Whether the Astros are actually doomed long-term is a discussion for another post, but certainly, the ship is pretty shaky right now, and the arc of the team since their 2022 championship has been steadily down from a seventh-game loss in the 2023 ALCS to being swept in the 2024 Wild Card to missing the 2025 playoffs to whatever you want to call 2026.
This person linked below took a shot at what doomed them.
How 2017 penalties doomed the Astros long-term
The writer seems to concentrate on two areas – the four lost draft choices and the Astros trading away prospects for short-term help so that they could “prove” that 2017 was not a cheating fluke.
I believe both of these things weakened the Astros’ farm system, but I don’t believe this ultimately doomed their team long term.
Out of two late-round first-rounders and two late second-rounders, you might get a couple of decent major leaguers, or you might get four Forrest Whitleys.
Trading away prospects to try to shore up contending teams did not work out that badly. The Astros used that strategy before the cheating scandal was revealed (see Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole and Zack Greinke) and just continued it throughout this era. This resulted in seven straight ALCS appearances, four World Series appearances, and two championships.
To me, what has doomed the Astros is a mix of things.
- Natural attrition – The Astros suddenly were tail-end Charlie on the draft even before losing their draft picks – no longer picking in that top 5 due to their quality seasons. In addition, they were no longer first in line to pick up guys off waivers.
- The money issue – Over time, they were no longer paying minimum or near-minimum wages to the likes of George Springer, Carlos Correa, Alex Bregman, Kyle Tucker, and beyond.
- The International advantage – For a while, they were magically picking up international talent that other teams missed – this began with Jose Altuve far before 2017, but included Cristian Javier, Jose Urquidy, Luis Garcia, Bryan Abreu and Ronel Blanco, who all gave great contributions before injury or in Abreu’s case fall in performance and all were brought in cheaply.
- Losing Jeff Luhnow – Though I liked manager A.J. Hinch, I never thought he was the difference maker and frankly thought he cost us the 2019 World Series. But losing Luhnow was losing the visionary who built what looked like a sustainable war machine and who hopefully could have steered the team through the difficult period of rebuilding on the fly.
- The Owner’s hands – While Jim Crane always had a hand in what the Astros did from a highly restrictive budget to the times it looked like he got involved to push the front office to bring Justin Verlander back among others, it seemed to have worsened after the 2022 championship. He indirectly jettisoned the GM James Click days after that championship by giving him an offer he could (and did) refuse. Then he allowed a headless triad of Hall of Famers help him with roster decisions like signing Jose Abreu, Rafael Montero and Michael Brantley when no GM was in charge. After adding GM Dana Brown, it has been hard to decipher who has been making some of the personnel decisions – Brown or Crane and a number of these have been questionable as far as the sustainable success of the team.
- The technology gap – Outside of the high-tech garbage can banging, the Astros seemed to jump ahead of the rest of the majors with their ability to apply cyber data to reality with their players. That gap has now been closed and perhaps the Astros are even upside down in relation to it now.
- The injury bug – Almost every team has injuries, sure. But….after watching baseball for the last 60 years, this observer can say he has never seen a team suffer injuries in such quantities to key parts of the roster as the Astros have faced the last two seasons. It has been debilitating.
- Baseball Karma – We can make all the excuses we want about how the Astros were punished for cheating that other teams were doing at the same time. But it would not be surprising if the baseball gods punished a team that was so talented that they did not need to supplement their results.
Your turn…. Are the Astros doomed for long-term success, and if so, why?
ALL THINGS ASTROS 
34 responses to “What has doomed the Astros long term?”
Yes, the club will not have any long-term success as the corporation is made, from the many vice presidents down to the last man on the bench.
The wife and I love to go to games but, the experience is not pleasant now, from the butt in the seat view. All of the special events, to get people in to the park now, are not attractive to us. The music played between innings is too loud and not baseball type music. (where is the organ playing between innings?) This falls on the vice presidents.
The general manager, Dana Brown, who is in his 4th season, has not moved the team roster forward. That includes the minor league teams as well.
Cowboys – .414 W-L current the worst team in PCL AAA.
Hooks – .462 W-L among the worst in the Texas League AA
Tourists – .235 W-L worst among S Atlantic League high A
Woodpeckers – .453 W-L only three teams worst than they are in the Carolina League
Don’t get me started on the major league team.
