Dusty Baker did not like him that much) and falling quickly to being let go two seasons later. This was a potent set of position players, producing more WAR than the 2022 championship team. Yordan would have led this team, but 114 games does not cut it. Jose Altuve was 7th behind young Yainer Diaz.
2023 – Top 5 Pitchers
| Player | WAR | Games |
| Framber Valdez | 3.2 | 31 |
| Hector Neris | 2.6 | 71 |
| Bryan Abreu | 2.5 | 72 |
| J.P. France | 1.6 | 24 |
| Justin Verlander | 1.3 | 11 |
Total Pitchers 2023 – 15.4 WAR
Hector Neris? Second? I’d forgotten how strong his 2023 season was already. This was a weaker season for Astros pitching, as Hunter Brown and Cristian Javier did not pitch particularly well. Verlander did return at the trade deadline to give the team a boost down the stretch.
2022 – Top 5 Position Players
| Player | WAR | Games |
| Yordan Alvarez | 6.8 | 135 |
| Kyle Tucker | 5.5 | 150 |
| Jose Altuve | 5.2 | 141 |
| Jeremy Pena | 5.0 | 136 |
| Alex Bregman | 4.5 | 155 |
Total Position Players 2022 – 30.8 WAR
A very strong offense, as we discussed above. I remember Pena dominating in the postseason, but I did not remember him performing this well in the regular season. Of course, his glove was probably a big part of it stat-wise. Altuve had his last big season in WAR in 2022. And of course, the trio of Alvarez, Tucker and Bregman were big producers.
2022 – Top 5 Pitchers
| Player | WAR | Games |
| Justin Verlander | 5.6 | 28 |
| Cristian Javier | 3.6 | 30 |
| Framber Valdez | 3.4 | 31 |
| Ryne Stanek | 2.1 | 59 |
| Lance McCullers Jr. | 1.4 | 8 |
Total Pitchers 2022 – 23.7 WAR
JV’s huge season after returning from his TJ surgery led an excellent effort from the pitching staff. I would never have guessed that Stanek would be the only reliever in this top 5. This underscores that, though Ryan Pressly was an excellent reliever for the Astros, he was not much of a WAR contributor.
This was an interesting exercise. What stands out to you here?
ALL THINGS ASTROS 
14 responses to “Astros: A look at recent top 5’s in WAR”
What stands out…
The 2025 team was not a very good team. Yes, stalwarts left for greener pastures and that caused most of the issues this past season. However, there were two stars who were picked up to replaced those who left.
Parades worked hard and did well up to the point that he originally injured his hamstring. In a full season scenario, he would have done well.
Walker… what can I say that hasn’t already been said. He was pretty much a shell of who he previously was. Yes, he had a hot spell late in the season but that was not enough. He was overmatched at the plate and his fielding was so-so.
Those who remained fell from their heights of begone years.
Altuve suffered his injury, missed some games, and his trek into left field was a circus. He still hit close to his usual stats, save for his batting average.
Alvarez suffered his injuries and the training/medical staff really dropped the ball on his behalf. He had no chance to actually contribute.
Diaz fell behind his career stats and people complained about it. However, who would NOT want a catcher who will hit .250 or higher and smack 20+ homeruns? Complaints about his defense but he led all major league catchers in range factor per 9 innings and also the same in per game.
Pena was a pleasant surprise. He hit for a career high batting average but still suffered from the “k” bugaboo. He, also, was hit by the injury bug.
Meyers hitting improved tremendously. However, the injury bug got him also.
That leads us to Cam Smith. He came from nowhere to win a spot out of camp and proved to be quite the defensive whiz in a new position. Good enough to receive a gold glove nomination! Now, if he can gain more stamina through the season and more power.
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Sarge, you’re right. We were not a very good team in 2025.
