In honor of Opening Day tomorrow, I contributed my predictions for the 2025 Astros to The Crawfish Boxes’ Starting Nine! Go give it a look to see how everyone evaluated the team’s chances for this season. For posterity’s sake, I’ll re-post my blurb here, with a few extra thoughts:
It’s difficult to not feel like the 2025 Astros are worse on paper than the 2024 Astros. This was the most disappointing offseason for the team in recent memory, honestly probably since the mid-2000s? (Those early 2010 teams were bad, but most of the disappointment with them came from during the season rather than in between them.)
Trading Kyle Tucker made sense, but losing him a year before free agency made it sting more than other homegrown stars like Carlos Correa and George Springer actually leaving as free agents; it was like there was time to prepare yourself mentally with those, while this happened relatively all-at-once. Although speaking of that, we had another one of those cases in Alex Bregman leaving, but with the additional frustration of a brief window where it seemed like Houston might somehow manage bring him back on a short deal, hope that collapsed pretty rapidly. Ryan Pressly was dealt out, and Yusei Kikuchi and Justin Verlander signed elsewhere, all of which make sense in isolation but do bring back stark concerns of just how thin the pitching staff felt at times last year. Really, given the constant rumors swirling around Framber Valdez, it feels kind of shocking that there weren’t even more high-profile departures.
But on further reflection, there were some interesting additions. I keep forgetting that the team signed Christian Walker, since bringing in a big free agent clashed with the “everyone is leaving” vibes emanating the rest of the winter. Really, things weren’t nearly as dire as they felt at times. Isaac Paredes and Brendan Rodgers feel like they could be surprisingly solid pieces of a team this year (much has already been said about Paredes being a good fit for not-Minute Maid Park, and I feel like the Astros’ development side might be able to get more out of Rodgers* than the Rockies’), while Cam Smith^ and Hayden Wesneski feel like they could be longer-term pieces who still have a chance to make a big impact this year.
*I admit this is more of a hunch, but if there’s any team that I just sort of expect to fumble the development of a top prospect, it’s the Rockies. And I think the Astros have actually done a pretty good job at developing talent in recent memory. Maybe the actual details in this case just won’t line up, but this does feel like a case with a lot of potential for a surprise. I guess you can mark this one down as my bold prediction for 2025.
^I was very excited to hear about Cam Smith making the Major League roster yesterday. I know this has been something of a point of contention over at TCB since then; Exile posted a pretty harsh immediate reaction, but I line up a little more with Scott’s take. I don’t have any reason to suspect the team did this to rush Smith, I think they did it because they legitimately think he’s the best option (yeah, he didn’t play many minor league games, but he is a college bat, and you kind of expect those to move through the minors a little quicker thanks to that extra experience).
And in that case, you might as well give him so at-bats against Major League pitching to see if he can make that leap; even if not, you can send him down again to learn more. Going from minor league pitching to the majors will always be a jump, and actually getting called up will always be the final test of that ability no matter when it happens; I don’t see any reason at this point to assume it will permanently ruin his development, certainly not without any specifics.
It’s unfortunate that both he and Zach Dezenzo had such good Spring Trainings, but I have to imagine Dezenzo will be up in the majors at basically the first opportunity; no team makes it through the year with no absences. And the concerns about the defense are fair, as Smith is learning a new position in the outfield, but Dezenzo still only has a handful of games there himself (half of which came in the most recent Puerto Rican winter league), so I’m not sure he’d be obviously better at the position.
But I keep coming back to that opening thought, “the 2025 Astros feel worse on paper than the 2024 Astros did”… because ultimately, the Actual 2024 Astros also felt worse than the On-Paper 2024 Astros. The team failed to get even a dead-cat bounce out of Jose Abreu, Kyle Tucker missed over half of the season, Chas McCormick completely collapsed, the rotation often felt like it was scrambling just to find arms, that much-hyped bullpen often felt like less than the sum of its parts, and they even under-performed their Expected Won-Loss record.
It's entirely possible (unlikely, but possible) that this team is actually improved, if Walker is a big enough upgrade, the outfield situation gets solved (whether by Jose Altuve adjusting smoothly, Cam Smith forcing a promotion (edit: it happened, now we’ll have to see if he holds up in real games), Chas rebounding, or something else), Framber or Yordan (or both) has an Awards-level year, Hunter Brown and/or Spencer Arrighetti takes a big step forward, Lance McCullers miraculously returns… you don’t even need all of those things happening together, just a few!
But even if they aren’t better, it’s also possible they just aren’t worse than 2024, whether that’s because all the new guys cancel out the departures, or just because they kept things close enough and got some better luck this time around. I’m still nervous about injuries decimating the pitching staff again, but last year already felt pretty close to a worst-case scenario. Maybe it happens again, but they did still overcome it last year. At least it would be familiar territory this time, I guess?
Ultimately, I think the bigger issue is the rest of the division around them. The Rangers and Mariners also had bad luck last year and less-than-ideal offseasons, but they both also still have a lot of upside. I’m not sure that the Astros can bet on everybody else underperforming their ceiling yet again. But the rest of the AL still looks uneven,* so I think there’s still a road to the postseason, even if it isn’t necessarily through the division title.
*I keep thinking back to the end of last season, when it felt like every AL team collapsed in the postseason race except for the Yankees, who 1) ended up collapsing in the World Series instead anyway, and 2) already looked poised for more trouble this year, with Gerrit Cole and Giancarlo Stanton already possibly out for the year (among other issues, like losing Juan Soto and the low probability that Aaron Judge can single-handedly carry the lineup in the way he’s managed at times in the past). The Orioles’ rotation feels even thinner than last year after losing Corbin Burnes and only making half-hearted attempts to address that hole, and losing Anthony Santander can’t just be glossed over. The top teams in the AL West and AL Central all have question marks that look at least comparable the Astros’.
I don’t think there’s a real super-team in this league, certainly nothing on par with the Dodgers, let alone with what the Mets or Braves might manage if they hit their peaks (I think the Yankees or Orioles last year might have challenged it in their best cases, but have fallen a bit since those heights). It’ll come down heavily to thinks like injuries and some luck, and I don’t know that the Astros will hit the straight flush of scenarios that gets them to their absolute best-case scenario. But I think there are enough potential upsides for them to try and find the best fit, and they’ve proved resourceful in the past, and I think both of those will help them hit the upper-half of their range of outcomes.
Prediction: 88-74, 2nd in AL West
Playoffs: Make it in as a Wild Card, advance to the ALCS
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