Astros’ new hitting approach focus seems to be ignoring one key detail

The Houston Astros' primary scapegoat for their 2025 failure was the massive waves of injuries they suffered throughout the season. In Dana Brown's opinion, a close second was the offensive approach the club employed.

Hitting coaches Alex Cintrón and Troy Snitker were dismissed at season's end as Houston's free-swinging approach had drawn Brown's ire. To him, it didn't matter that players like Jose Altuve have made a career swinging first and asking questions later. It was irrelevant that the roster was assembled almost entirely of guys who swing out of their shoes and try to take advantage of their home field advantage — the Crawford Boxes.

Now, with a new staff led by Victor Martinez, Anthony Iapoce, and Dan Hennigan in place, the Astros are switching it up. They're stressing situational hitting and small ball as the means to reinvigorate the offense heading into 2026. There's just one problem. The roster is the same as it was last year.

Astros' new offensive strategy ignores the massive fact that the roster isn't built for small-ball tactics

In today's homer-happy game, it can feel as if the art of hitting the ball the other way, moving runners over, and simply putting the ball in play is severely underrated. Analytics gave rise to the idea that home runs matter most and giving outs away via things like sacrifice bunts is bad, and while true, the macro discussion of whether things have gone too far is worth having.

But zooming in on the context of the Astros, it's going to be a tough sell. Altuve is chasing 3,000 hits because he swings early and often. Yainer Diaz's best offensive season came in 2023 when he walked just 2.9% of the time. The Astros have built an entire ecosystem around free-swinging power hitters, so shortening swings and trying to punch the ball to the opposite field in order to move a runner over isn't really practical.

What makes the least sense is that Houston did nothing over the offseason to change the complexion of the position-player corps to make this new approach more feasible. Rumor had it that they were in on Brendan Donovan, a guy who fits the bill, but when that fell apart, they didn't go after any of the other available, contact-oriented pivots.

Instead, they have taken some small steps backwards. They reacquired Joey Loperfido, a player with a 33.3% career strikeout rate. They'll possibly insert top prospect Zach Cole into the lineup. The 25-year-old struck out at a 35.1% clip between Corpus Cristi and Sugar Land in 2025. There's nothing situational about that level of whiffs.

Moreover, the player they're most desperate to trade, Isaac Paredes, might be the best fit for the new approach. He pulls a lot of fly balls, but he also works counts, draws walks, and makes a lot of contact. Unfortunately, the only way to clear the infield logjam, a problem of their own making, is probably to trade him away.

If the Astros wanted to move in this direction, and it was clearly on Brown's mind before the offseason kicked off, they should have made more of an effort to acquire players who better fit this vision. Since they didn't, they'll be trying to stuff a bunch of square pegs into round holes. That rarely works out well.