There will be a great many stories to tell about the 2015 MLB season, including the one of how the Houston Astros at last settled into their new home.
It was in 2013 when the Astros jumped from the National League Central to the American League West, thus bringing about an overdue balance between the two leagues. But beyond that, there really wasn’t much to say about the move.
The Astros were, after all, fresh off two straight 100-loss seasons and in the middle of a complicated and intentionally hard-to-look-at rebuilding process. They surprised nobody in losing 203 more games in 2013 and 2014. Given how poorly they were playing ball, where they were playing ball was immaterial.
But now? Yeah, suddenly that matters.
As they embark on the final month of 2015, it’s clear the Astros rebuild is a thing of the past now. Their 73-60 record is the best in the AL West, putting them on the fast track to end a 10-year postseason drought. Whereas it was immaterial the last two years, the Astros’ status as an AL West team is therefore as much a part of their success story as anything they’re doing on the field.
But that’s our cue for a Dun-Dun-Dunny thought experiment: What if the Astros were still in the NL Central?
If nothing else, it’s an intriguing proposal on paper. Putting the Astros back in the NL Central alongside the St. Louis Cardinals, Pittsburgh Pirates and Chicago Cubs would give the division four of MLB’s nine best teams, an arrangement for a playoff race for the ages.
And as Jeff Gordon of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote in June, such a playoff race would be rich with narratives:
Imagine how much fun the National League Central would be if they were still around. This “Hackgate” hoo-hah could have kept an Astros-Cardinals rivalry simmering for years.
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The division would have also featured [Astros general manager Jeff] Luhnow fighting for attention against Theo Epstein, the Chicago Cubs president who earned his “genius” label from the Eastern Media during his successful run in Boston.
Imagine an Astros-Cubs rivalry: two franchises furiously rebuilding with prospects after swapping veterans for prospects and tanking multiple seasons in the process.
And imagine the rising Astros and Cubs stars trying to gain ground on the Pittsburgh Pirates, a resurgent franchise featuring strong hitting, speed, pitching and defense.
This would have been a heck of show.
A heck of a show, indeed. It would be the Mad Max: Fury Road of division races, all shiny and chrome.
But this is assuming, of course, that what’s worked for the Astros in the AL West would also work for them in the NL Central. And given the particulars, that’s no sure thing.
Now, let’s not diminish what the Astros have done in 2015. They’re not leading the AL West because they’ve overachieved. In fact, the 78-54 Pythagorean record they began Tuesday argued they’ve actually underachieved. And that’s not so hard to believe.
Combining talented arms with the league’s most efficient defense, per Baseball Prospectus, has led the Astros to the AL’s best ERA at 3.34. Backing this strong pitching is an explosive offense, as the Astros rank second in the AL in homers and first in the AL in stolen bases. Short version: The Astros are legitimately really good!
But at the same time, anyone who’s even taken so much as a cursory glance at the Astros will know that they have something of a fatal flaw.
As dangerous as the Astros offense has been, it sure does love to swing and miss. It owns a 23.6 strikeout percentage that ranks atop the American League. That’s been a collective effort, as Chris Carter (33.5) and Colby Rasmus (32.4) lead a group of 11 Astros regulars who have struck out in over 20 percent of their plate appearances.
Obviously, this bad habit hasn’t hindered Houston’s offense that much. Especially not against the competition that matters the most, as the Astros entered Tuesday with a reasonable 21.8 K% and a more-than-reasonable .745 OPS in 52 games against AL West clubs. In racking up their 29-24 record within the division, they’ve been an offensive kingpin.
But there’s a reason for that. The pitching staffs of the Texas Rangers, Los Angeles Angels, Seattle Mariners and Oakland A’s entered Tuesday ranked in the bottom 17 of MLB in strikeout percentage. When the Astros go up against them, they’re not going up against clubs that are equipped to exploit their fatal flaw.
