Happy 250th birthday, America!
I keep circling back to this one question every few days: Are the 2026 Astros good, mediocre, or bad?
Well, the top portion of the roster is actually good, yes. Yordan Alvarez, for example, is an absolute machine at the plate. Hunter Brown is one of the best starting pitchers in baseball. Josh Hader has been terrific since his activation from the IL. There’s also Isaac Paredes, Jeremy Peña, Jose Altuve, Christian Walker, and a handful of other veterans who have proven that they can succeed in this league for long stretches of time.
But as we’ve all known for a while, the Astros’ primary weakness isn’t necessarily the talent atop the roster. No, it is the surrounding depth that has gradually regressed over the years. The success of the 2017-23 era of Houston baseball was primarily defined by the stars, but the depth around them played a highly crucial role. The good teams need their stars to perform, no question about it. But those teams, like previous iterations of the Astros, had the depth to leave fewer weaknesses to exploit. If the first 90 games are any indication, the depth simply isn’t there to survive a full season, much less make a strong postseason push.
Simply put, the 2026 Astros have more holes to address than resources available. And that’s how a team ends up with a 43-47 record by early July and, frankly, overperforming their expected record by three wins.
A 16-11 record in June provided some hope for Houston’s season, which was once seemingly on life support when the pitching staff absolutely collapsed in April. Another winning record in July probably moves this team over .500 on the season. But I have my doubts whether that will happen. For one, that 16-11 record in June also occurred with an -8 run differential. Other than the first six games of the season in March, the Astros haven’t finished a month with a positive run differential, which doesn’t bode well for a team not only looking to achieve a .500 or better record.
A 43-47 record along with a -48 run differential by early July doesn’t inspire confidence. While we’ve seen teams unexpectedly surge to a postseason berth in the past due to a strong second half, the odds are against the Astros. Baseball-Reference only gives Houston a 18.1% chance of qualifying for the postseason, with FanGraphs a bit more optimistic at 28.2%. But the Astros will have to play much better over the next 72 games to make the October postseason.
To go back to my initial question, I tend to think the Astros, as currently constructed, are largely mediocre. There are occasionally shades of bad or good mixed in, as we saw in April and July. It is only due to the mediocrity of everyone else in the AL, including the AL West, that the idea of a postseason push remains within the realm of possibility. Whether that’ll continue is a key development to watch as the trade deadline approaches.
Rays @ Astros Game Information and Gamethread Details
Hopefully, we get to see some fireworks this evening, and I am not only talking about literal fireworks. With the lineup largely held in check by the Rays on Friday night, the Astros will face Drew Rasmussen, one of the top-20 starters in baseball this season and the AL pitcher of the month for June. The odds don’t appear particularly high for a strong offensive performance. However, this is baseball, and the unexpected has happened before. Fingers crossed that Houston is the beneficiary of any good fortune. Thankfully, Houston will counter with Hunter Brown, who is also one of the top starters in baseball, so this game is at least a compelling matchup between two very good pitchers.
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I’ve said many times before that run differential is way overused as a predictive metric IMO. Blowouts in either direction can screw with its predictive power quite a bit, as well as low scoring teams with great pitching and poor offenses, who can easily tend to overperform their RD (see the Guardians).
I don’t think this team is *especially* mediocre, either, beyond the fact that most of the AL is pretty mediocre.
We are used to a higher standard as a fanbase, which is a good thing and should be maintained. Seasons like this are unacceptable, particularly following a year in which the postseason was missed by a single game, for the first time in nearly a decade.
But I don’t think many of us are used the experience of *actually* bad teams anymore. The Astros are just mediocre this year, with potential to be less than mediocre or kinda good to finish out the season. We lack the cushion (in talent, in first half wins, etc) that the team once expected every year. In order to be one of the better mediocre teams in a mediocre league, they have to keep their foot on the gas almost every day in almost every game. Not something we are used to.
But no teams in the AL really scare me aside from the Rays we play today, the Yankees, and Seattle, who we simply play poorly against ever since that fateful 2022 postseason sweep. There’s six playoff spots out of fifteen in this league, and I don’t particularly think anyone in contention for the final two WC slots or even the division is particularly good overall.
I would classify this team as mediocre. Mediocre has negative connotations but it doesn’t actually mean bad. It’s not very good but not very bad, just middle of the road. That’s the 2026 astros. They’re flirting with regressing to a .500 record and that’s probably where they ought to be, maybe a couple points above, like an 84 win team. Their pitching isn’t April bad, but I don’t see any reason to think it’s top tier. They’re middle of the pack. Same with offense.
Oh wait I misread your post. You did say they were mediocre, just not especially mediocre.
Yes. FWIW I basically agree with your other post. We “should” be around an 84-88 win team. I believed in about 86-88 wins in the offseason, with a low probability that our rotation would catch fire and stay healthy (90+ wins) or that we’d have yet another shitty April and repeat 2024 and 2025 having to chase .500 all year (which is what happened).
We are a better team than our record, RD be damned, but not by *that* much.
“Simply put, the 2026 Astros have more holes to address than resources available.” I like this.
Let’s see one aspect of it. The Astros have many holes because of injuries. Those injuries are due to abductors, ham strings, quads, calf…..those are not baseball related, but weight room related. I am the manager, I am responsible and I have the authority to ask the trainers and fitness specialists for a written detailed explanation of the numerous injuries crippling my team. I am the GM, I am responsible, and I have the authority to ask the field manager what is going on with the number of injuries crippling my team. I am the owner, I am responsible……
100%.
It’s almost certain that, all things being equal, not losing Brown and Pena for extended periods of time alone add another 2-3 wins to the win column at a minimum, given the issues which hurt us the most in our losing streaks. And that is not counting Correa (because he is known to be fragile) or the constant injury scares and the way newly acquired players such as Wade immediately injure themselves.