The 2023 Houston Astros lost in the American League Championship Series (ALCS) which ended a very disappointing season with a lot of questions that needed to be answered.
These questions were half-heartedly answered with the very few moves that the owner of the Astros Jim Crane and general manager Dana Brown made.
The Astros former manager Dusty Baker retired and stepped down from his position and then the Astros moved Joe Espada who was the bench coach at the time to manager.
In my opinion this was the Astros best move all off season getting rid of an old manager who did not want to stray away from his old school baseball ways.
Plus hiring someone who has been in the Astros systems for six years and is willing to put the best players forward and can adapt to a changing league.
The Astros start to lose me with their free agent signings and their trades except for one.
The then Astros signed the greatest Astro of all time to a lifetime deal that is worth $125 million and goes until he is 39 years old.
After this move the Astros begin to fall off.
The Astros didn’t resign one of the better relivers in Major League Baseball (MLB) Hector Neris.
Instead, they chose to sign Josh Hader for five years $95 million which isn’t that bad, but relief pitchers have such up and down years.
I don’t understand why get rid of a proven guy like Neris who’s cheaper for another guy who has had multiple poor seasons but one recently good one.
Casual fans think we now have the best bullpen in baseball, but we already had the best with Bryan Abreu, Neris and Ryan Pressley.
We spent $95 million on a closer but couldn’t go out and get a better center fielder or pay Alex Bregman a lifelong contract? Weird.
But the Houston Astros golden era of baseball is nowhere near being close to over.
The Astros got rid of 37-year-old starting catcher Martin Maldonado who’s batting average was .191 hit 16 homeruns in 116 games last year.
The Astros then made 25-year-old Yainer Diaz the everyday starting catcher whose average was .289 and hit 23 homeruns in only 104 games in his first full major league season.
As well as a dwindling American League West division with the alleged similar gambler like me Shohei Ohtani leaving the Los Angeles Angels.
Oakland is also trash and hold no weight in the division but the fraudulent Texas Rangers who won on a fluke season will be nowhere close to being as good as they were last year.
Lastly Altuve will play a full season and both Bregman and Kyle Tucker will be playing for a contract and this team is hungry to get back to a third World Series win.
My prediction is the Houston Astros will return to the World Series and be 3x champions.