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I think we (probably not the Chipalatta fans, but others) didn’t appreciate just how well our pitching performed last year. I think there is opportunity for the offense to bounce back and look more like what we’d expect from a major league club. It may be as simple as Alvarez being healthy and Espada limiting at bats for Altuve and Walker when they’re going through the periods where they just give outs away for nothing.
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I really don’t understand defensive stats very well, but was Mauricio Dubon such a superior defender and Jose Altuve such an inferior one that Dubon’s 1.7 WAR was more than 3x Altuve’s 0.5 WAR?
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Looking at vitals, Dubon is 4 years younger and 6 inches taller. That equates to more range.
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I’m not disputing that Dubon is a better defender than Altuve, but disputing that his defensive value overshadows his offensive shortcomings making him 3x more valuable than Altuve.
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I got irritated by this in June of last year and tried to look back at the games the first two months of the season and figure out how many runs the Astros actually allowed because Altuve was in LF where a better LF would have saved them. I only looked at innings where we surrendered runs. I believe I came up with two instances of poor throws and one where he didn’t get to a fly ball. Obviously teams are going to run and take extra bases on particular fielders as well, but not all of those result in runs being scored. I still stand by what I said last spring training – you have to put a defensive replacement out in close games late where a ball not caught on the warning track or allowing a single to stretch into a double can lose you the game – but as bad as he looked he didn’t seem to cost us games the way the metrics were saying. I will allow the pitchers may have approached batters differently due to his or other players defensive limitations/abilities.
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That’s a great point AstroNut. oWAR is a pretty good indicator of how a player produced offensively. I’m not sure how reliable dWAR is though. If you go over to Baseball Savant and a couple of other sites, as an example, Christian Walker is still a pretty good defensive player. Baseball Reference had him at -1.5 dWAR on the season.
But I will say though, that our much loved Jose is a terrible fielder at this point, while Dubon was very good, regardless of where he played. But I also can’t tell you that Dubon was more valuable to the Astros than Altuve in 2025.
dWAR remains erratic though. It just depends on where you look.
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Astronut, I was not fussing about what you posted, I was agreeing with you and stating why Dubon was better.
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Good morning! While we wait on something else to happen with the Astro roster, it’s good to have both the Texans and Rockets playing relevant football and basketball. The Texans beat a good team on the road yesterday. And they still have not put together a full four quarters in any of their wins. That will need to happen going forward. Can they do that?
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daveb – that is a base question for the Texans, but more applies to their offense. Their defense is pretty darned consistent – look at those low points allowed per game. They are ferocious. Yes they do give up a TD here or there, but if the Texans fail in the postseason it will be the offense that causes it.
I mean how can you score 2 TDs the first two drives within the first part of the first quarter and 6 points the balance of the game.
They’ve been lucky too. The Chargers kicker is like the most accurate kicker in history and he misses a chip shot FG and an extra point in a game we won by 4. Earlier we won a game by one point when the other team missed an extra point and we barely made one that a lot of people thought missed.
But maybe it means it is our year.
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Dan, I think they have to start putting together a full game on both sides of the ball. Maybe they are saving some big plays. The running game was pretty good on Saturday. But our no longer rookie QB can’t afford to throw the ball of the other team.
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I will say that the interceptions are very un-CJ of him. He had gone 3 games without an INT and had only one in his last 5 games – 140 throws.
But the point is – if the offense is going to be pretty sporadic – it also needs to protect the ball. I will say the running game looks better with the two young guys – Marks and Jordan toting the ball the most.
I know they are not going to hit on 75 and 42 yard throws all the time – but they shouldn’t settle down after getting a lead either. Higgins and Noel are real weapons that don’t get used enough.
With the Jags holding off the Colts and the Jags playing the lowly Titans this week – we are likely going to be a Wild Card and right now that looks like the Texans playing the winner of the Steelers-Ravens game. Derrick Henry went off for the Ravens this week. I don’t like that matchup much.
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Match up in the first round is not looking great, especially if the weather is rotten. But if they have to beat one of those two teams, there will finally be a level of respect that they still have not received to date.
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