The Astros Gamble on 2023 Season article has hit a nerve in the Astros fan base. Many don't like the brutal honesty I wrote that article with. Well. that's who I am and thats how this website will be.
In the article I added a poll which mimicked the one I put on Twitter. The discussion about the Article and poll have led me here.
ARE THE ASTROS BETTER OR WORSE THAN THE TEAM THAT WON THE WORLD SERIES?
It's a simple question with a VERY obvious answer
Here are the moves since the team that won the World Series
Added- Abreu at 1B
Lost- Verlander at SP
Vazquez at C
Mancini at 1B/ LF/ DH
Brantley at LF
Gurriel at 1B
Diaz at IF/ OF
Smith at RP
Castro at C
So is signing an All-Star at 1B who is a HUGE upgrade enough to make this team better in 2023 than it was in 2022? I think the fun way to answer that is to take it position by position (with weighting) and score it like a boxing match round by round.
So there you have it.
Batting 101-99 2023
Pitching 80-73 2022
Overall 179-174 2022
In the epic 20 round battle- 2022 beats 2023 mainly due to vastly superior pitching. Yes, I think the 2023 offense could be better than 2022 due to Abreu. The pitching will be worse even if the exact same players were coming back because so many had career years,
However, the overall difference is significant and does portend a significant drop off in regular season wins.
It also does not help that this team will be playing the entire league in 2023 and not a third of their schedule against a weak AL West. Even the AL West teams are improving.
Let me know what you think.
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It looks close. I don't think the pitching takes as big of regression. In fact, given their ages it's possible Urquidy and Garcia may take a step or half step up. Same for the pen. Surely not every relief arm sill regress. Also, shouldn't Alvarez also take advantage of no shift? Not the degree of Tucker but at least some? This just feels a bit overly negative.