Astros make curious coaching hire for 2025 in attempt to address a familiar flaw

When the Houston Astros decided to let long-time third base Gary Pettis go after the 2024 season, it certainly raised some eyebrows. Pettis was generally well-regarded, and the Astros had come off a pretty dang good season this year, outside of their unfortunate exit from the playoffs. However, it appears that there was some method to their madness.

Outside of his general leadership role on the Astros, Pettis' defensive coaching was largely limited to the outfield, which seemed to work pretty well. However, the Astros hiring Tony Perezchica to replace Pettis seems to indicate that the organization is looking to resolve their infield's defensive problems.

Astros hiring Tony Perezchica as their new third base coach indicates a shift in team's defensive priorities

Before joining the Astros, Perezchica had been the Diamondbacks' third base coach which, in itself, is interesting. Voluntary lateral moves for long-time coaches don't generally happen too often, unless they are unhappy with their current organization. For the Astros, the logic in this move actually makes a ton of sense.

While Pettis was seen as a good outfield defense coach, the Astros' infield defense took a big step back in 2024. Given that Perezchica's specialty is coaching infield defense and Arizona has been the second best defensive team in all of baseball, according to FanGraphs, since 2017, it is fair to guess that Houston simply thought they needed a stronger voice in getting their infield shored up.

Whether or not hiring Perezchica will be enough remains to be seen. For the Astros' younger guys like Zach Dezenzo, Jeremy Peña, and perhaps Brice Matthews, having a guy like Perezchica on the coaching staff, who is very familiar with coaching minor leaguers, could be a huge boost. However, it seems pretty speculative to assume that the hire is going to resolve Jose Altuve's defensive drop-off, unless Perezchica is bringing some very new positioning ideas with him.

At the end of the day, Houston's decision to let Pettis go makes a lot more sense now. The organization just felt like they needed a coach on staff that could get through to their infielders and Pettis was the odd man out, given that the outfield is already quite strong in the field. One just hopes that they didn't give up too much in Pettis' institutional expertise to offset the potential gain.

More Astros News from Climbing Tal's Hill