ESNY’s MLB Preview 2025: The official end of the Houston Astros

For the first time since the start of this Houston Astros “dynasty,” if you will, the AL West is wide open.

Not that it was a particularly competitive division to begin with, after all. Houston only won the AL West last year because the Seattle Mariners coughed up first place in August, and that’s all she wrote. The Angels are throwing everything at the wall, perhaps even cigarette butts from Angel Stadium’s parking lot, to see if anything sticks.

The A’s are rebuilding without an official home city, and the Texas Rangers were a Wild Card team when they won the World Series in 2023.

Now, in 2025, it’s more likely that the Astros’ reign at the top is over. The division hasn’t changed much, but most teams have revamped and reloaded. The rosters are different. A shift is coming.

This isn’t to say the Astros aren’t a playoff team, but they’re far from a shoe-in for first place.

Greatest Addition: Christian Walker. How do you undo the colossal mistake that was signing aging first baseman Jose Abreu? Sign yet another aging first baseman in Christian Walker. The difference is that unlike Abreu, the soon-to-be-34-year-old Walker only recently became a reliable power bat. Oh, and being the best defensive first baseman in baseball helps.

Walker joined the Astros on a three-year, $60 million deal in December and has slugged 96 home runs in the last three seasons. He easily would have had a third consecutive 30-homer campaign in 2024 had he not missed a month with an injured oblique. His career defensive runs saved (DRS) and fielding run value (FRV) are identical at an excellent +43.

Walker’s age makes $20 million a year sound expensive for him, and it is. Except on top of just being a late bloomer, he’s now moving to a more hitter-friendly ballpark. Could Minute Maid Park’s Crawford Boxes lift Christian Walker to, potentially, a 40-homer year? We’ll soon find out.

Greatest Loss: Kyle Tucker. Everyone was surprised in December when the Astros made Tucker available in trade talks. He missed two-and-a-half months with a shin injury last season, but still managed a 180 wRC+ with 23 home runs in 78 games. Tucker also provided reliable defense in right field.

Except Houston saw the writing on the wall; longtime third baseman Alex Bregman wasn’t re-signing. Tucker’s price was getting a bit high. The Astros decided the hole at third was the bigger need, and thus traded Tucker to the Cubs for Isaac Paredes.

Bregman, now with the Red Sox, was a fan favorite, but starting to slow down. Tucker is still at the top of his game, and the Astros’ answer to filling their outfield hole? Simple: move Jose Altuve to left field.

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Greatest Strength: Young pitching. Here we have what could keep the Astros in the playoff race, particularly if the rest of the West struggles. Houston has a knack for developing young arms who do one thing: strike guys out and often. Save for the 2020 and ’21 seasons, the Astros have regularly finished in the top 10 in team strikeouts per nine innings (K/9). Only Justin Verlander being injured kept them from a stronger finish those two years.

But even with Verlander gone to the Giants now, the Astros still have a great new generation of pitchers. Framber Valdez is a left-handed ground ball machine. Hunter Brown only seems to be getting better. Ronel Blanco tossed a no-hitter in his first MLB start last year, and just wait till Luis Garcia’s mix of sinkers, splitters, and sweepers are back from Tommy John.

This new cadre of arms will need help, and lots of it. At the same time, there’s enough talent that they’ll at least keep Houston in the playoff conversation.

Greatest Weakness: Pitching health. That being said, there is a downside to the Astros’ knack for developing arms. Strikeout pitchers often chase velocity and Houston’s are no exception. Unfortunately, this is how someone like ace-heir-in-waiting Cristian Javier gets Tommy John surgery in 2024 and has no return date for ’25. J.P. France is also working his way back from a bum shoulder.

Even with a relatively strong lineup, the Astros need to make run prevention their pitching staff’s priority. That only gets tougher when less and less healthy arms are available.

Oh, and just a reminder. Lance McCullers Jr. is still on the team and hasn’t pitched since the 2022 World Series.

Is this the end of the Houston Astros Era? Never say never, but one thing is certain. This is not the same Houston Astros powerhouse of years past, cheating or no cheating. Seattle already has a great pitching staff and just needs the lineup to gel consistently. The Rangers reloaded their lineup. Even non-contenders like the Angels and Athletics can steal wins at the wrong time.

That leaves the Astros, the once-unstoppable force left to stumbling to a division title and then getting mauled by the Tigers in the Wild Card. They have a brand new lineup, a young rotation, and can’t justify reacquiring Verlander for a third time. DraftKings lists them as the favorites to win the West, but anyone who’s been paying attention knows the truth.

 If the Houston Astros make a deep October run, it’s because the rest of the division didn’t show up.

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