2022 Houston Astros: Grading Each Player’s First Half

Starting Rotation: A

Justin Verlander: A+
Framber Valdez: A+
Cristian Javier: A
Luis Garcia: B
Jake Odorizzi: B-
Jose Urquidy: C+

Death, taxes, and the Houston Astros developing starting pitchers. The fact still rings true this season, but the rotation’s leader is someone they brought in from the outside. Justin Verlander has returned from Tommy John surgery at age 39 to put together a magnificent year, and he currently holds a key stake in the AL Cy Young race. The strikeouts and velocity aren’t what they used to be, but he is still finding new ways to win games on the mound, and he’s sure to get plenty of rest in the 2nd half due to the team’s abundance of big-league-level starters. Verlander’s 1.89 ERA is 2nd in the AL and he has a staggering WHIP of 0.88 in 109 innings this season.

Framber Valdez was the the de-facto #1 in the rotation a year ago, and he has followed it up with a performance that, if he sustains it, would cement him as an undeniable ace. He has already spun 2 complete games this season and he’s one of the few candidates to reach 200 innings. His 2.66 ERA and 3.32 FIP would be career-highs among full seasons, and he has mastered the pitch-to-contact approach: his .331 Statcast xwOBA against on balls in play is one of the best in the Majors. He projects as the long-term leader of this staff if the Astros can keep him around for a while, which they should; he has been one of the best hurlers in baseball in 2022.

Cristian Javier made huge leaps this season as manager Dusty Baker oversaw his transition to being a full-time starter. He was on a historic stretch in late June, striking out 27 batters while allowing just 1 hit across 2 starts, and of course, he led the combined no-hitter the Astros threw on the road against the Yankees. He hasn’t been as stellar to start July, but he has the best strikeout stuff of anyone on the team (112 in 78.1 innings) and he’s sporting a 3.22 ERA so far.

Luis Garcia and his weird delivery are having a good season as well. He hasn’t been an ace at many points this year like the first 3 guys on the list, and he has been slightly worse than last year when he was the runner-up for AL Rookie of the Year. Regardless, he’s still a valuable component of the rotation: a 3.65 ERA is virtually exactly what teams should want out of their 3rd starter. The reason he hasn’t experienced a Valdez or a Javier-like jump is the home run ball, which has gotten to him more than it did last year. However, part of that is poor luck on flyballs. His average exit velocity against has raised less than 1 MPH, and his xERA is down from last year according to Statcast. There’s no need to worry about the lack of year-to-year progress with Garcia: at age 25, he’s already a solid pitcher, and the Astros have shown time and again the ability to help young pitchers reach the next level.

Jake Odorizzi missed all of June on the IL, and a lot of his success has come against weaker offenses, but he has been serviceable nonetheless considering his spot in the rotation. His return from injury coincided with Javier’s dominant stretch, so many Astros fans have wondered whether there’s even a place for him on the team anymore, but if his second half is like his first half, he’ll end up being a decent extra arm to use in the postseason, which is crucial at that time of year. His 3.56 ERA and 3.43 FIP are promising for a back-end-of-the-rotation starter, but his 4.05 Statcast xERA and his 6.8 K/9 indicate that he both gives up a little too much loud contact and doesn’t have good strikeout stuff. He’s also averaging less than 5 innings per start, but if the Astros continue to use him every 6 days and only use him as a reliever in the postseason, his effectiveness will be maximized.

Jose Urquidy brings up the rear on many of this rotation’s stat rankings, which is a good thing in a lot of ways. If your team’s worst starter in terms of ERA had a 4.09, you probably wouldn’t complain either. Like Odorizzi, he has below-average strikeout rates and he has the highest WHIP on the staff at 1.25, meaning he surrenders baserunners a bit more than the team would like. He is also on pace for career-worsts in both results-based and peripheral stats (4.82 xERA, .524 xSLG), but he still deserves credit for limiting walks against and going deeper into games than he has ever been asked (threw at least 95 pitches in his 3 July starts). As well, he finished April with a 5.95 ERA and he has posted an ERA under 4 in each of the months since. He has experience coming out of the bullpen in the postseason from 2019, so if the Astros shelter his role down the stretch in a similar fashion to Odorizzi, he’ll help the staff more than he’ll hurt them.

