Astros’ spring training: Some stuff

While waiting for some major news from Spring Training, it felt like a good time to rattle around about some random baseball stuff. So here we go….

Predictions

Whenever I feel bad about a prediction, I should go back and look at an expert’s prediction article to see how good it was.

Luckily, today the experts did it for me, and I think that was a fairly brave and interesting thing for them to do.

Revisiting each team’s No. 1 prospect prediction for 2026 season

MLB.com had its team experts predict who each team’s top prospect would be heading into 2026 back in 2024.

Now, I commend them for doing this as usually we are bombarded with tons of these lists and never any re-visitation to see how they turned out.

In this case of the 30 prospects tagged before the 2024 season to be the top prospect two years hence, six of them are still their choice for top 2026 prospect at this point.

That sounds bad, but here are some thoughts:

• Reading the details in the article, there are probably only a few (3 or 4) who are bombouts, including the one they picked for the Yankees (yaaaayyy!!)
• There are a couple who might still be on the list, but they have been traded to another team with deeper prospects.
• A number of them have been sidetracked by injury, including one who has had brain surgery.
• A number of the top prospects have been displaced by players who were not even with the organization in 2024. For instance, Kevin Alvarez has used his short time in the Astros’ organization to leapfrog over Luis Baez and others to this top spot.
• I am a little put out that no Astros’ prospect, including Alvarez, is in the top 100 MLB prospect list. C’mon guys. That makes no sense.
• There is one familiar name on the Mets’ list. Ryan Clifford was picked back in 2024 as their top prospect by now. Clifford, along with Drew Gilbert, were traded by the Astros at the 2023 deadline in exchange for the return of Justin Verlander. Clifford has shown decent power, but his low BA’s and high K rates have dropped him from the top of the Mets’ prospect list.

Overall, it shows that baseball is not a static game. It is very difficult for even those close to the game and teams to make predictions.

Another Prediction

And along those same lines, MLB.com made a prediction on each team’s top player for the coming season.          Top projected players for every MLB team in 2026

In most cases, it is a player who was nailed in 2025. But for the Astros it is Yordan Alvarez, who was nowhere close to the Astros’ best player in 2025.

Some thoughts:

• As Daveb was discussing the other day in our comments – baseball-reference.com had predicted a very fine year for Alvarez in 2026, except…..they only had him having 311 ABs. While almost double the ABs he saw in 2025, it is nowhere near the number of ABs he will need to be the Astros best player in 2026.
• They also state in the MLB.com article that they expect Yordan to be healthy because he will be an almost full-time DH in 2026. This does not match Yordan’s expectations of playing a lot in the field or the team’s potential need for him to play in the field, so that Jose Altuve can DH a lot more and Isaac Paredes can get more time in the lineup.
• Funny to look at Angels and not see either Shohei Ohtani or Mike Trout as the predicted MVP and to find out that Zach Neto was their best player the last two seasons.
• Bobby Witt Jr. is only 25 years old. It is kind of like when you realize CJ Stroud is only 24 years old. It feels like they should be in their upper 20’s.

First Starter

The Astros starter for the first preseason game against the Nats on Saturday was announced by Sports Illustrated. If you think it was going to be Hunter Brown, you are wrong. It was announced as Colton Gordon.

The Astros lately have used this spot as a bit of a reward for a pitcher who is on the 40 man, but is not yet slated in the rotation. It’s usually someone they are throwing a bone to this time of year. For instance, in 2024, the first ST game starter was Ronel Blanco, who had only thrown a few innings for the big club previously. He was not unknown after the season as he arguably was the Astros’ top starter that year.

Will Gordon enjoy similar success?

Time will tell.