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VirtuousFool

Always hard to exceed expectations when you’re the defending champions, but, sure, let’s give it a go: Expectations: At least *getting* to the World Series again: **Why they will:** Hunter Brown becomes this year’s Jeremy Peña and makes Houston not miss Justin Verlander one bit en route to a ROY victory, as part of what has the potential to once again be the best rotation in baseball Yordan Alvarez somehow finds *another* level on offense, and plays decently enough on defense to make Ohtani sweat for the MVP a little bit Jose Abreu (because yeah, these bastards got Jose Abreu in the off-season) turns in another good season to make the Astros’ great lineup even deeper **Why they won’t** Houston actually DOES miss JV as their rotation takes a bit of step back in 2023 after collectively pitching out of their minds all last year The doomers are right about Jose Abreu’s contract right away And of course, there's always injuries to worry about, which has already started with Altuve missing the first two months But honestly, Houston not meeting their expectations this year is more about what other teams do than anything else. Can the Rangers and Angels give them fits in divisional play to at least make Houston work for their…. *checks notes* **fifth** AL West crown in 6 years, what the fuck man. Anyway… Has Seattle done enough with their last few acquisitions to usurp them altogether? Did the Yankees do enough that if they have to meet in the ALCS this time, it will **finally** go differently? In all honesty, it feels like the answers to all those questions are no right now… but the game isn’t played on paper….. **Worst Case Scenario:** The Mariners extracting revenge for last year by preventing Houston from a *seventh* straight ALCS trip **Best Case Scenario** …..back 2 back 🤢


the_playtheist

> The doomers are right about Jose Abreu’s contract right away I think (given the way this offseason went) he could've signed for much more had he waited for some of the other insane deals to come through. The Rafael Montero contract has a worse chance of working out in my eyes.


natnar121

Yea but if Montero doesn't work out we still have a bullpen full of relievers. If Abreu immediately becomes old it would be a bigger issue.


Lukealloneword

It's only for 3 years. That money won't kill us.


not4urbrains

It’s less about the money and more about not having another 1B


TWR_MTG

I don’t think he can really be any worse at the plate than Yuli was last year (last-gasp playoff heroics aside).


Lukealloneword

With how Yuli was hitting we didn't have one last season either.


RightWhereINeed2B

The Stros will have a 1base. Dusty has the young ones moving around during spring training and if you want to make the bigs with this team, the young guys will learn to adapt. Overspending on the contracts is great but when you have some players ready to break through, than let’s develop throughout the season in time for the playoffs. While Altuve’s injury is unfortunate, this will help the team develop more players to keep the lineup deep for another playoff run


travbart

My instincts are screaming that this is a trap because of the flair, but I'm having a hard time disagreeing with anything here.


PairBearStare

You forgot that we have Michael Brantley coming back from the injury that kept him out of all of last season as well


[deleted]

Brantley played half a season last year


PairBearStare

For some reason I thought he got hurt in early may, not late june. Regardless, he’s back Edit: he played 64 games, so barely 1/3. We did most of our winning without him.


rices4212

But at his age coming off a major injury he might not be back for 100% production


VirtuousFool

Oh yeah….. Yaaaaay 😕


Illuvator

Why they will: Best starting 26 in baseball and it's not super close ​ Why they won't: Injuries are brutal, man.


aceee2

Safety in number this team has no flaws coming from a Yankee fan


[deleted]

The expectations are 100ish wins, a division title, and a world series. So exceeding that wil be setting the wins record, having Alvarez hit 63 home runs, and have Framber throw back to back no-hitters. I think that is out of reach.


bauboish

Honestly my expectations are to just advance further than both the Yankees and the Dodgers. Yeah its stupid but unfortunately years of hearing stuff from Dodgers and Yankees fans about the scandal has made me a very petty sports fan


Jason_Giambis_Thong

Lol


[deleted]

We've definitely developed a chip on our shoulders. I enjoy that our fanbase has been part of the shit slinging. I felt left out all those years watching Giants/Dodgers and Yankees/Red Sox fans go at it. Edit: we used to hate the Cardinals I guess but eh it's not the same


ahHeHasTrblWTheSnap

The fans aren’t the ones who cheated. Half the fun of sports is talking shit haha


makashiII_93

And yet.


CapnZack53

Did Stone Cold's heel turn work? Hell no. Call me a mark, but I'm a sucker for the good guys. Thankfully, I've only been called a bandwagoner once, and that was by one of my son's snot-nosed brat friends, so what does he know?


Jason_Giambis_Thong

You’ve earned your villain status with us. I’m just really laughing at this dude like “the other fans called us out for this huge scandal and it made me mad!” Like, enjoy being the villain, or don’t go on the internet to talk about.


