2021 ZiPS Projections: Houston Astros

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for nine years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Houston Astros.

Batters

If you want a reason why the Houston Astros are still a dangerous team and were just a game away from making the 2020 World Series despite a losing record in the regular season, look no further than the Big Numbers in the lineup. The Astros have a lot in common with their 2019 World Series opponents, the Washington Nationals, in that they’re both teams that have been serious contenders for a numbers of years, have some extremely talented young superstars, and are suffering depth issues due to veteran attrition. Even with the loss (as of now) of Michael Brantley and George Springer, there are still a lot of highlights on the club. And the weak points of the lineup are glaringly obvious.

One of those is left field, which is a good reminder that our Depth Charts today will not be the same as they are three months from now. I would be extremely surprised if Houston started the season with Chas McCormick and/or Ronnie Dawson in left. McCormick projects better than Dawson does, but as long as the team’s still trying to contend in 2021, this is definitely a Too Soon thing. It would be a little odd to give McCormick time playing time so quickly after Kyle Tucker had to fight for years for an extended shot! Nor am I convinced that Myles Straw actually ends up the starter in center next season, though it’s more plausible than the current situation in left.

ZiPS has been all-in on Tucker for a while, so his .268/.325/.512, 125 wRC+, 1.6 WAR 2020 performance in 58 games certainly wasn’t going to make ZiPS pessimistic. We’re already almost halfway through ZiPS Season (the Astros are the 14th team) and Tucker’s rest-of-career WAR currently stands second among right fielders, behind only Mookie Betts and ahead of Aaron Judge, Michael Conforto, and Trent Grisham (in that order). Of the teams that haven’t gone yet, only two remaining right fielders had better rest-of-career projections at this time last year, and both of them have dipped below Tucker since. Even if you still consider Christian Yelich a right fielder for the sake of discussion, he had an extremely disappointing 2020 and as he’s significantly older than Tucker, every year knocks off a greater percentage of his remaining career. And while there are many reasons to be excited about Jo Adell, his 2020 was one of the most miserable debuts I can remember for a legitimate elite prospect. But more on him when the Angels go.

I love watching Yordan Alvarez when he turns on a pitch, but I’m slightly more worried about him than ZiPS, which clearly isn’t too troubled by his largely missed season. But 2019 was a huge step forward for Alvarez and I think there’s some risk in losing what ought to have been a consolidation year for him. I think he’ll still be awesome, but that concern is floating there in the periphery of my brain. Still, even getting Alvarez back at not-quite-this-projection will help mitigate the losses of Brantley and Springer, assuming that the Astros don’t have big plans to replace them.

Alex Bregman’s top comp is a player that you rarely hear talked about these days: Jim Ray Hart. The story of the 1960s Giants tends to revolve around Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, and Juan Marichal, and for obvious reasons. But during Hart’s prime years, from about 1964 to 1968, he was a key member of the lineup, good enough to finish in the top 20 in the majors in WAR among position players over that time period, a fraction of a win behind McCovey. A bad shoulder and struggles with alcoholism ended Hart’s run as a star well before he turned 30. He’ll probably be someone I feature in a future ZiPS Time Warp, but he’s an interesting and overlooked player in baseball history.

There’s a lot to like here, but the Astros have a tremendous amount of downside. Some bad injury luck to a star or two, and the depth chart thins out really fast.

Pitchers

It’s a testament to the skills of Houston’s front office that the pitching staff wasn’t a complete wreck in 2020 after losing both Gerrit Cole and Justin Verlander. Of the nine pitchers to have a two-WAR season for the Astros from 2015, the year of their emergence, through 2019, only one, Lance McCullers Jr., will pitch for the team in 2021. That’s a lot of talent to replace under the best of circumstances. Picking up Zack Greinke without giving up any of the organization’s crown jewels was a real coup, but he can’t do it single-handedly.

ZiPS is very optimistic about McCullers and is a believer in Framber Valdez after his breakout 2020, so that at least gives the Astros three starting pitchers they can count on entering next season, which is arguably two more than they were able to last spring. Cristian Javier was effective in 2020, but his peripherals didn’t match his ERA. And ZiPS shares some of Steamer’s pessimism about Jose Urquidy, as even over a handful of starts, losing more than a third of your strikeouts is a pretty significant issue. Personally, I’m more optimistic.

Yes, there’s a Justin Verlander projection. I know he’s out for the season, but you’ve read the disclaimer on these ZiPS posts, haven’t you? If not, I’m legally entitled to eat anything I want directly out of your fridge. Losing a second consecutive season to injury may very well keep Verlander below 250 career wins; if you had told me that in December of 2019, I would have scoffed. The good news for Verlander is that he has the postseason highlights to bolster his Hall of Fame-worthy regular season performance; he’s 27th all-time in career WAR among pitchers, and I doubt he’ll have trouble getting past the Hall electors when the time comes. I ought to have my ballot then and I will be checking his box!

Both the bullpen and rotation really need depth added to them this offseason, as 2020 made it crystal-clear that the Astros don’t have any remaining margin of error over the A’s in the AL West. I think the bullpen needs at least two quality arms, while in rotation, at least one pitcher who can eat 180 league-averageish innings is the bare minimum the team ought to pursue.

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here

Players are listed with their most recent teams wherever possible. This includes players who are unsigned, players who will miss 2021 due to injury, and players who were released in 2020. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in August to form a Finnish industrial death metal fourth-wave ska J-pop band, he’s still listed here intentionally.

Both hitters and pitchers are ranked by projected zWAR, which is to say, WAR values as calculated by me, Dan Szymborski, whose surname is spelled with a z. WAR values might differ slightly from those which appear in the full release of ZiPS. Finally, I will advise anyone against — and might karate chop anyone guilty of — merely adding up WAR totals on a depth chart to produce projected team WAR. ZiPS is assuming that the designated hitter will continue in force in 2021; if it does not, there will be widespread minor adjustments across the board come April.

ZiPS is agnostic about future playing time by design. For more information about ZiPS, please refer to this article, or get angry at Dan on Twitter or something.