Astros attrition
Club to adjust to reality of life minus number of key pieces
Hitting coach Dave Hudgens is hired away by as the Blue Jays, becoming the third member of manager A.J. Hinch’s on-field coaching staff to depart this offseason.
A.J. Hinch has often said that each season is different. The 2019 Astros — under construction and quickly changing — are already living up to their manager’s words.
This is going to be an altered team when the spring training sun rises in February. And for the first time since the Astros started winning again under Hinch in 2015, there are multiple key names to replace and many questions that must be answered.
Panic? Of course not, as general manager Jeff Luhnow said. The stadium-sized faces — Jose Altuve, George Springer, Alex Bregman, Carlos Correa, Justin Verlander — that you’ve become so familiar with are all expected back.
But Altuve is recovering from knee surgery, Correa must regain his stroke after an off year, and the 35-year-old Verlander is entering the final year of his contract with the local orange and blue.
Then there are the real question marks.
Tommy John surgery for Lance McCullers Jr. wasn’t a surprise. The hard-throwing 25-year-old has peaked at 22 starts since he debuted with Hinch’s Astros in May 2015 and regularly appeared on the disabled list.
Yet there was a cold finality to Tuesday’s news. McCullers won’t be available on the mound until
2020 at the earliest. When the highly competitive righthander returns, one of the pivotal early pieces of the franchise’s rebuild will constantly be watched and studied. Put simply: Will McCullers, who’s yet to reach his full potential, ever be the same?
His season-long absence knocks the best regular-season team in Astros history down to just two locked-in starters for the spring of 2019. Granted, Verlander and Gerrit Cole formed the best 1-2 regular-season punch in the sport last season. But Cole, like Verlander, is set for free agency in 2020 and should command top dollar on the open market.
Dallas Keuchel and Charlie Morton are already available to all bidders. I’ll be somewhere between stunned and shocked if Keuchel pitches for the Astros again this decade. Morton went 29-10 with a 3.36 ERA and 1.17 WHIP with the Astros, becoming one of Luhnow’s smartest and most valuable acquisitions. But the World Series Game 7 winner is also 34, battled injuries the last two seasons, and would only make sense for his former team on a short-term, low-risk deal.
Take Keuchel, Morton and McCullers away, and it’s Verlander, Cole and three looming question marks for the follow-up to the best starting rotation in the game in 2018.
Collin McHugh makes sense. He’s also started only 12 games the last two seasons and went 13-10 with a 4.34 ERA in 2016, which was the last time he was a season-long rotation piece for Hinch.
Several young names ( Josh James, Framber Valdez, Cionel Perez, Forrest Whitley) are intriguing. But can any lock down a 1-5 spot during the spring, then pass the real test by throwing a full season and owning the mound in the playoffs? Then we get to the bats. Super utilityman Marwin Gonzalez sounds all but gone. If he officially departs, Gonzalez will be missed on Hinch’s daily lineup card, between the lines and inside the clubhouse. As with Gonzalez, the Astros don’t win the 2017 World Series without Brian McCann. But the club could enter the 2019 season missing Evan Gattis and McCann, and both were critical pieces for a team that won 204 games the past two years.
Luhnow has said the Astros can again increase payroll. Internal promotions and external signings could address many of the holes. And just about every other team in MLB would love to have the Astros’ “problems.”
But major change is coming to Minute Maid Park.
Since the 2015 season began, the rebuilt Astros have often lived the modern dream. Enough of the young prospects panned out, some became superstars, and several core pieces already in place (Altuve, Keuchel, Springer) were lifted by prospect-driven trades for bigname veterans (Verlander, Cole).
Even when the Astros missed ( J.D. Martinez) or invested at the wrong time (Colby Rasmus), they had enough talent and upside to overcome it all.
The brain drain started immediately after their first world title when Boston hired away Alex Cora. After the Red Sox blasted the Astros in the American League Championship Series and easily downed the Los Angeles Dodgers for the 2018 trophy, the Astros lost more front-office and coaching names.
Hinch’s team fell just seven wins short of another world title last season.
If the Astros win their second ring in 2019, they’ll be led by many names you already love — and more new ones than you’ve had to learn in a long time.