Let's get things straight, social media be damned: the Astros' elimination from this year's postseason this weekend has nothing to do with any delayed Astrogate fallout. And it's also unfair to dance upon this year's edition's grave based on their Astrogate past. Their 2023 World Series conquest, entirely on the square, should have put an end to all that.
So far, so good? Now, let's have an honest, objective look at what's either ended the Astros' American League West dominance or rudely interrupted it:
1) RFK, Jr. might as well be running the Astros's medical department. The team has become notorious for missed or belated diagnoses of player injuries, and sooner or later that was going to leave its marks. Twenty-eight Astros spent time on the injured list this season. Missed diagnoses often as not hold hands with rushing players back to the field, or so it might seem.
2) Too many key men on the IL. When Lance McCullers took the mound Sunday to finish out the Astros's season, it put the finish to a dismal return from two years' missing in action recovering from Tommy John surgery. (6.71 ERA; 5.77 FIP; 1.85 WHIP.) Two members of the team's season-opening starting rotation underwent the procedure, too. Luis Garcia, another pitching mainstay, is now 28 months in recovery from Tommy John surgery. Eight other pitchers are on the IL at this writing.
3) Too shallow to overcome. The Astros used to be renowned for depth. After the middle of the season, though, the pool began looking drained. Their two trade deadline acquisitions, second baseman Ramón Urías and outfielder Jesús Sánchez, are what Athletic writer Chandler Rome calls "a symptom of a bigger problem..."
Sánchez is a left-handed-hitting outfielder. Urías is a utility infielder who spent most of his time as an Astro at second base. The organization's top two prospects are a left-handed hitting outfielder, Jacob Melton, and a second baseman, Brice Matthews. Both have taken more than 300 plate appearances in Triple A and made unimpressive big-league debuts this season.
That [general manager Dana] Brown acquired their facsimiles afterward highlights what multiple people, both inside and outside the organization, maintained throughout the season: no position player prospects within Houston's barren farm system are ready for prominent roles on the major-league team, which forces the front office to spend in free agency to address deficiencies.
4) Distressed assets. This kind of distress: the Astros turned up at the top of two key lists of teams who lose the most value to injuries, Rome says: Baseball Prospectus's list of wins lost to injury attrition; and, a Fan Graphs examination that showed the Astros as of 16 September lost 17.6 potential wins above replacement-level players (WAR) because of injuries.
That, Rome noted, came forth the night after Yordan Alvarez, one of the Astros's most important bats, suffered a sprained ankle crossing home plate.
5) You can overcome only so much. Somehow, some way, the Astros put together an unlikely gang to give them a 19-7 June and an interleague sweep of the eventual National League West champion Dodgers on the Fourth of July weekend. At one point, the Astros were twenty games over .500 and holding as high as 98.3 percent odds to make it to October.
That'd teach them. They lost 40 times in their next 71 games, surrendered a seven-game AL West lead, managed to make one more claim upon the lead; then 1) they were swept by the eventual AL West champion Mariners at home, 2) they lost two out of three to the Las Vegas Athletics via Sacramento in Sacramento, and 3) split the first two of three with the hapless Angels this weekend.
The Saturday game with the Angels wasn't even two innings old when Guardians outfielder C.J. Kayfus took one for the team in the ninth — he was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded, sending the Guards to a 3-2 win over the Rangers and a clinch of the final AL postseason berth.
6) Part with your stars under very careful advisement, that they don't return to bite you in the face. Brown thought he was being extremely bold trading Kyle Tucker to the Cubs last winter and letting third base mainstay Alex Bregman walk as a free agent right into the arms of the Red Sox.
Tucker and Bregman are going to the postseason. The Cubs are the National League Central champions with wild-card series home run advantage; the Red Sox hold the AL's first wild card.
"I told this team I'm really proud of them, because we've gone through a lot," said manager Joe Espada. "We have guys who have no business being on the field right now, who are banged up, but they're playing through pain, through injuries, because they want it for our city, they want it for their teammates, and that's the heart of a champion, right?"
What good's the heart of a champion if the body is too banged up to be as useful as the Astros and their fans have become long accustomed to being? And how ominous a sign is it that playing through injuries too often may yet become the Astros's longer-term Kryptonite? (This includes Jose Altuve, their veteran franchise face, who admitted to playing the final two weeks through a "pretty painful" right foot. Altuve may be starting to show his age, but he's still got value enough that won't hold if he plays through any more injuries.)
"I want to apologize to the fans in Houston for falling short," said Carlos Correa, the prodigal infielder brought back to the Astros from the Twins at midseason.
It's not what they're accustomed to. They're used to watching playoff baseball, and they look forward to that every single year. We were not able to accomplish that this year, but we promise our fans in Houston that this offseason is going to be one of a lot of hard work. We're going to get better, and next year is going to be one to remember.
Promising a year to come as a year to remember cuts more than one ways. The first time the Astros promised a year to remember, they tanked their way back to contention for a future year . . . and then, when it arrived, they cheated their way to their franchise-first World Series title.
If a year to remember is to come, the Astros need to shore up their farm, deal intelligently this winter, and most of all show some more transparency about discussing player injuries and sensibility about handling and treating them. And, most of all, don't behave as though the AL West is their birthright.