Can the Astros win a World Series with their current bullpen?

As we near the halfway point of the season, there have been some great moments and developments for our Houston Astros.  There’s been some good roster surprises (Luis Garcia, Ryne Stanek and Chas McCormick), some big wins against rivals on the road, and an electric star-studded batting lineup that is currently the best in baseball.

While fans often need to enjoy the journey of each season, the end goal for this team this year is a lofty one: win another World Series. There is more pressure on this franchise to win than ever before, with key players like Jose Altuve, Zack Greinke and Michael Brantley getting older, Carlos Correa potentially in his last season with Houston, and an owner that seems squeamish to go above a luxury tax.

The Astros are currently a top 10team in the league with the #1 offense in baseball, so it’s fair to say they have as good of a chance as any contender to win the World Series. However, the 2021 Astros team has a fatal flaw – the bullpen. As it stands the Astros bullpen ranks 24th in ERA and 20th in WHIP and are tied with the Arizona Diamondbacks for having the most blown leads. No lead seems safe with this bullpen.

So the question is (assuming no major changes occur): Can the Houston Astros win it all with a subpar bullpen? Conventional wisdom would tell us no. The old sports adage of “defense wins championships” tend to play out more times than not. But is it always the case? To get an answer, let’s examine the team profiles of recent World Series champions.

How Did the Recent Champions Pull It Off?

If we look at World Series champions over the last six years, we generally see good late inning pitching. Last year, the LA Dodgers were the #1 team in both ERA and WHIP when the game went in the seventh inning or later. That bullpen was deep and experienced – Kenley Jansen, Brusdar Graterol, Blake Treinen, Pedro Baez, Julio Urias – and seemed to play even better in the 2020 postseason.

The 2018 Boston Red Sox may have not had the “best” bullpen in baseball, but they were still pretty darn elite. Their bullpen – led by Craig Kimbrel, Matt Barnes and Astro-hater Joe Kelly – were 8th in ERA and 11th in WHIP in the last three innings during that 2018 campaign.

The 2016 Chicago Cubs, the team that broke the 100-year-curse of that distinguished franchise, also pitched very well in late game situations – ranking 7th in ERA and 6th in WHIP. The 2015 Kansas City Royals, who rode a veteran and dominant bullpen to their first title since the 80s, ended up being 3rd in late inning ERA and 5th in WHIP.

Most of these championship teams had deep bullpens that could shut down offenses late in games. That doesn’t exactly bode well for this year’s Houston Astros, who’s current rank 22nd in late inning ERA and 24th in WHIP. However, there are two recent champions that upon reflection should give the Astros some hope. We fans know these two teams very well: the 2017 Houston Astros and the 2019 Washington Nationals.

We have seen it first hand.

The other case study is a very interesting one. 2019 Washington Nationals ended up winning the World Series despite having historically bad bullpen. The Nationals had the worst ERA (30th) in the late innings of games and were 26th in WHIP for the 2019 regular season. Neither their four primary bullpen guys (Sean Doolittle, Joe Ross, Daniel Hudson, Wander Seuro) had an ERA under 4.10. At one point of the season their team ERA was almost 8.00.

How did the squad do it? Again, it was offense. The Nats were an elite offensive team that season – finishing 5th in OPS, and 6th in team batting average. The combination of Anthony Rendon, Juan Soto, Trea Turner and Howie Kendrick (along with other solid batters) was a fearsome batting lineup to get through for all pitchers. This potent offense kicked into high gear during the second half of the season and really carried their team through the postseason as they beat the Dodgers, the Cards, and eventually the Astros.

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But it wasn’t just their offense. If you investigate their numbers deeper, you’ll see that their historic bad pitching was weighed down more during the early part of the season, where their pitching staff was mired with injuries and poor play. They picked up their performance more and more as the season waged on, finishing 10th in late inning ERA and 11th in WHIP for the month of September.

The other half of this story was the elite starting pitching with Stephen Strasburg and Max Scherzer, both perhaps playing their best baseball of their career in those final months of the season through the playoffs. Strasburg finished 5-0 and World Series MVP, whereas Scherzer was 3-0 and just dominant in key games throughout the playoffs. And again, with a shortened rotation, Washington was able to use Patrick Corbin as a starter and a relief pitcher which took pressure off their weak bullpen.

So, what does this tell us?

If you want to win a World Series, you generally must have elite late inning pitching – unless you have the best offense in baseball and a top-heavy starting pitching rotation.

Houston certainly has the offense for the task – this year’s Astros is again the best offense in baseball, ranking 1st in OPS, 1st in batting average, 11th in walks, 6th in slugging, and have the fewest strikeouts of any team in baseball. What might be lacking is the elite Cy Young-level top rotation starters. Yes – Zach Greinke is a Hall-of-Famer, and we think the world of Framber Valdez and Lance McCullers, but the top of the rotation just doesn’t have the sheer dominance compared to the 2019 Nats or even the 2017 Astros.

Better depth in the bullpen will be needed if Houston plans to make a deep run at a title.  The return of a both Pedro Baez and Josh James, along with potential trade deadline moves for another arm might be enough to shift this Astros bullpen from being subpar to… just par.

And with this amazing offensive lineup, perhaps that will be enough.