Over the past decade, there hasn’t been a franchise in baseball more successful than the Houston Astros. And while baseball fans will groan when they hear that because of Houston’s 2017 cheating scandal, the reality is that even after the scandal, Houston has continued to be highly successful.
Since 2017, the Astros reached the ALCS seven consecutive times, including three trips to the World Series and two championships before that streak was snapped this postseason with their wild-card round defeat to the Tigers.
When a team is as successful as Houston has been, there comes a time when a franchise takes a step back. Teams like the Nationals, Red Sox, Cubs and Giants have each been looking to get back to sustained success after their stretch of winning titles and the Astros are looking to avoid a re-tooling phase.
When a team is all-in every season, signing players, trading prospect capital to get players in trades, at some point, the bill becomes due on those moves as a team’s minor-league system becomes depleted. Houston has stated that it wants to continue to be competitive and be one of the American League’s best, but when turning a roster over and getting younger is imperative to the long-term health of the franchise, can they do it?
“To keep that window open, we’re going to have to continue to replenish the system,” Astros general manager Dana Brown told Yahoo Sports at the GM Meetings last week in San Antonio. “Continue to get draft picks that can develop. … It’s not always the high-round guy, you know.
“Sometimes it’s the guy that you take in the fifth, seventh or in the ninth [round]. Sometimes it’s the Latin player that was signed for $20,000. Those are good things that are happening in this organization, and we have to continue to keep bringing players out.”
Astros’ development of rotation gives them options
The Astros has had their fair share of great players over the better part of the past decade. And even as stars like Carlos Correa, Gerrit Cole and Justin Verlander went on to sign long-term deals elsewhere, being able to develop young players like Kyle Tucker, Yordan Alvarez into All-Stars while also keeping franchise cornerstones like Jose Altuve in Houston is crucial.
The Astros have another decision to make as far as the future of their roster with long-time third baseman Alex Bregman currently a free agent. Brown, as well as Altuve, have expressed their desire to keep Bregman in H-Town for the remainder of his career. But free agency always opens the door to change. And if Bregman decides to find greener pastures, Houston will have to again pivot.
What may be the biggest key for the Astros as they look to continue their sustained success is their starting rotation. In their trips to the LCS and World Series, power arms like Cole, Verlander and Lance McCullers Jr. were mainstays. Now, they hope the growth from young arms like Hunter Brown and Ronel Blanco, who both made a huge leap in 2024, as well as Spencer Arrighetti continue to become the team’s rotation of the future. Southpaw Framber Valdez has shown he has the ability to be the staff’s ace and continues to be one of the AL’s best starters.
“You have to have pitching to win,” Brown said. “And I think we have really good pitching coaches, Josh Miller and Bill Murphy. Those two guys do such a good job of taking guys that we signed for low dollars or guys like Arrighetti and Brown who weren’t high picks, and they continue to turn out really good pitchers.
“Once you have a lot of pitching, it gives you a chance to get to the postseason. It gives you a chance to go deep in the postseason and it also gives you that chance every year to feel good about the club. Now you have to hit as well, but when you pitch and are in every game, we got a chance to win.”
This offseason looms large for Houston, particularly its decision on Bregman, a key member of the organization’s success. If Astros owner Jim Crane has shown anything, especially over the past several years when he has taken a bigger role in baseball operations, it’s that he wants to win. And when one door closes, he’s going to make sure that his franchise can open another.
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