Editor-Theo’s Note: When I started work on this piece, the question of “should the Astros sell at the deadline” was looking a little more open-ended. However, while that question is looking fairly resolved now, this piece is just as much a case study on the history and past successes of MLB teams doing total tear-downs and roster rebuilds. It’s definitely influenced my understanding of the process, and I think it’s worth sharing those results.
Over the last few years, I’ve been chipping away at a longer, deeper look at how team rebuilding goes, both during the rebuilding process itself and in the return to success period. It started as a look at the Orioles, with a front office full of Astros alumni now trying to repeat that magic a second time, then expanded to include the Braves as a sort of counterpoint who both mirrored and contrasted the Orioles and the Astros.
The project slowed down a little as I expanded the scope, to get a wider view of the options. I still want to finish that part someday; I have a whole bunch of data that I’ve collected, and while it can be a little overwhelming to sift through and distill into meaningful narratives and strategies (not to mention balancing all of that against everything else in life), I think the information there is useful.
However, a useful thing I think I can talk about from all of this is one specific slice of the rebuilding process! At the time I’m writing this, the trade deadline is rapidly approaching, and the Astros sit in a strange place. They’ve been carrying a losing record most of the season, and even now, are hovering around .500 while being outscored on the year… but it’s been a disappointing year across the board in the American League too, and they’re still very much in the thick of the playoff race
“Should the team go for it, or sell off and start a rebuild?” has been a prevalent question leading up to the trade deadline, and the answer right now seems to be “whatever facilitates making a playoff run this year”. There are of course fair questions about this, though; the team is unbalanced to say the least, with a Yordan Alvarez-heavy top covering up for a lot of holes in the roster. The team’s stash of prospects is relatively light too, which complicates attempts to patch up holes. And in contrast, there are some attractive pieces that the team could move for prospects: Christian Vázquez and Bryan Abreu are free agents after the season, while Christian Walker, Jeremy Peña, and Isaac Paredes will all hit free agency the year after (among others). And if you’re punting on next year too, you may as well also listen to offers on Hunter Brown and Yordan, since they’re hitting free agency after the 2028 season and will likely command a hefty return…
Up front, I will admit that I am personally against that, even before getting into the results of this study. The point of baseball is to win championships, and committing to a hard rebuild when you’re one game out of a playoff spot and carrying a potential Triple Crown winner feels like deliberately avoiding the whole reason for playing. I can see scenarios where this might make more sense, like from the back of a more crowded playoff chase, or following a spate of major injuries. The Astros are a middling roster with weak spots, but in a year where that describes the entire AL (and frankly, I’m not sure that won’t be the case next year, either). They’ve been outrunning a disastrous April (.308 winning percentage) as more and more players returned from injuries, so why not try and ride that success?
All that said… I do understand the thinking behind proposing a rebuild. The parts of a middling roster could turn into a juggernaut down the line, with good planning and some luck, and the Astros have ridden a similar process to success in the past. So, since I have all that rebuilding data, why not put it to good use? What might the Astros be forgoing by not selling off their stars on expiring contracts? How much does trading those players for prospects contribute to future success?
A Baseball Blog - Scientific and Speculative Thoughts from Third Base
Saturday, August 1, 2026
Monday, May 11, 2026
2026 Quarter Season Questions over at The Launch Angle
Over at The Launch Angle, we've got a new Batting Around article up, where everyone takes a swing at the big questions facing the Astros now that we're a quarter of the way into the season. I was of course one of the participants; you should head over there to check out where everyone stands, but I'll be posting my answers here for posterity as well:
1. Is this season salvageable.
Yes, of course it is. It’s by no means guaranteed, but I don’t see any reason to be writing things off completely in the middle of May. Especially when there are only two teams in the AL more than 2 games above .500, neither of whom play in the same division as the Astros. I’ve suspected that the further expansion of Wild Cards has introduced even more uncertainty than we realize into the playoff race process, as evidenced by the number of unusual occurrences we’ve seen in the short time since it happened (like the 84-win Diamondbacks winning the pennant in 2023, or the Mets and Astros’ both missing last year after strong starts). But even leaving that aside, this is a team that’s only 3.0 games out of a playoff spot and 5.5 games out of the division lead with 120+ games to go, including plenty of head-to-head match-ups remaining against the teams ahead of them, all of whom are just as flawed in their own ways.
2. Would you fire Espada and/or Brown? Is there any way either are retained after this season.
I actually think Joe Espada has done a decent job holding things together the last two years in the face of injuries. Taking last year’s decimated roster to one game shy of the postseason feels almost miraculous in retrospect, and I think the team’s strong offense this year is also impressive. Juggling all the moving parts and working around the injury gaps is no small feat. The pitching side looks does look rougher in comparison, but second-guessing there feels less useful because of how often the alternatives to Espada’s choices have also struggled. Everyone on the pitching staff looks rough right now, and I’m not sure there are obvious good options there that he hasn’t been taking.