The field manager is in over his head. He has difficulties in handling the pitching staff. Doesn’t seem to have the team under control. By that I mean the mental errors, the lack of plate discipline, lack of pitching discipline.
As you mentioned, the draft is a crap shoot. Not many first or second round choices actually make it to the big leagues… for any team. I am in the group of those who say the loss of the draft choices did not move the needle.
The team’s major league stars, that were absolutely not going to resign with the club, should have been traded before walking without any investment. That is on Crane and the GM.
The tech gap appears because of the people who are running the team. They can claim they are high tech but we don’t see it. Too old school.
Injuries… That is due to the training staff and their methods. I have stated on her before, the team changed the top man but they left the staff intact. Those are the ones who are the hands-on people and they are failing terribly. I don’t know, maybe the team has a contract with Methodist and have to abide by it.
Anyway, that is my two cents.
LikeLike
As a STH the past 19 years, I agree that the ballpark experience has gone downhill (as have the STH benefits). I love baseball and have great seats, but the product this year is hard to watch. Espada is definitely in over his head and needs to go. D Brown has had a few wins (Tucker trade, Vasquez, Lambert) and lots of loses. Personnel evaluation said to be D .Browns strong suit. . . .is not. Time to rebuild or reload and get younger!
LikeLike
We used to be STH also but have moved on.
LikeLike
Welcome yankeejimle – thanks for sharing.
Even though I write this blog and work a couple miles from the ballpark I rarely go. The experience and expense both point me towards my couch and my TV
LikeLike
Sarge’s comment is on point. Let me expand and say that the injuries are the real problem.
Hayden Wesneski – 2025
Ronel Blanco – 2025
Brandon Walter – 2025
Cristian Javier – 2024
Jose Urquidy – 2024
Luis Garcia – 2023
That’s just blown out UCL over the last three years. Add in LMJ if you want. Is there anyone who thinks if Wesneski and Blanco are healthy all of 2025 we don’t manage to win an extra game or two? How does the last offseason look different without those guys being unavailable or waived due to the injuries?
LikeLike
Sarge made my point succinctly. Over and over we let contracts run out, knowing we were not going to re-sign those guys. But we really blew it with Framber and Bregman. We really needed rejuvenation. Both guys were still at peak value after the 2023 season. Let’s face it. Both 2024 and 2025 were aggravating. Those battered clubs were not much fun to watch. We could see the decade of greatness ending as we watched both seasons develop. We should have moved them. And the same argument stands for Springer and Correa. To a degree, we could have picked the guys we needed. Left handed power bat for the outfield? You can’t tell me that Framber, Bergman, Correa, Springer would not have gotten us at least a couple of guys that would be playing for this club today. Was our leadership so arrogant that they were able to ignore the opportunities they were passing up?
LikeLike
On another subject, I have not watched many of the Astros’ post game or pregame shows this year. The club made a big deal of Ryan Pressley joining the broadcast crew but I have yet to see him. The Mrs. said she saw him do a post game show once and he was out of his environment. He was terrible. So, have any of you seen him??
LikeLike
Have not seen him Sarge – it is usually Bogusevic on the postgame. Sad if he was not good enough because he seems like a good guy.
LikeLike
Good morning! The Astros have given up 19 over the past two nights and can win the series this evening.
Is June the month where the pitching craters again and the bats hit?
LikeLike
I think all these points are valid, they are all a part of it. I’ll add some “back of the baseball card” decisions that have caused them to overpay talent for result, but I don’t know that causes some of it because that is a league wide epidemic, paying players for what they have done and not properly utilizing all the science around you to better project what they might do. The teams that really succeed at player development and then evaluating when they have gotten the best out of them, and rarely fail, thats a one hand count.
If I was going to pick one single factor as the biggest piece of the pie, I’m sure I would go to injuries as well. That 2022 WS team featured 4 starters age 28 and under, 2 of them were 25. It’s insane to think that 3 of them are either gone or completely ineffective due to injury.
A good Astros team has a balance of high priced veterans and youngsters that are excelling while still learning, but producing overall positive numbers. The Astros injury bug has removed not just a few high priced veterans but many of those youngsters.
