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3 moves Astros must make immediately after Winter Meetings
The 2023 Winter Meetings were a big, fat dud for the Houston Astros. The Astros have seemed rather lackadaisical and docile for the entire offseason, and the fact that their biggest acquisition of the offseason so far is a reliever from the Royals, who only pitched 18 innings for a 8.84 ERA this year, doesn't exactly refute either of those adjectives. It's true that Houston has the luxury of a solid, tested offensive core that has made the team a perennial playoff contender, but the front office is seeming at this point that they're becoming complacent in that knowledge. The rotation needs another arm, and the bullpen needs help beyond the aforementioned Royal-turned-Astro Dylan Coleman.
Even though the words "interested in" as it pertains to free agents and big trade chips are become more and more frustrating by the day as teams continue to languish in inaction, the Astros have barely even had their names attached to players because of mere interest. There are still two months before pitchers and catchers report, but on the flip side there are only two months before pitchers and catchers report. Even if they didn't pull anything off during what was supposed to be the hottest event of the offseason, that doesn't mean they can't still do anything at all.
3 moves Houston Astros must make immediately after Winter Meetings
We've already established that the Astros are in a pretty good spot offensively, but relief pitching is a big concern, and there are still a few things they need to firm up in both their offensive and defensive configurations. Here are three moves that the Astros need to make after a disappointing few days in Nashville.
Capitalize on the reliever market starting to pick up steam
Dylan Coleman should not be the only reliever the Astros pick up this offseason. The reliever market is gaining a little more urgency with Reynaldo Lopez to the Braves, Craig Kimbrel to the Orioles, and Adam Cimber to the Angels headlining the bullpen signings so far, but there's no shortage of capable relievers still out there. One of the few names the Astros have been connected to is Jordan Hicks, who ranks toward the top of available free agent relievers as one of the hardest-throwing pitchers in the game, with a fastball that averaged 100.1 MPH this season and high strikeout and ground ball rates.
But plenty of other names are still on the table; the Guardians are listening to trade offers on Emmanuel Clase, and Jakob Junis, David Robertson, even Josh Hader have yet to sign a new deal. It's unlikely that the Astros would spend Josh Hader money on Josh Hader, especially when they have an effective closer in Ryan Pressly, but the point stands: there are a lot of available players waiting to be scooped up. Most of the more exciting acquisitions this year have included relievers, so it might be that the Astros don't have long to work on securing the ones they really want.
Add a depth option who can run
During Winter Meetings, Dana Brown and Joe Espada named speed and base-running as areas where the team needed to improve. The Astros had a 77% success rate on stolen base attempts, below the league average rate of 79%, and were also under the league average 117 total stolen bases with 107. It seems unlikely that this can be solved purely by the players already on the roster; lineup staples like Yordan Alvarez, Alex Bregman, Jose Abreu simply aren't going to run often, if at all. Players like Kyle Tucker, Chas McCormick, and Corey Julks could certainly work on baserunning and be encouraged to steal more, but the latter two may not be everyday players next year.
This is why players like Tim Locastro, who has made a career on coming off the bench as a pinch runner. His 2023 Baseball Savant page is a little astounding; he's unqualified in almost every non-running category because he simply didn't appear outside of a base-running context enough to qualify him to be ranked. MLB is toying with a "designated pinch runner" in the Atlantic League, which if it's ever implemented would force a lot of teams' hands on adding speed, but the Astros should just do it anyway. The new rules are clearly allowing teams like the Diamondbacks and Reds to play a specific brand of fast baseball, which the Astros need to be able to keep up with better going forward.
Get the story straight on who's going to play center field
Dana Brown and Joe Espada might be on the same page about improving base-running being a priority for the team, but they may not be on who's going to spend the most time in center field. Brown shut down Jake Meyers trade rumors while he was at Winter Meetings and added that Meyers would get the most appearances in center field. Espada, on the other hand, seemed to allude to some competition from Chas McCormick, with an audition for lead center fielder taking place over the course of spring training. It was also suggested that Mauricio Dubón, who won a Gold Glove as a utility man, was going to get some time in center.
This could be a very easy thing to remedy. Brown could pull rank on Espada and insist on Meyers in center field. It might be that wires just got crossed, and neither knew what the party line was supposed to be. Still, if it is a problem for the organization, they should get it handled ahead of the new season. Meyers, McCormick, and Dubón probably will all get time in center field during spring training, just by virtue of the experimentation teams like to go through during it, but they should still have a better idea on what the outfield will look like on a regular basis next season.
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