Which does bring us to the roster construction. I do feel bad for Dana Brown, because he’s clearly had to do a lot to work around Jim Crane and his advisors’ decisions. We also haven’t really had time to see his prospect evaluation pay off, which was supposed to be his strength. The roster does feel rather snakebitten by injuries the last two years, and he’s done a decent job patching holes as they arise on basically no notice and with few options.
That said, coming off a season as injury-filled as 2025 and running into the same issue in 2026 does make it feel like there might be underlying process issues here. There probably should have been a little more depth there given what we saw last year, especially on the pitching side. I don’t think I’d axe either of them yet, but if someone is on the hot seat, it feels silly to blame Espada for cycling through a myriad of suboptimal bullpen and rotation options rather than the guy who handed him all of those suboptimal options.
3. What should the Astros path be going forward for the rest of the 2026 season?.
“The season is salvageable” is obviously not a guarantee of anything. If things don’t improve by the midway point, the most immediate plan is still to start listening on guys like Christian Walker, Isaac Paredes, and Christian Vázquez. But until that point, keep running with your best roster and hope it gels. Hopefully the pitching staff firms up as Mike Burrows and Spencer Arrighetti find their footing and the injuries start to return; there are enough names and talent there that some of them should stick. And I think that a more stable rotation will also help the bullpen substantially, since I think a big part of their struggles was being overtaxed at the start of the year thanks to an abundance of short starts.
4. What are you watching for in the Astros in the rest of the 2026 season?
Obviously Yordan Alvarez, since he looks like a serious MVP contender regardless of how the rest of the team does. But it’s been exciting to watch the young outfielders during their flashes of brilliance, and I hope at least a few of them get more consistent, it could turn things into a great year; Cam Smith primarily, but also Brice Matthews, Zach Cole, and Zach Dezenzo. And I hope Tatsuya Imai can put it together and come back strong, that start against the A’s was fun and the team could desperately use more of that. I’m rooting for him.
Tuesday, March 31, 2026
Predicting Today's Future Hall of Fame Starting Pitchers, 2026 Edition (Part 2)
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The second half of the Future Hall of Fame Starting Pitchers article (and conclusion to this year’s set of updates) is finally here! We’ll be picking up right where Part 1 left off, so you can catch up on that here if you missed it. Meanwhile, if you would like to go back and read the corresponding pieces for active position players, you can read Part 1 of that here, and Part 2 here. And as always, if you’d like to know right when these articles get published, you can subscribe to the Hot Corner Harbor mailing list here:
As I mentioned last time, we’ll be highlighting the leader in Baseball-Reference Wins Above Replacement for each age cohort, since so few modern starters are actually ahead of the Hall of Fame pace (however, those who are ahead of the game will be italicized as well). Before we start discussing specific pitchers, though, I’ll take a moment to go over the specific challenges that we’re seeing now when it comes to predicting the future of starting pitchers in Cooperstown, and how that will influence our discussions in the rest of this piece.
The Interlude
Since I divide these articles by age group, with a range from 20 to (roughly) 40, I tend to think of age 30 as something of a dividing line. This generally works pretty neatly for hitters; you’ll get a few outliers, but guys who are 30 and under usually feel like they’re a little early for “serious” Hall discussion, while the 31-and-up guys are where I feel more comfortable speculating on actual Hall-worthiness and the specific path they might take there. And there are some more concrete details leaning this way, too. For example, the Median Hall Pace for position players really starts to cool off over the age of 30: it only contains three one-year WAR jumps that could even generously be considered “All-Star-level” (and only one of those tops 4.5 Wins). Or, if you take the median Hall of Fame Wins Above Replacement for a position player and split it into groups of “Age 30 and Below” and “31 and Up”, you usually get an almost-2:1 ratio (it shifts with new inductions, but as of this year, this balance sits at 40.0 Wins through Age 30, and 21.1 Wins for After 30).
None of that is true for Starting Pitchers, though, and it throws off a lot of these more instinctual feelings. The Overall Hall Starting Pitcher WAR Median is actually about 5 Wins higher than it is for hitters (66.8 WAR), and that total is more evenly split between the 30-And-Under and After-30 years, at a roughly 55-45 rate. Not only does the theoretical median starter have more All-Star-level seasons in their 30s, the pace actually has two different years where it jumps by over 6 Wins, topping out at a 7.2-WAR leap for the Age 33 season. That’s closer to Cy Young-level than plain-old All-Star-level.
It may seem implausible, but it probably helps to reframe it from “the median elected starting pitcher has a Cy Young-type season at age 33” to “by age 33, the median elected starting pitcher will have had three Cy Young-type seasons”. You could knock those out early and stay ahead of the pace for a while before falling back to the middle, but there are also a good number of pitchers in Cooperstown who were still having great seasons in their early 30s, allowing them to catch up to the ones who rocketed out of the gate. It’s also probably part of why the relatively-light number of young, on-pace starters feels a little less like an issue. We kind of expect them to be a little lighter on total innings and value, but a big part of making or breaking your case for Cooperstown as a hurler is staying great into your 30s, and we actually are seeing that still. Playing that sort of catch-up is still a big part of the process!
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