Astros’ coaching maneuvers getting rave reviews during offense's early hot streak

Pitchers are generally ahead of hitters in the early portions of a season, so it is particularly promising when a lineup is humming along right off the rip. Through their first six games, the Houston Astros' position players lead all of MLB by fWAR and are firmly among the leaders in most major offensive categories. Sure, Yordan Alvarez's revenge tour has played a huge role in that, but Houston has received contributions from throughout their lineup, and their new hitting coaches may be a big reason why.

When the Astros dismissed hitting coaches Alex Cintron and Troy Snitker back in October, it came as a shock. Cintron and Snitker oversaw some really, really good Astros offenses, but there is no denying that Houston's approach at the plate had gotten very swing-happy. While both men saw the problem in all likelihood and probably tried to communicate some guidance, that message was clearly not getting through, and the offense was suffering as a result.

Fast forward to the start of 2026, and the Astros instead have Victor Rodriguez and Anthony Iapoce coaching hitting on the field now, and they also shuffled their operations leadership structure to try to find their offensive identity again. So far, that offensive shift is going quite well.

Early returns reflect well on the Astros' coaching hires and Houston's chances of success

Now, drawing too many conclusions from just six games in late March is very dangerous. If the Astros go back to swinging at everything and putting together uncompetitive at-bats all the time, it doesn't really matter what they showed the first week of the season. Maintaining this progress is going to be the real test, but one shouldn't completely ignore the results because this is a small sample.

Not only are the Astros seeing more pitches per plate appearance to tax opposing pitching staffs before they are fully stretched out, but they are getting on base more as a result. Through six games, the Astros have walked 30 times already. Only the Angels (which is surprising in itself) have walked more in all of baseball. In contrast, Houston had just 21 walks through their first six games of the 2025 season.

Having more patience has been the mantra coming out of the organization all offseason, and the buy-in from the players has been there so far. If the Astros can keep this up, the odds that they can parlay that patience into more wins and a playoff run go up a lot. Of course, that is the trick, and we have seen pretty much this exact same group of hitters when they get away from working good at-bats.