Bullpen: A+

Ryne Stanek: A+
Rafael Montero: A+
Ryan Pressly: A
Bryan Abreu: A
Seth Martinez: A
Hector Neris: B+
Phil Maton: C+

The Astros might just have the best bullpen in baseball. It leads the majors in ERA (2.66) and is tied for second in FIP (3.21), and it has an embarrassment of riches that make scoring runs late in games against this team a very tall task. Ryne Stanek has been the most impressive of the group, and much has been made about his streak of 23.1 innings without allowing an earned run. In full, he has a 0.57 ERA, or in other words, 2 earned runs all year. His 3.14 FIP and 5.2 BB/9 indicate that he is due to allow a run, but the streak he is put together is absurd nonetheless, and it came out of nowhere. He is having one of the best seasons an Astros reliever has ever had, and has been the best non-closer in the AL.

Not far behind him is Rafael Montero, who they somehow stole from a divisional opponent via trade a year ago. Whenever Ryan Pressly isn’t closing out games, Montero usually is, and for good reason: he has a 1.93 ERA, 2.62 xERA, and 2.28 FIP. Like Stanek, he has allowed just 1 home run on the year, and opponents have managed just a .506 OPS against him. He has been one of the most complete relievers in baseball, and facing him an inning after Stanek is exasperating for opposing hitters.

Ryan Pressly has been reliable as ever at closer, with 16 saves and a 2.89 ERA in his first half, and he entered the all-star break on a franchise-record streak of 27 consecutive batters retired. The theme with this bullpen is home run suppression, and Pressly has allowed just 2 of his own. He is the final part of the three-headed monster at the back end of the Astros’ staff, and with how important a deep bullpen has proven to be in the past few World Series, they are as good a candidate as anybody to ride a hot relief corps to a championship this year.

Bryan Abreu and Seth Martinez haven’t seen as much action, but they have been reliable nonetheless. Abreu, an international signing from 9 years ago, has 13.4 K/9 and an even 3.00 ERA in 28 appearances. He too has allowed just a single home run, and his 31.6% hard hit rate is among the best in baseball. Martinez, a former rule-5 pick, has been used in lower-leverage spots but has delivered a 1.38 ERA and 3.31 FIP in his first full big-league season. These two have done everything that has been asked of them, and are true examples of diamonds in the rough that have paid off in a big way for the Astros.

Hector Neris, signed in free agency, owns a 3.55 ERA so far, and there are differing schools of thought as to whether he has pitched better than that number indicates. He gives up plenty of hard contact as a result of his approach to pound fastballs up in the zone, but on the other hand, he is excellent at controlling the three true outcomes. He has allowed just 2 home runs and pitched to a 2.80 FIP, and his 5.7 H/9 is lower than everyone else’s in the bullpen outside of Martinez and Stanek.

Phil Maton has an identical 3.55 ERA, but that number is sure to increase soon. He has a 5.40 FIP, and somehow has a 4.89 xERA despite his outstanding ability to suppress hard contact. He has also hit 7 batters this year, and is the lone exception to the bullpen’s strength of keeping the ball in the park. He may be the weak link in this bullpen at the moment, but he was reliable during his years in Cleveland, so there’s still time and potential for the Astros to tap into his full range of abilities.

Position Players: B+

Yordan Alvarez: A+
Jose Altuve: A+
Jeremy Pena: A
Kyle Tucker: A-
Alex Bregman: B+
Michael Brantley: B+
Chas McCormick: C
Aledmys Diaz: C
Jose Siri: C-
Yuli Gurriel: C-
Martin Maldonado: D+

The offense got off to a middling start this season, but there wasn’t much concern about it because run scoring was noticeably down league-wide from last season (teams averaged just 4 runs per game in April). Besides, the lineup predictably started clicking as the weeks went on, and there have been a few outstanding hitters on this team of late.

Yordan Alvarez has returned to his rookie-of-the-year form, with an OPS+ of 196. He leads MLB in OPS+ and slugging percentage through his 75 games so far, and while he’s on the IL with a hand injury, he is expected to be activated tomorrow against the Yankees. He has a ludicrous 1.185 OPS against right-handed pitching this year. By those measures (and others), there hasn’t been a better hitter in baseball this year, and he is one of the frontrunners for AL MVP as it stands right now.

As for Jose Altuve, it’s quite impressive that, at age 32, he has been at his most valuable since the mid-2010s. His current OPS+ of 150 would be the 3rd-highest of his career if the season ended today, behind 2017 and 2016, and he’s on pace for a career-high in home runs (37 over a 162-game pace). The fans clearly have his back despite his controversial placement at the forefront of the cheating scandal, as he was deservedly voted to be an All-Star starter. He has arguably been the best second basemen in MLB so far this year.

