Astros biggest offseason improvement may have already come with latest firing

Houston Astros fans are starting to see who the organization has decided to hold accountable for the team failing to make it to the postseason. Manager Joe Espada and general manager Dana Brown appear to be safe, but the Astros have already purged their coaching staff with a particular focus on offensive coaches. However, those firings were apparently only the beginning.

There has been a growing sentiment for a while now that the Astros' handling of injuries is very poor. On multiple occasions, including with Jake Meyers, Yordan Alvarez, and Kyle Tucker, it seems as though the Astros' training staff failed in their duty when it comes to accurately diagnosing ailments as well as using best practices when it comes to getting players ready to return to play. For a team that lost more value on the field than any other team in baseball, that certainly sticks out.

Thankfully, it does appear as though the Astros know that changes need to be made when it comes to their training staff. Unfortunately for head athletic trainer Jeremiah Randall, that means that Houston is going in a different direction when it comes to the leadership of their training staff.

Astros overhauling their training staff could be as big as any offseason move

As Brown has said on multiple occasions this year, it isn't like Houston's training staff is solely responsible for the Astros' injury woes in 2025. The laws of physics are not kind to baseball players' bodies under the best of circumstances, and there are just times when guys experience fluke injuries sometimes. It is just part of the game.

However, there is a little too much smoke here when it comes to the training staff, the last couple of years, and Randall, having joined the organization in 2015, clearly wasn't being a part of the solution. The Athletic's Chandler Rome noted that Meyers' return to play was particularly glaring as he was sent back onto the field after experiencing a calf injury and immediately re-injured himself before the game even started. Between that and failing to get good imaging on previous injuries, clearly something isn't running the way it should in the training room.

For those who say this change was a long time coming, you are probably right. The same report noted that former general manager James Click promised that the Astros' training protocols (yes, they were a problem back then, too) would be thoroughly reviewed, but there is no indication that happened before he got run out of town.

Assuming a world where Randall gets the boot and is replaced by a very capable head trainer, there is a really good chance that the Astros' injury issues could at least approach league average with the usual "sometimes you just get unlucky" caveats. If that happens, that could put more wins in the win column for the Astros next year and beyond than any single roster move this offseason could ever hope to.