As such, it’s no surprise the Astros have run into more trouble outside of the AL West. Against everyone else, they own a 24.8 K% and essentially a league-average .719 OPS. They’ve been even worse against clubs that rank in the top 12 in MLB in strikeout rate, posting a 26.3 K% and a .663 OPS.
And now’s the point where we get to the point: Struggling to this degree against power-pitching teams would likely hurt the Astros a hell of a lot more within the NL Central than it has within the AL West.
Whereas none of Houston’s four AL West opponents rank in the top 12 of MLB in strikeout percentage, the only NL Central team that doesn’t is the Cincinnati Reds. So, you can use your imagination. The Astros regularly going up against the Cardinals, Pirates, Cubs and Milwaukee Brewers would mean regular action against the kind of pitching that has killed their offense this season.
Would that keep the Astros from making progress after four years of futility? Maybe not. But would it get in the way? Yeah. And probably in a big way, at that.
But given this possibility, the natural question is whether the Astros front office would have crafted a roster of a different flavor.
Case in point: Instead of taking a lineup that already had high-strikeout guys like Carter, Jason Castro and George Springer, and adding more high-strikeout guys like Rasmus, Luis Valbuena and Evan Gattis this past winter, maybe the Astros would have prioritized finding more contact hitters. The effect could have been a less volatile offense.
Maybe so…Or, you know, not.
For one, relative to finding power hitters with holes in their swings, it’s a lot harder to find quality contact hitters in MLB’s current whiff-happy environment. For two, taking the bad (strikeouts) with the good (homers) regarding power hitters sounds like a philosophy the Astros are committed to regardless.
As Astros assistant GM David Stearns told ESPN.com’s Jayson Stark in March, “Clearly, if they’re strikeouts without power, we’re not going to score as many runs as we would like. But our expectation is, we’re going to hit a lot of home runs and we’re going to score plenty of runs. If we do that, then we’ll take the strikeouts that come with it.”
Luhnow largely echoed those remarks in an interview with Evan Drellich of the Houston Chronicle and added that a lineup loaded with power threats is “good for our ballpark.” He’s on point there, as ESPN.com can vouch Minute Maid Park is once again one of the top power-friendly parks in MLB.
So instead of a different offense, perhaps Houston’s mission would have been to build an even better pitching staff, with the idea being to beat the Cardinals, Pirates and Cubs at their own game.
In addition to shoring up their bullpen with Luke Gregerson and Pat Neshek, maybe this would have entailed going hard after big rotation upgrades. Perhaps that would have meant a blockbuster trade for Cole Hamels, or maybe topping the Cubs’ offer for Jon Lester and/or signing Francisco Liriano away from the Pirates.
But looking at things now, you wonder how much better such efforts possibly could have made Houston’s pitching. The Astros’ 3.34 ERA is already competitive with the ERAs of the Cardinals, Pirates and Cubs, and it so happens only the Cardinals have the Astros beat in adjusted ERA.
The Astros thus could have done nothing differently and would still have the kind of pitching staff that could go toe to toe with those in the rest of the division. That could have been their excuse to turn their attention back to their offense, which may have led them right back to the whiffs-for-power conundrum.
In so many words, exactly how different the 2015 Astros would look if they still played in the NL Central is a damn good question. There’s a real chance, however, that they’d have put the same team on the field only to be met with drastically different results than the ones they’re enjoying in the AL West. In which case, we might not be talking about their rebuild needing a bit more work rather than them being on the cusp of the postseason.
But this is where the thought experiment ends, and where the only path available is the one that leads back to the bright side.
That’s the reality that all of the above has indeed been a mere thought experiment. The fact is the Astros are not members of the NL Central, nor were they ever going to be this season. They’re not on the cusp of October because they’ve dodged a bullet. They’re on the cusp of October because they spent years building a foundation for a contender, and because they hit all the right notes in taking the next step in recent months.
After doing all that, the Astros being in the right place at the right time is nothing to hold against them. It’s just another part of their story to appreciate.
Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.
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