2023 ZiPS Projections: Houston Astros

For the 18th consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Houston Astros.

Batters

The top of Houston’s lineup is dominated by four stars, all of whom could be one of the top three players at their position in any given season. Yordan Alvarez has been ZiPS’ favorite young slugger for a long time, and it’s definitely not seeing anything to make it question its algorithmic stance. Similarly, the system has always been in the Kyle Tucker fan club. Alex Bregman‘s peak was probably in 2018 and ’19, but he remains an elite third baseman, which isn’t easy given the quality at that position right now. We can also be even more confident now that Jose Altuve’s 2020 season was a blip we don’t have to worry too much about. And while he’s entering the downside of his career, he’s starting from a really high point. He bumped his 3,000-hit probability up from 34% to 46% in a single season, and that’s a milestone that’s hard to sneak up on by the back door.

Outside of the stars, there’s a lot of good average to above-average production here. José Abreu’s improved plate discipline helped him survive aging and the juiceless baseballs more than quite a few aging sluggers around baseball this season, buying him another few years in the middle class of first basemen. Michael Brantley is adequate, though always a health risk, and Jeremy Peña is a real plus in the lineup even if he’s not replacing the production of the departed Carlos Correa. Even the center field combination looks to be somewhere around average. The only exception in the projections is Martín Maldonado, but given how good the offense is otherwise and how happy they are with how Maldonado handles pitchers, the Astros appear more or less content with him right now. Houston was third in the American League in runs scored even while getting very little from their catchers or first basemen this season.

Houston’s lineup should remain one of the highest-scoring in baseball in 2023. Still, it’s a welcome respite that the team didn’t have to absorb the loss of a key position player cog this offseason; that the Astros survived losing Correa and George Springer doesn’t mean it’s ideal!

Pitchers

Every team has this idea that they’ll get a bunch of players with impressive raw physical tools, teach them some pitches and better command, and watch those guys magically turn into valuable pitchers. It’s the baseball equivalent of getting the rowing machine because this is the year you’re going to build some rock-hard abs. But the Astros actually succeed at doing this (the pitching part – I’m not sure about the abs). You could practically build an All-Star team out of the pitchers who have departed Houston in free agency over the last five or six years, and yet they’ve managed to absorb these losses in-house with almost no drama.

If ZiPS has a worry in the rotation, it’s not really the run prevention. The system projects a fantastic 11 pitchers on the roster who could realistically have an ERA+ of at least 90, with the majority above 100. I think the problem, if we’re trying to find one, is how Houston gets the innings out of all of them. The rotation was quite healthy last year and the innings they got out of Framber Valdez, José Urquidy, and Luis Garcia are probably at or near as many as the team is likely to wring from them in any given year. Justin Verlander was an innings-eater when healthy, and even a declining Zack Greinke was able to chow down a good number in 2021 when Verlander was out. Lance McCullers Jr. has a significant injury history, and I’d just feel better, even as someone who likes Hunter Brown, if they had a Jake Odorizzi type on-hand in a swing role. Luckily, that’s not the hardest thing to get. The Astros don’t really need that much, and that this is even a complaint indicates just how deep this team remains.

The bullpen is very good, but the system sees it just below the elites of the league. ZiPS is really not crazy about the very back of the ‘pen — guys like Seth Martinez and Blake Taylor — and it would be nice to see the team make another low-key addition or two here. Again, I wouldn’t expect anything major, and in any case, most of the top relievers are already off the market.

As of right now, ZiPS projects the Astros as the second-best team in baseball, just a hair behind the Atlanta Braves. There’s still a lot of offseason to go, but I’d be surprised to see that change much. Houston didn’t enter the winter needing to reinvent the team, just do some maintenance around a roster that won the World Series.

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 or have retired, players who will miss 2023 due to injury, and players who were released in 2022. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in August to form a Norwegian Death Dixieland Bubblegum Ska-Funk band, he’s still listed here intentionally. ZiPS is assuming a league with an ERA of 4.22, above 2022’s level of offense but lower than other years. Pitchers who appear to have a fairly definite change in the majors from start-to-relief or vice-versa from these projections will receive reconfigured updates in the spring.

Hitters are ranked by 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 that 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.

As always, incorrect projections are either caused by flaws in the physical reality of the universe or by skillful sabotage of our friend and former editor. You can, however, still get mad at me on Twitter.