What was the greatest Astros team ever?
How do the 2022 Astros compare with the other great Astros teams?
This will be a two-part series where we answer what Astros season had the best team ever.
THE.BEST.EVER.
In part one, we compared the teams most current Astros fans know- the 2017-2022 teams- the Dynasty Era. Today, we will explore the historically best teams by record. These are the EIGHT teams that if you have an older Astros fan in your life they will tell were even better than the dynasty teams. Well maybe that far, but these are the teams that the franchise lore is built around.
We are going to follow the same methodology we used in Part 1 but I am going to keep the data at the higher level. We can dig into these eight teams later. If you have not read part 1 yet, stop right now, click the button, and do that first.
You will notice each letter grade below will have an associated color. Similar to most heat charts you see on this website Red is GREAT. For this scale Blue is bad and Purple is terrible. You can see the color scale to the left and the score associated with each grade.
The Best Teams in Astros History
By winning percentage the teams in the table to the right are the best teams in franchise history.
The teams in BLUE are part of this dynasty run. They were covered in part one. (Click that button above if you have not read part one!)
The teams in orange are covered here. I would have had fewer teams, but I knew we needed to show the 2004 and 2005 Astros teams.
Now here are the grades of the teams in orange.
The Grades for the Greatest Teams in Franchise History- Pre-Dynasty
IF you read part one you know what I am about to tell you. The top four teams in the Dynasty (2019, 2018, 2022, and 2017) are ALL better than ANY of these teams.
Yes, when grandpa wants to tell you how good the 1998 Astros were, you can smile and know that team is significantly worse than most of the dynasty teams. Here is the Dynasty team's summary table.
The Dynasty teams are deeper. They have more superstars and fewer performance black holes.
You are living in the golden age of MLB baseball in Houston.
Generally, the pitching is better than ever. Only the 2005 and 1999 teams can compete with the best pitching of this era. Only the 1999 and 1998 teams can compete with the best offenses in this era. The 1999 team would slot in at the FIFTH best team in franchise history.
Therefore, THE Best Team in Astros History IS......... The 2019 Astros. I told you then and I will repeat it now, when you tell your grandkids about the World Series winning teams you are going to stop. You will get their attention and say "but THAT wasn't even the best team of that era. Let me tell you about the 2019 Astros." Maybe, just maybe you will mention this article that compared all of the great teams.
Can the Astros keep it going in 2023? We will revisit that next week.
As a reminder to the comparisons that lie ahead, here is what I have planned.
Future- How does the 2023 Astros team compare to these dynasty era teams in this system?
Future- How does this Astros dynasty era Compare to other dynasty eras?
Needless to say, this data and grading system is going to give us lots of content all the way until opening day.
For right now folks, I will be taking a few days off and having a vacation. We will check in with you later this week.
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