MORE THAN JUST HOPE
Spring dreams aren’t wishful thinking for an Astros team that expects to win it all
One of the best times of the baseball season is just as baseball begins. Day 1 of spring training through opening day.
When players show up at spring training. The first pop of bat onto ball, the first smack of ball into glove.
Then, there is hope for one and all.
Experts say hope is not an emotion. It is a feeling and can be taught.
Well, blow me down.
So, for many MLB teams, hoping to compete for a championship isn’t real. It’s a dream. A fantasy. Something they have been taught to believe every year at this time.
You’re supposed to act as if this is your year.
The Astros, via actual results, don’t have to put on an act. They enter each season with not only hope but also expectations.
“We hope we’ll be good, and we plan to do all we can to be good,” Astros owner Jim Crane said. “It doesn’t always work out that way, but we don’t shy away from the goal: winning the World Series.”
The Astros have been so good for so long, winning is all they know.
Winning at that level — two World Series victories, four World Series appearances, and seven straight trips to the ALCS since 2017 — can be draining.
Dynasties aren’t easy to build and just as difficult to maintain.
Bill Belichick literally complained that Patriots’ Super
Bowl runs put his team behind in getting ready for the next season.
“As great as today is, in all honesty, we’re five weeks behind 30 teams in the league in preparing for the 2017 season,” Belichick said after New England pulled off a miracle comeback to beat Atlanta in Super Bowl 51 at NRG Stadium.
Nick Saban once famously said of a national championship game that his team won, “That damn game cost me a week of recruiting.”
Crane wouldn’t go that far, but the Astros’ have had nothing but short offseasons of late. That happens when you post four 100-win seasons in the last seven years after having just one in the previous 55, then win in the playoffs.
“Well, it goes fast,” Crane said. “I mean, you get out of the playoffs and before you blink, you get through the holidays, and then bang we’re headed to spring training.
“We’ve been lucky. We’ve run pretty deep, sometimes in November, but in October we’ve been there a few times. Can’t complain. The ultimate goal is to win the World Series.”
And it looks like 2024 will be another long year.
The Astros have won the AL West three straight years, and are again the favorites, despite barely winning the division on the last day of the season last year and then losing to the rival Rangers in the ALCS.
Houston is listed neck-andneck with the Yankees atop the AL pennant odds, and just behind the Dodgers as a World Series favorite.
The offseason signing of Josh Hader, one of the game’s best relievers, is a sign the Astros are in hot pursuit of another championship. The feel-goods of this week’s signing of José Altuve to a contract extension won’t hurt that cause.
One significant change is manager Dusty Baker left the team after a four-year run. Joe Espada, who had been the Astros’ bench coach since 2018, is tasked to fill those soon-to-be Hall of Fame shoes.
“Expectations don’t change here,” Espada said this week. “Our job is to bring another title to the City of Houston. And that’s my job. To make sure that I put our players in the best position to succeed and I’m looking forward to doing exactly that.”
Crane says he is confident that Espada will do that. Espada interviewed for other manager positions (Rangers and Cubs) in recent years, and the Astros were happy he wasn’t hired away.
“He’s been here a long time and he’s great,” Crane said. “One good thing that was telling is when Dusty was here, he goes, ‘Jim, we gotta keep Joe. He can run spring training.’ Dusty said Joe was like precision in running spring training.”
Endorsements from Astros players, made the hiring a nobrainer.
“I got phone calls from players saying, ‘Jim, we really like Joe, so hire him and let’s go,’ ” Crane said. “And so, that’s what we did. He fit the bill, and I think he’ll do a great job.”
The standard, as expressed in a line from the Astros’ season theme video, is the standard.
“The plan hasn’t changed, and the same goal remains:
Pour sweat and spray champagne.”
“I think we have a good chance this year,” Crane said. “You gotta get through the season and, work through all the injuries and hopefully, knock on wood, not too many.
“Last year we had quite a few. We were banged up a little bit, lost a couple pitchers at the beginning, lost a couple of key players along the way and were still able to squeak it out. That was pretty amazing.”
Will the amazing Astros’ run continue? Well, there is hope.