The Astros Have Gotten Themselves Back in It

No matter where you get your information, the Houston Astros entered the season as consensus favorites to win the American League West. Our preseason projections gave them a better than 50% chance to take the division. Forty-six of 55 FanGraphs staff members chose them to win the division. In case you think a pro-Astros bias exists on the site, whether being informed by our projections or for some other reason, consider also that Baseball Prospectus’ staff liked the Astros, as did the fine folks over at CBS and ESPN.

Y’know what’s a great way to dump a big bucket of cold water on some hot preseason expectations? Start your season 6-15. Do that, and you’ll drop your preseason playoff odds by 37% before the end of April and get FanGraphs to write an article saying you’re already in trouble. Another way: start your season 17-28. Do that, and you’ll drop your playoff odds to a season-worst 18% and get Sports Illustrated to write an article wondering if you’re already done. By that point, it was totally reasonable to have written the Astros off, May and all.

Except, y’know what’s a great way to fire those preseason expectations right back up? Win 23 of your next 31, including seven in a row near the end of June. Do that, and you’ll get your get your record back over .500, leapfrog the Mariners in the standings, get your playoff odds back to being a coin flip and get this very article written about you: the Astros have gotten themselves back in it.

As things stand right now, the Astros possess a 46% chance to make the postseason, based on our projections. That’s better than twice the odds currently being given to the Mariners, and better than three times the Royals’ odds. They’re currently just outside the top six in the American League, and essentially indiscernible from the Blue Jays, who currently project to be the final playoff team.

The roster still looks like a great one: their projected rest-of-season winning percentage of .540 is topped in the American League only by the Red Sox (.549) and Indians (.545). The roster always looked good; it was just the hole got dug so deep, it began to look insurmountable. The Astros have pulled themselves out of that hole.

So how have they done it? Of course, some players that underperformed early have overperformed as of late. A couple guys either returned for the first time this season, or as a better version of their previous self. There’s been some help around them. And a couple of the bright spots continued to shine. Let’s expand on all that.

Jose Altuve still looks like an MVP candidate.

The brightest spot that’s continued to shine, Jose Altuve is second only to Mike Trout in WAR, second only to David Ortiz in wRC+, and has elevated his game to a new level since the Astros hit their season-low playoff odds percentage a little more than a month ago on May 23. Altuve’s been one of the five most valuable position players in baseball over the last calendar year, and with his newfound power, truly looks like one of the game’s best players, the type of guy who can help carry a team, so far as individual baseball players can carry teams.

Carlos Gomez appears to be healthy again.

When Jeff Sullivan posited the Astros might be in trouble near the end of April, the one hitter he singled out was Carlos Gomez, who was whiffing, no longer walking, and hitting the ball without any authority. Frankly, he looked like he was playing hurt after ending the 2015 season hurt, and lo and behold, he hit the disabled list with an injury to his side just a couple weeks after that post. He returned May 31, and has posted mostly vintage Gomez numbers since:

He’s cut down on his swings and more than doubled his walk rate. The power’s come back nearly threefold. More of his batted balls are coming off the bat with authority, and he’s back to pulling the ball, which has always been where he’s done his damage. Granted, the whiffs are still higher than his previously established levels, and you’d still like to see the overall exit velocity come up, but the production’s been there, and at the very least, Gomez no longer looks broken.

Carlos Correa adjusted back.

In Tom Verducci’s SI piece cited above, he notes that the league had adjusted to reigning Rookie of the Year Carlos Correa, including a comment from manager AJ Hinch to the effect that Correa was being exposed on the inner half of the plate.

What follows is Correa’s run-value heat map, with pre-May 23 Correa (105 wRC+) on the left, and post-May 23 Correa (151 wRC+) on the right:

The blue on the inner half has disappeared. Surely, Correa’s return to form goes deeper than that, but it was the one weakness his manager chose to point out, and since that day, it’s been a weakness no more.

Ken Giles and Luke Gregerson turned it around.

Much was made of the back end of Houston’s bullpen to start the year. Since that May 23 low point, though, Ken Giles has returned to form with a 2.11 FIP and 2.61 xFIP almost exactly in line with his career numbers. Over the last month, Luke Gregerson has a top-five strikeout rate, K-BB% and xFIP among all relievers. The Astros’ bullpen has been arguably the best in baseball despite Giles and Gregerson’s early season struggles, and their two biggest names now appear to be back.

The Mariners collapsed and the Rangers hit the DL.

Coinciding with the Astros’ rise was the fall of the Mariners, who have lost 22 of their last 33 in the same time the Astros won 23 of 31, dropping their playoff odds from 71% to just 19%. And while the Rangers are still heavy favorites to win the division, injuries to Yu Darvish, Colby Lewis and Derek Holland have significantly weakened their rotation, lightening the workload for the Astros the rest of the way.

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The Astros still have work to do. Parity continues to run deep in the American League, with all but the Rays, Twins, Angels and A’s still fighting for playoff contention. Dallas Keuchel continues to struggle, and while Doug Fister and Lance McCullers have been spectacular lately, the Astros lack an ace with Keuchel still AWOL. They’ve received replacement-level production from first base all year, and the pressure is now on rookie A.J. Reed to perform. Those issues aside, things couldn’t have gone much better for Houston over the last month. For a team that was being written off as dead by the middle of May, the preseason favorites in the AL West suddenly look alive and well.