Also though, lets be honest, that 2017 team was so talented it was basically impossible to keep them together unless you hit 350M annual payroll. Springer, Correa, Bregman, Altuve, Morton, Verlander, following that up 2018 with Cole, they just couldn’t pay them all, or really, any of them. It’s OK though because they followed that up with Tucker and Yordan and Framber, and then couldn’t pay all of them. I can’t imagine what the payroll is if Springer is in RF still today, maybe LF, because Tucker is in RF, Bregman is still at 3B, Correa never left, Cole was just overpaid, I mean it can really get insane if you calculate the salaries of what other teams are paying our former stars. That’s what really happened to the 2017-2022 Astros.
Physicists believe the universe first started as a hot, condensed clouds of hydrogen and helium. As it expanded pockets of those gases pooled together due to gravity, formed stars, and those stars become so heavy they began the process of nuclear fission in their cores, producing heavier elements, then exploding after running out of fuel and spreading those elements throughout the universe. That’s the Astros in a nutshell. The right mix of players all at the same time but like the weight of the elements caused stars to form and begin burning and then explode, eventually the weight of keeping the team together financially caused it supernova. Then injuries to the next generation of young Astros stars just imploded this team.
LikeLike
Excellent analogy Steven
LikeLike
Thoughts today
LikeLike
And Chip pointed this move out to me – that just might save the season.
Astros To Sign LaMonte Wade Jr. – MLB Trade Rumors
I absolutely don’t know what to make of this signing.
LikeLike
Dan, speaking of things that doom the Astros. The Wade move just doesn’t make sense. Even in a depth role, whose place does he take?
When Altuve returns, you figure to see him at DH some, and as the season gets deeper, I’d expect fewer days in LF for Alvarez. And Wade gets a $1 million MAJOR league deal, so someone has to go.
And, so it is. César Salazar and Rhylan Thomas both DFA recipients.
Zach Cole to Sugar Land and Collin Price up.
LikeLike
Dana keeps grabbing lefty bats off the couch. He’ll be gone sooner than later.
LikeLike
What doomed this team was the firing of Click and Crane, Bagwell, Biggio and Jackson making very bad contracts that still handcuff this team. The loss of the 4 picks hurt but unless you’ve got a great talent evaluator, that’s a crap shoot. Trading the minor league guys haven’t hurt much at all.
LikeLike
Joe didn’t waste any time getting the new guy (LaMonte Wade) in the lineup.
He’s hitting fifth tonight and playing LF. SMH.
And, another new guy, Collin Price is making his MLB debut (best I can tell) at catcher tonight.
That will put the Astros at an even 50 players used this season, and it’s barely June!
LikeLike
Signing guys like LaMonte Wade, who was released from a MINOR league team, and placing him the 5th spot in the batting lineup are reasons this team is doomed. Brown and Espada will not survive the off season.
LikeLiked by 1 person
And the Astros activated Loperfido but sent him to AAA.
Why didn’t they bring him back up instead of going for Wade. Joey is an actual OF who can hit and field.
This is stupid
LikeLiked by 1 person
About Wade, Joe says they’ve ‘had interest in this guy for awhile”. Wow!
I’d like to make a suggestion: Turn your ‘interest’ somewhere else! This is worth than shuffling the chairs on the Titanic!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Dana rushed Loperfido to town a couple of years ago. Brought him back to save some money. Now he sends him to AAA. Is there really more upside to Wade? Maybe Bregman is at it again. Lops might be ready for a new organization at this point. I’m sure he was looking forward to coming back today. Got to be a shock for him.
LikeLike
Bagwell.
LikeLike
Those of the paid crowd of 23,136 that actually showed up on a late Spring Thursday evening did not get a whole lot to cheer about. Seemed like a flat group out there on the field last night. Admittedly, I retreated to the reading room once again when we got down five.
Steven, it’s already happening. The kids are out of school and the ballpark should be humming. It’s not. Houston is simply not buying this product. Even with Alvarez having a career year. Walker too. Pena is back. Hunter is on the mend. Hader is in the pen. But the paying fans see that collectively, this is not a very good roster.