Jeremy Pena has had an unbelievable rookie season. If it weren’t for Mariners outfielder Julio Rodriguez setting the world on fire, he’d be the clear rookie of the year favorite. He has been a top-tier defensive shortstop with 9 Statcast outs above average, and with 13 home runs and a 115 OPS+, he has more than held his own at the plate. He has given the Astros more than anything he could have been realistically asked to do at the start of the season as Carlos Correa’s replacement, and has suddenly put himself on an elite trajectory long-term.

Kyle Tucker has followed up on a scorching second half last year with a fine start to 2022. With a 131 OPS+, he has become one of the best right fielders in MLB, and his value on the bases makes him a multi-pronged offensive threat. He is 2nd on the team in home runs (behind Alvarez) with 18, and like most of the lineup, he has stayed healthy all year. Even more encouragingly, he appears to be on the brink of a hot stretch similar to what we saw from him in last year’s stretch run (see link above).

Alex Bregman is still not dominating to the same degree as he was in the late 2010s, but he has been having his best year on both sides of the ball since then. His consistent health has helped, and he’s back to walking more than striking out (53 walks to 49 strikeouts), something he hadn’t done since his own glory years in 2018 and 2019. His OPS ranks inside the top-6 among AL third basemen, and even if he never reaches his peak seasons again, he’s still a better option at the hot corner than most teams who have legitimate World Series aspirations can offer.

Michael Brantley is currently on the IL with a shoulder problem and his original ETA has already passed, but when healthy, he was still holding up at age 35. He has also drawn more walks than strikeouts, and remains one of the best contact hitters in the league with a .288 batting average, and his 125 OPS+ has made up for what he lacks in the power department. In his absence, Chas McCormick has done a decent enough job for someone who is a 4th outfielder on a healthy team: his .709 OPS is just above league-average, and his 0.4 bWAR is also par-for-the-course considering his role.

Aledmys Diaz had been a league-average hitter off the bench across his first three years as an Astro, and while he’s having his worst season at the plate in this uniform, his defensive skill and versatility have made him a quality asset as far as bench guys go. He has suited up at 5 different positions this year, and as per Statcast, he has been a plus at 3 of them (left field, second base, first base). The Astros’ coaching staff presumably doesn’t lose sleep putting him in when some of the A-listers in the lineup get a maintenance day.

Jose Siri has gotten into 48 games, which is probably a bit too much for someone with a 54 OPS+ and a strikeout rate in excess of 25%. He has still provided value as a classic no-offense, full-speed-and-defense archetype: his 5 infield hits, 8 outs above average, and 30.3 ft/sec sprint speed make him one of the best dual candidates as a pinch runner and defensive replacement in the game.

Logically, Yuli Gurriel’s subpar season shouldn’t come as a surprise. He’s 38 years old, and his power output had been on a steady decline in seasons prior. It has left a bit more of a sour taste in the fans’ mouths, however, because he was the AL batting champ last year. His OPS has dropped over 150 points, and his batting average is down 81 points from 2021. As a result, the Astros have been connected to some of the potential first basemen on the trade market. Nevertheless, he should be recognized for his success in Houston over the years.

Admittedly, Martin Maldonado is such a hard player to grade. His offensive production is among the worst in the league (60 OPS+, an average of over a strikeout per game), but the pitching staff, coaches, and front office have raved about his contributions to the clubhouse and the young players. In fact, the Astros might not even consider an upgrade at catcher at the deadline because of how good his intangibles are. As such, even though I gave him a “D”, I’d take it with a grain of salt as a reader because everyone within the Astros’ organization would argue that his contributions to the team are impossible to quantify.

Final Thoughts

The Houston Astros seem to have come into every season post-scandal with a lot to prove, and every year so far, they have delivered. They’ve done so in 2022 to an even greater extent. The team has arguably the most well-rounded pitching staff in baseball and they haven’t even reached their full offensive potential, so this is a very confident organization and fanbase heading into the 2nd half.

Quite frankly, they’ve earned the right to be confident. Again, only the Yankees and Dodgers can also claim to be World Series favorites. The few injury problems they have should be resolved immediately after the All-Star break. Expectations are sky-high once again in H-town, and they have shown us that the golden era of sustained playoff success doesn’t appear to be ending anytime soon.