Opening Day 2022: Houston Astros Three Biggest Strengths

Opening Day is upon us. A year we weren’t sure was going to be played in full, if it even happened at all, is now about to begin and the Houston Astros are set to embark on their 61st season as a franchise.

The Astros are still the American League West favorites heading into the 2022 season.

The biggest question facing the Astros this off-season was answered as Carlos Correa, one of the best and most clutch performers in franchise history, made a stunning choice to sign with the Minnesota Twins.

It is undoubtedly a big loss and arguably the biggest loss of all their recent franchise departures — George Springer, Gerrit Cole, Dallas Keuchel, Charlie Morton, etc. — considering not just Correa’s talent but his impact on the clubhouse.

The plus side is that after two years of missing future hall of fame ace Justin Verlander, the Astros re-signed him and he has looked every bit himself. He didn’t yield a run until his final inning of Spring Training against the Washington Nationals when he gave a up a bases loaded single with no outs that scored two runs.

He then proceeded to strike out one of the best hitters in the game in Juan Soto, got ageless wonder and power threat Nelson Cruz to fly out and then struck out power hitter Josh Bell. Verlander leaves spring training with a 1.32 ERA, 1.10 WHIP and 15 strikeouts vs. four walks in 13.2 innings pitched. You can’t ask for much more than that.

So now that we know that the roster for the 2022 season is set, let’s look at what the biggest strengths for the team are heading into the year.

The Astros offense is once again one of the best in the majors.

It comes as no surprise that the calling card of the most successful stretch in Astros history is once again their biggest strength. Even despite the loss of Correa, the Astros return Jose Altuve, Yordan Alvarez, Kyle Tucker, Michael Brantley, reigning batting champion Yuli Gurriel and most importantly a healthy Alex Bregman.

Bregman suffered from soft tissue issues and an injured wrist last year that really hampered his production. After a wrist surgery and an adjustment to the aggressiveness of his running game, he could be due for a huge bounce back year.

Gurriel, the reigning batting champ, picked up where he left off and then some. He was red hot this spring hitting .421 with three homers in just 21 plate appearances. He projects to be the Astros five hole hitter and looks like he’ll be just fine despite entering his age 38 season.

On the flip side the Astros youth movement in Yordan Alvarez and Kyle Tucker are looking to get even better, if that’s possible. Tucker will now move from the six hole to the two spot in the batting order. It will be interesting to see if it affects his production in any way.

After May 1, he led the American League in batting average (.320), slugging percentage (.600), OBP (.387) and OPS (.986) and his poor April was largely due to hitting into bad luck.

If he and Yordan take steps forward in their game there should be little to no drop-off, even with the absence of Correa.

The Astros bullpen returns almost completely in tact.

While the team lost primary set-up man Kendall Graveman and lefty specialist Brooks Raley, the bullpen that rescued them in the 2021 playoffs otherwise returns in tact. They also added Hector Neris to fill the void left by Kendall Graveman so the drop-off talent wise is quite small.

The Astros bullpen was absolutely outstanding in the 2021 post season and you could argue they were just as much the 2021 ALCS MVP as Yordan Alvarez was. In a series where the relievers threw 32.2 innings to cover for the starters who threw a total of 20.1 innings — eight of which came in Framber Valdez’ game five starts.

It’s great to see that the combo of Ryan Pressly, Ryne Stanek, Phil Maton and Cristian Javier will once again be protecting leads alongside the new addition of Neris.

It will be interesting to see what happens if Jake Odorizzi falters and the Astros have to contemplate putting Javier into the rotation where they’ve said they see him long term. But for now Javier is the multi-inning reliever with Maton being the sixth inning guy who can match up with lefties and then Pressly closing it out with Stanek and Neris being the bridge to him.

Overall this solid bullpen will be a huge help considering starters are not fully stretched out so the more reliable one to two inning arms you have in the bullpen the better for this season that got off to a late start.  The teams that have less trustworthy bullpens will most likely struggle, at least early on in the year, due to starters being on innings restrictions.