The 2024 Astros season has been the season of tremendous challenges and dealing with many injuries.
Fifty-Five players have cycled through the active roster in 2024. 55! There have never been that many Astros that have cycled through the active roster in ANY season in Astros history (per BaseballReference.com.). That does not even include at least five more that team was hoping would heal and help the team in 2024. This was true of many teams in 2024 as the Astros roster usage of 55 players was average in the MLB this year (again per Baseball Reference.)
It has truly been a crazy season in the MLB. Let's discover who has been the Good, Bad, and the Ugly of the Astros 2024 roster. Who has carried the team to the AL West title and who failed the team?
Here, we will classify into four groups actually.
The Good- The players that have delivered results
The Bad- Players that delivered negative WAR and results while NOT costing the team a relative fortune contract wise.
The Ugly- Players that were NOT good and cost the team significant resources. Whether due to injury, age, or poor performance; these players could have derailed the Astros season.
The MIA- These players never played for the Astros in 2024. Some almost made it. Some have people wondering if they ever play again.
To define these groups, we will look at WAR (as defined by Fangraphs.com) and the cost to the team for that WAR.
By WAR and Cost
The Astros overall ran a CBT payroll of nearly $260M (and delivered 40.5 WAR. This payroll was sixth in the MLB.
The Astros 40.5 WAR was ninth in the MLB and fourth in the AL.
Relative to the top teams in the AL, the Astros spent a lot for the WAR they delivered.
How did each group contribute to the Payroll and the WAR delivered? The relative cost inefficiencies of the Astros are clearer when we look at the groups I described.
I classified each player into the groups defined above.
If we analyze the groups more at the group level:
The MIA group was a $31M cost for absolutely nothing but hope. I would submit the fact that some in this group were expected to return might have meant the team did not pursue other options.
The Ugly group could have tanked the Astros 2024 season. The players in this group either cost a fortune for little production or were simply terrible performers and WAY below the expectations. Abreu (452/455) and Montero (470/474) were some of the worst in their positions- neither played the entire season. It is unbelievable they were THAT bad in less than an entire season.
The Astros would have been better off with AAA/ waiver players than these the above ten players which is pretty much what happened in 2024. Many of the players pushed into service to fill in for these ten struggled and are in The Bad group.
The Bad part of the team delivered negative WAR and therefore was indeed bad. This group included multiple players brought in to replace the players in The Ugly group that completely failed expectations.
These three groups - 25 players - cost the Astros $97M and delivered -4.8 WAR. Thirty- seven percent of the payroll for terrible production.
The Good part of the team delivered WAR at a very high efficiency. These 27 players - cost the Astros $144M and delivered 45.3 WAR. That is an excellent team!
The Astros in 2024 were truly a team in distinct universes - The Good, The Bad, The Ugly, and the MIA. It is remarkable that they won the AL West with so much dead money and terrible production players.
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