The dust is still settling on the Astros’ seventh straight run to the American League Championship Series, and unfortunately it as their third unsuccessful ALCS run. In retrospect, as painful as it is to acknowledge, the Texas Rangers were the better team. Their frontline starting pitchers, Nathan Eovaldi and Jordan Montgomery, were better than the Astros’ frontline guys, and their lineup, one through nine, was better than the Astros’ lineup.
Offensively, the Astros were basically playing five against nine. Too many guys just didn’t hit. Some of them hadn’t really hit all season, and at least one, Kyle Tucker, was a catalyst for another AL West crown, but could not get out of first gear in the ALCS.
The title window for the Astros remains open, but they are going to need a few players to reclaim their form from 2022. It’s not negotiable. The team doesn’t have the space below the luxury tax threshold to spend their way back to prominence. The improvement must come from within, so with that in mind, here are the four players who need some serious soul searching this offseason:
FRAMBER VALDEZ
Things were going just fine for Valdez during the first half of the season. Into early July, he was the favorite to start the All Star Game for the American League. Then Valdez embarked on one of the stranger second halves of a season in recent memory. A guy who was a quality start machine in 2022, had a 4.66 ERA during the second half of the season. He sandwiched a no hitter in between two starts where he gave up six earned runs in EACH start. Valdez has always been a bundle of emotions on the mound. He’s controlled things better in recent years. However, this team needs better than 12-11 with a 3.45 ERA from him next season.
CRISTIAN JAVIER
The other non-Verlander starter who was a fixture in 2022 was Javier, who was so good in the second half and postseason in 2022 that the team gave him a five-year, $65 million contract this past offseason. Like Valdez, Javier was abysmal for most of the summer, with a 6.20 ERA after June 21. Amazingly enough, Javier straightened things out for two winning starts in the ALDS and ALCS, until starting Game 7 at Minute Maid Park and lasted one third of an inning.
KYLE TUCKER
Look, Tucker is a great player. He is going to be fine. He will likely finish among the top three vote getters for AL Most Valuable Player for the regular season. That said, his defense was below average during the regular season after wining a Gold Glove in 2022. (Don’t tell me about him being a finalist for the Gold Glove in 2023, that was a reputation nomination.) More critically, Tucker was a mess in the postseason, with a.115 batting average and a .517 OPS, and no home runs. If Tucker wants the big contract he is presumably looking for, the Astros are a team that pays for Octobers, and Tucker had a wretched one.
JEREMY PENA
It’s crazy to think that Pena went from ALCS MVP and World Series MVP as a rookie in 2022 to someone who was getting pinch hit for in the late innings of Game 5 and Game 6 because he couldn’t hit his way out of a wet paper bag in the postseason. Pena will always be a high level defensive player, so he is likely the shortstop for this team for at least the next few seasons, but offensively, he was a major disappointment in 2023, with a .705 OPS and no home runs after July 5.
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This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2023.