I’m not going to pick on our latest left handed hitting outfield reclamation product. It’s not his fault that someone decided to gift him with whatever part of a million dollars he’ll be getting for his efforts. But this little transaction seems to be a bit of a panic move by the organization. Did the boss tell Dana to just do something? Or does Bagwell like the guy? Regardless, Brown has had three and a half years to build an outfield that provides offense. He’s failed miserably, over and over. And unfortunately, Lamont Wade is not going to move the needle either.
LikeLiked by 1 person
When I was a kid I begged my parents to take me to the dome. I begged them to get season tickets. They never did, but we still made the trek with some frequency. Nowadays, I take my four kids to games and at least one of them is complaining about it beforehand, one during the game, and one afterwards about how I was wasting their time. One will spend the entire game on his phone and barely watch the action. From time to time I’ll be asked when we’re going to another game as if there is interest. I suspect a lot of parents who want to go to games are struggling in the same way. I also wouldn’t discount the impact of higher prices on everything, but most specifically the psychological impact of paying more at the pump.
LikeLike
I’m not going to try and defend the Wade move, his 2025 season was terrible and he is on the wrong side of 30. But let me a little rope on this to maybe defend it a little. Joey Loperfido has 23 walks in 142 career games. Wade had 76 in 2023, one season, in fewer games at 135. Joey has a .252 BA but seemed on his way up, Wade has a .235 driven down by a slide, but still, even at .167 he managed to put more than .100 between his BA and OBP.
There are tons of benefits to that. Baseball is a goofy sport. It’s probably the only sport where it is acceptable to call someone good at something yet they can have strings where they fail miserably at it. If Steph Curry went a week without hitting a single 3 pointer in 3 games everyone will freak out. Baseball players go in slumps, and they go on benders. The really good ones just have smaller windows of slumps.
But you know what never slumps in baseball? The ability to draw a walk. Even when you are in a slump, you can work a walk. It’s what is so monumentally frustrating about Yainer. When he is on a heater he can spend a week or two as the most impactful player on the team, but when he goes for 0 for 20 in 5 games, you feel every out because he never sees 1B.
Dana has always liked guys that walk. It’s why Singleton was here for so long when he probably should not have been. Because he can work a count, extend a pitcher, get to the bullpen faster, and see 1B some even when he is not hitting. I just fear Wade is very similar to Singleton, there just be too much time in between heaters and he will hit .220. But Wade has a history very much better than anything Singleton ever did.
Yes Dave, Houston is fickle. Last time I was at the box was in 2024, but it was a Wednesday night July, we were either in first or right there, and there was 40k+ in the place.
LikeLike
Since we’re talking about Wade and shuffling chairs around the deck I wanted to remind everyone we traded Drew Gilbert and Ryan Clifford to the Mets for Justin Verlander in August 2023. Gilbert is a LHH outfielder we picked 28th overall in 2022. His overall stats this year are ugly, but if you take away his 0-22 against LHP and consider only his .287/.339/465 for the Giants against RHP he’s not that bad and someone who could certainly have helped us out. He was an RF at Tennessee but is mostly playing CF for San Francisco.
LikeLike
Thoughts
The Astros are now 5.5 back in the division and 3 back in the wild card.
Again it is amazing how often our pitchers try to go one inning too far and end up giving up a number of runs and not retire anyone.
Good news – https://www.mlb.com/astros/news/hunter-brown-throws-third-minor-league-rehab-start
I’m not surprised the fans are abandoning ship – that has always been the Astros fans’ way over the years. But our concern has to be – will Jim Crane push the front office to make short term moves due to this
Steven – I know what you are saying about Wade’s patience at the plate – but even with that the last time he was in the majors he still only had a .275 OBP.
Can this team turn it around? Well they have to string some wins together and by that I mean more than 2 or 3 wins at a time.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wade hit .167 on his way to that .275 OBP, so he still put 108 points between the two. Now, imagine him putting 108 points between the two but managing to hit .250. That is exactly what Dana is hoping for.
I did some deep dive on Wade on BR, fangraphs and statcast. I see a hitter who moderately worse in EV, bat speed, hard hit percentage, I could just sit here and list all the things that should turn you off about him. They do me too. His 2025 was terrible. But I bet if he had been at Charlotte hitting .167 with a .275 OBP he wouldn’t be here right now. He wasn’t. He was in Charlotte with a .420 OBP, 45 walks in 46 games, and showing about the same HR rate he had previously. In totality, I don’t call it the worst flyer I’ve ever seen. He certainly has a better history than Singleton. I’m sure the Astros have had scouts watching him a bit.
