Yordan's, Mine's and Ours

 

The best way I can describe the Astros this year is that they are a team where the two most important players are a 24 year old and a 39 year old. 

The 24-year old is Jeremy Pena, shortstop of the future, playing excellent defense and beginning to get his bat up to par. The 39-year old is Justin Verlander, who's been stellar through 3 starts, has a 1.89 ERA and is looking very much like his old self. The team's future, baseball's past, both exceeding limits at the same time.

Now...where does that leave the actual Astros here, the remnants of the playoff squads? Well it...kinda doesn't.

The majority of the once-ironclad rotations has given way to a homegrown, young base for it, and only Framber Valdez is really excelling from that. You have people like Jake Odorizzi, Luis Garcia and Jose Urquidy doing alright, but not excellent. Ryan Pressly's injured so you have middle relief guys like Ryne Stanek trying to take the ninth. 

And then the only real stars of the playoff squads that are still doing well at the plate right now are Yordan Alvarez, Michael Brantley and Alex Bregman. Bregman has 12 RBIs, Brantley's hitting .303 with 20 hits, Alvarez has 4 homers. And then you look over at Jose Altuve, Kyle Tucker, Martin Maldonado, Jose Siri and Yuli Gurriel and...nothing's really happening at the plate. I mean, Maldonado and Gurriel are entering their late 30s, but so is Brantley and he's still playing really well. Altuve not only isn't hitting, but is injured, leaving this team without a proper leadership piece. And most of the bench, with the exception of Chas McCormick, isn't doing much to help.

I'm not gonna say this is the end of the dynasty, because I've tried that and this team always comes back no matter how much you want them to be gone. But this .500 ratio after 3 weeks of play isn't...the most promising. The Mariners are killing it, the Angels are reaching their potential, even the A's are higher in the standings. They did sneak out a nice win today, but are the Astros at the point where they can take games away from competitive teams anymore? 

I'll have to see how things look after another month or so of play, but...this is not a great look for a team trying to be a dynasty.

Coming Tomorrow- In a rotation of some excellent contracted arms, this guy might be the ace.