This is the final part of the four-part series where the Crawfish Boxes staff makes predictions for the 2024 season. Since 2019, we have run this series every year, and every contributor has predicted a first-place AL West. We have a perfect record so far, and hopefully, the good luck charm will hold at least one more time. Here goes:
Theo
Nothing lasts forever, and between a 2023 regular season that often felt stuck in neutral and the frustrating end to the playoffs, it’s not hard to see why some people might be pessimistic about the 2024 Astros’s chances. That being said, for as disappointing as last year might have felt in the moment, it was still a 90-win campaign that saw the Astros fall just one win short of their fifth pennant of the Jim Crane era. And pulling the scope back a little, the Astros are coming off their sixth AL West title and seventh ALCS appearances in seven years, with plenty of reasons to be optimistic that 2024 can continue both of those runs.
It helps that there are some obvious areas for improvement, low-hanging fruit that the 2024 squad can take care of to stave off regression concerns. Some of it is just general trends from 2023 that will hopefully reverse on their own (their oddly poor performance at home; falling short of their expected W-L). But there are also some specific areas that you can point to: Yainer Diaz taking over for Martin Maldonado, 70 more games of Jose Altuve, 50 more games of Yordan Alvarez, 50 more games of Chas McCormick, a full(ish, once he gets back from his injury) season of Justin Verlander in the rotation, partial seasons from Luis Garcia and Lance McCullers Jr. once they recover from their injuries (hopefully)… Even a small Jose Abreu rebound could help out at the margins (Fangraphs projects him at just 1.2 WAR, which by itself would be a nearly-2 Win improvement from 2023).
Even the areas of potential regression seem to have answers. Josh Hader should help to offset the bullpen’s losses, and Dana Brown and the front office made some interesting pickups to help here as well. I’m a little worried about Mauricio Dubon regressing, but right now, he looks like the team’s super sub, and that seems like a good spot for him, even if his bat slides back a little. I think Dusty Baker was a good manager, but he also had his weaknesses, and I think Joe Espada can at least make up the differences in those spots if he doesn’t have Dusty’s intangibles just yet.
That’s not to say there aren’t question marks present or chances to fall short. Abreu isn’t a sure thing to bounce back at first. Non-Abreu injuries might leave the lineup thin unless the bench steps up in the meantime. The rotation is questionable as a whole, and especially so prior to all of those injured arms returning. Framber Valdez, Cristian Javier, Hunter Brown, Jose Urquidy… basically none of them did as well in 2023 as you would like, and the one pitcher who exceeded expectations (J.P. France) is far from a sure thing to repeat. Hopefully, we will see some returns to form here.
I feel comfortable with Framber at the top of the rotation (he still got Cy Young votes last year, after all), but more consistency from him would help out a lot. Everyone after Framber to start the year is shaky at best, which is where those midseason injury returns will come in handy. Hopefully, this crew can hold it together until then, and any laggards can be sent to help out the bullpen as Verlander, Garcia, and McCullers return. And if you want the “glass half full” take on the rotation, it’s that the 2023 team went through a lot of these same issues without the hope of midseason returns, and that version of the team still won 90 games. Any extra stability at all this year would feel like an improvement over that.
Projection: 94-68, first in the AL West
Bold Prediction: No one else is using this category, I’m just doing it as superstition. I was looking back at my past predictions, and I have a pretty strong track record when I specifically label them as bold predictions (I said the 2019 Astros would be the first team in a decade to score 900 runs; I said the 2020 rotation wouldn’t miss Gerrit Cole; no “bold prediction” category in 2021 so I didn’t make one, but I said Justin Verlander would continue his Cy Young pace in 2022; I said Kyle Tucker would get the most MVP votes on the 2023 roster). It’s probably dumb luck, and most of them didn’t come true exactly how I envisioned, but either way, I’m sticking with it until it doesn’t work. So let’s go with… Hunter Brown establishes himself as a solid starter. Not necessarily a “good enough to get Cy Young votes” kind of starter, but a “good enough to make the All-Star Reserves” one.
X-Factor: I didn’t want to make Cristian Javier the bold prediction since that didn’t seem bold enough, but Javier returning to his 2022 form would be huge for this team. The rotation isn’t short on question marks, but Javier feels like the biggest one; Hunter Brown might become good, but Javier was already pretty good before taking a step back last year. And if Javier comes out of the gate looking more like his 2022 self, it could go a long way in holding the line in the early season until potential reinforcements arrive.
Cody Poage
A lot didn’t go according to plan for the Astros last season, and they still won 90 games. Jose Altuve and Yordan Alvarez missed extensive time on the IL. José Urquidy and Luis García were lost for most of the season. José Abreu was a shell of his past self until an IL stint to rest his ailing back paid some dividends late in the season. The rotation struggled for most of the summer. Jeremy Peña didn’t hit a home run after July 5. That speaks to the base level we should expect from this roster, at least on paper.
Ultimately, most of last season’s roster remains in place, and for good reason. But there were developments to monitor. Yainer Díaz and, to a lesser extent, Victor Caratini ought to make the lineup more dynamic from the catcher position. Josh Hader makes the backend of the bullpen the best in baseball. Jake Meyers has breakout potential. Will Chas McCormick hit right-handed pitchers just as well as he did in 2023?
It is now Joe Espada’s job to extract as much value as possible and I hope he looks to optimize value on the margins. For as much good as Dusty Baker did in his tenure, the Astros didn’t prioritize that part of roster building or playing time distribution as hoped for. Accounting for that along with hopefully some regression, 95 wins certainly feels possible in 2024.
Prediction: 95-67, first in AL West
X-Factor: The starting rotation. Although the lineup had its fair share of issues, especially earlier in the season, the rotation’s struggles were more influential. From June 15 through the end of the season, only seven teams received less value from starting pitchers than Houston. Framber Valdez’s and Cristian Javier’s struggles were arguably the primary cause why the Astros didn’t advance to a third consecutive World Series. Hunter Brown has to take a step or two forward in his development. Can Justin Verlander fend off Father Time for one more season? Questions abound for this rotation, although there are reasons to hope once reinforcements possibly arrive. But the rotation will be in fair shape to start the season if Valdez and Javier can rebound to something similar to their 2022 forms.