Is he going to save the Astros? No. Is there a chance you will get a moderate upgrade over Loperfido and Cole, maybe. I didn’t watch yesterdays game as I was out, but on Saturday I saw him spit on two close pitches before depositing one in the RF bleachers. It’s the exact kind of AB I’m hoping to see from Astros more often. I don’t think he can hit 25 HR or post 90 RBI, and the funny part is Joey might actually be capable of it if he was just left alone and put in the lineup, but right now this team needs quality at bats, they need to extend pitchers, and start drawing a few walks.
Once we have a fair sample size we can look at statcast and see what we have for bat speed, EV, etc. We will know more about it at that point.
LikeLike
Lambert continues to pitch above expectations. We’re getting pretty consistent 4th or 5th in the rotation work from him for 1.5 million. If he does this all year, (the .267 BAbip likely suggests some correction) we’ll be happy and he’ll collect 5 million plus as un unrestricted free agent from someone next year. So far, Dana deserves a thumbs up for this particular acquisition. I’m trying to be balanced.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thoughts
Dave – I think Dana has done some good some bad. King and Okert and Teng and Lambert – all pluses out of nowhere
Lambert has been the steadiest starter this year – has given them a shot in every game
They put up a stat saying the Astros score one more run per game when Pena plays than when he doesn’t. I believe it.
it is so nice to see Hader out there in the 9th – a whole other level to the bullpen
Paredes is repeating last year where he started slow and then cranked it up power wise. He is putting up strong at bats right now.
LikeLike
Pena will be worth a lot of talent to us when we can’t afford him any longer. I just hope we know what to do when the time comes.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Good morning!
This guy Imai. He’s gone 6.0, 60 and 5.0 in his last three starts. Given up just four earned. He almost blew it up yesterday in the third after being handed a 6 run cushion. Once again, he looked like he was not fully focusing on every pitch he threw, like his mate Burrows with the same tendency. Alas he got out of it, something he likely would not have done a month ago. 34.1 innings, just 25 hits. Good ground ball rate. Bad hard hit rate. Way too many walks. But it seems he’s starting to get swings and misses. BAbip is a too low .247. But overall, there is no doubt he belongs in the rotation. Four starts ago, it was almost time to pull him.
LikeLike
Is Mike Burrows going to get the Cam Smith treatment? Like you know you are tethered to this guy long term, and he is one of the defining pieces of your mini-rebuild as far as youngsters go, so are Brown and Espada going to continue to give him rope? It’s much harder to do that when the guy on the mound can’t win a game by himself but he sure can lose it by himself. Cam Smith might get a small handful of opportunities to win one himself, like Saturday, but won’t really ever lose a game by himself, he is just 1 of 9 batters. I would imagine you have to give Burrows way less grace.
As far as Imai, funny story about Saturday’s after game hand shake line. He jumped in there, Peter Lambert came up from behind him gave him the pat on the back and Imai jumped like a coon and someone had just turned on the porch light. He then turned and looked at Lambert with a WTF look. I don’t think I’ve seen the guy smile since all that pre-season hype interviews. Is it possible that we get lucky and he opts out this year so he can go back to Japan? To bad Mr. Baseball isn’t really possible, but maybe it is possible to negotiate a buyout to be paid by the Japanese team that signs him and let him go about his way. But you can’t see Imai’s agent letting that happen thats probably a buyout at 50%. No the best we can hope for is he pitches well enough to not blow up our team.
Stone Cold Stros gave Dana hell this weekend. Needless to say they are probably not getting him on their podcast anytime soon. Weiss has a 9+ ERA in AAA. It’s Teng. That’s his win. Lambert to a point, but you have to remember he has already released Lambert once and he is still here because no one else wanted him either. He kind of lucked into that one. Teng is the one you can point to that he and his staff identified and moved to get. The rest have been, ugh.
LikeLike
I forgot that Dana had already turned Lambert loose once.
Imai might be an odd duck back home too.
LikeLike