Three Astros Who Will Be Even Better in 2023...And Two Who May Take a Step Back

Better: Alex Bregman

Alex Bregman was one of the five-best players on the planet from 2018-2019. He finished runner-up to Mike Trout in the 2019 AL MVP voting, but had a very convincing case to take home the honor.

A multitude of injuries that impacted his mechanics led to some regression in the 2020 and 2021 season. Bregman was still a good hitter, but far from the game-changer he had been. Thankfully for Astros fans, the tireless cage rat found his mechanics and regained his peak form, specifically in the second half of the season.

Bregman hit .259 with an .820 OPS in 2022. His second-half was noteworthy, hitting .287 with an .894 OPS. Breggy was at his best in the playoffs, hitting .294 with a .948 OPS.

Looking ahead for next year, multiple things are working in Bregman's favor. First, he's healthy. His broken finger is healed up and he's been swinging a bat since January 1. The leg and wrist issues that plagued him in the last two seasons are gone. He recently expressed to Brian McTaggart that he feels the best he has while swinging the bat in a long time.

Secondly, the shift is being eliminated. Most of the time we think of left-handers being punished by the shift, but Breggy was amongst the most punished hitters by the shift. With his pull-heavy approach, he was shifted 57.9% of his at-bats. Many of his ground-outs were hit to the left-side with three infielders waiting for him. According to MLB.com, Bregman would gain eight hits without the shift.

While that may not sound like much, with just eight singles, Bregman posts a .273 batting average and and his OPS jumps to .847.

Bregman's Statcast metric were eerily in-line with his 2019 MVP-caliber season. His xwOBA was 85th percentile this year as compared to 88th in 2019, but he actually had a higher xBA (66th percentile compared to 61st), barrel rate (46th percentile compared to 21st), finished one percentile higher in strikeout rate (96th percentile) and saw a jump in xSLG (63rd percentile from 53rd).

Unless the juiced baseballs come back for non-Yankee teams, we may not see 40 bombs from Bregman again, but a season in which he hits .275 with an OPS hovering around .900 is hardly out of the question. Look for 2019 Bregman to be back in full force in 2023, rather than just appearing in flashes.

Worse; Framber Valdez

Before we all lose our collective minds, I am not saying Framber Valdez will be bad in 2023. Quite the opposite in fact.

Valdez was dominant in 2022. He finished top-five in the AL Cy Young voting after setting a league-record for consecutive quality starts. The ground-ball machine carved up opposing lineups.

His propensity to induce ground balls is exactly why Valdez may stick a step back in 2023. His 2.82 ERA outperformed his 3.31 xERA. He has had a lower xERA than actual ERA each of the last three seasons. His ability to get out of trouble with double play balls into the shift kept many a crooked number off the board.

Framber's xERA would still be top-25 in the game. He and Javier still make for an incredibly formidable 1-2 punch at the front of the rotation. But with a 66% groundball rate, it's fair to say no pitcher may miss the shift more than Valdez.

Better: Cristian Javier

Cristian Javier was a nightmare for the opposition in 2022. He started two combined no-hitters, struck out 11.7 batters per nine, cut down on his walks, held the opposition to a .170 batting average against and finished with a 2.54 ERA.

How does one go up from there?

Take one look at Javier's Baseball Savant profile and it will quickly make sense. Javier finished 2022 in the 98th percentile in xBA, 96th percentile in xERA/xwOBA, 96th percentile in xSLG, 94th percentile in strikeout rate and 82nd percentile in whiff rate and hard hit percentage.
His 2.43 xERA was actually lower than the 2.54 he posted.

With Justin Verlander now a New York met, Javier's days fluctuating between the rotation and bullpen are long gone. With the Astros fully committed to Javier as a starter, he can settled into a defined role in spring training and shove.

Whereas Framber Valdez was especially dependent on the ground ball, Javier will not be impacted by the banning of the shift, as only 25.2% of balls put in play off of him were on the ground.

Gear up for a monster year from Javier. It would hardly be surprising to see him hoisting the Cy Young at the end of the 2023 season.

Worse: Ryne Stanek

Again, this is absolutely no indictment of the flame-throwing, charismatic reliever. Stanek finished 2022 with a franchise record 1.15 ERA. He was dominant.

He also experience a good deal of luck. Stanek walked 5.1 batters per nine, finishing in the first percentile of walk rate. Because of his nasty splitter, he was able to avoid trouble keeping the ball on the ground. Again, with the elimination of the shift, Stanek may see some regression, though none that are cause for concern.

His 3.19 xERA is more in line with a pitcher that carries the high walk rate that Stanek does. We may very well see a season in which Stanek posts an era around 3.0-3.3. That still makes him a great reliever; just not a franchise record-setter.

Better: Kyle Tucker

No player is primed for a bigger 2023 than King Tuck. He was great in 2022, finishing with a .259 batting average and .808 OPS. That's an all-star season.

Expect MVP numbers in 2023. Tucker was shifted in 90.9% of his at-bats in 2022. We have written about this extensively, but Tucker's .463 xwOBA when not shifted was higher than what Aaron Judge posted last year in a 62-home run season.

According to Fangraphs, Tucker hit .240 against the traditional shift and .370 against a non-traditional shift last season. He posted a 367 WRC+ against no shift and a 132 WRC+ against non-traditional shifts.

Tucker is going to hit close to .300 with 30 home runs, 25-30 stolen bases, a .900 OPS and, depending where he bats in the order, 100-115 RBI. His 2023 season will go down amongst the greatest single seasons in Astros history.