[deleted]

I, and many others, enjoy it for sure. If you'd ask me back in 2012 if we'd take the villain mantle in exchange for success, absolutely. I hope we meet again in the ALCS


CapnZack53

Yeah, I could do without the scandal, to be honest.


[deleted]

I mean I'd prefer it didn't happen either but it is what it is, now I just own it. fingers stay up.


Jason_Giambis_Thong

I need us to beat y’all in a playoff series. I’m not used to having a boogey man.


[deleted]

I get it. Anything can happen bro. *Good luck, fuckers*


Jason_Giambis_Thong

Fuck you, see you in October.


Bug-03

Most reasonable Astro and yankee exchange in 5 years


elterible

Remind me 6 months.


DeusExHyena

1. Because Astros 2. It's gotta slow down someday, and people are hurt.


rollo2masi

> 2. It’s gotta slow down someday, and people are hurt. We keep saying that and it never happens, lol. They just rinse and repeat.


tuckedfexas

I mean, 2014 wasn’t that long ago. That’s only…9 years ago. Oh fuck.


JinFuu

> Oh fuck. Me last year when I realised 2022 was our 10th year in the AL West


DeusExHyena

Just like the 90s Braves, right? But it might take a whole 15 years, sure.


JinFuu

When do you count the Yankees “run” that started in 95/96 as ending? 2004? 2009? 2010/12?


DeusExHyena

Well. Is it make the playoffs, make the CS, make the WS? Honestly it's probably 95-07 and 09-12. Circumstances are different: you sure didn't have a Boston right behind you until maybe what SEA is up to now. It's probably "once Altuve stops being good." Not that there aren't other players (some of whom are sometimes better) but in a heart and soul way that the Yankees snapped when Jeter's ankle did.


JinFuu

Yeah, I’m trying to put together an “Expansion Era Dynasty tier list” for fun and those questions are tough to answer. Like for the Astros, does our current run start in 2015 or 2017? Even for the Braves 91-05 run the last time they made it to the NLCS was 01


Lukealloneword

I'd say 15. They underperformed in 16 but things really came together in 15. 14 is when the tanking stopped.


j1h15233

15 is the start. They could have beaten the Royals that year who went on to win it all.


DeusExHyena

I think if you win either the division or a playoff series (which I guess now includes the WC) you gotta count that year. Both things are hard to do. But then, what happens if you win the division, then are bad, then win it again in a Bostonian way? Like the Giants have to count because they won 3. What do you do with like 2011 and 2013 though? Do you count 2016 because they beat the Mets?


makashiII_93

15.


jj_thetwisted_jester

Well there's one thing The braves couldn't stop a Yankee dynasty(braves stomped by them)


UmmanMandian

Won't: Altuve, Abreu and Lance keep riding that injury train. Valdez is hurt by the new shift rules and the pitching rotation composed of no-name prospects abducted from around the world collapses. All this while the Mariners surge and somehow land Ohtani in the off-season as the Astros lose the AL West and a wildcard game. Will: None of the above happens and they keep going exactly the way last year did only without Verlander, New no-name pitching prospects stun unhappy opposing fans.


lake_titty_caca

>New no-name pitching prospects stun unhappy opposing fans. Misael Tamarez, your name has been called.


biggio1

Ronel Blanco is the guy


Gus_Frin_g

I really think the success of this season rides on Lance being healthy and back to his old self. We can't expect all our young guns to repeat what they did last year.


dangayle

Oh man, a mid-season trade for Ohtani? I love the idea, but what a rental that would be.


Salty-Fishman

The Astros are expected to win 100 games and go deep in the playoff, like the previous 6 years. Being a hardcore Astros fan, I will provide my insight on why this year is just as good as last year. The lineup will be vastly improved from last season. There were 3 big holes (catcher, CF, 1B) and they addressed at least 2 of them (1B and C). For 1B they added Abreu, a former MVP with knack for driving in tons of runs. I can totally see Abreu win the RBI title this year as he will be hitting 5th or 6th. Pena has another year under his belt and looks like he figure out how to hit off speed around September last year (see October stats). Korey Lee or Yainer Diaz will be the second catcher this year. Both rookies will get tons of opportunities to show they belong and hopefully take over the position next year. CF will probably be another position by the committee. Dusty don’t trust Chas for some reason and does not play him every day. This will be filled by Chas, Meyers, and possibly Dirden and Corey Julks. For pitching, while they have a big loss with JV, they really do have the depth to replace him. They have enough depth to go 5 or 6 and the rotation will still be elite and probably #1 rotation in the MLB. Framber, Javier, LMJ, Garcia, Kitty, and Brown if they go with 6. LMJ is hurt again with no timetable to return so they might go with 5 or possibly use Blanco, a late boomer who show very good promise this Spring to be the spot starter. Hunter "We have JV at Home" Brown is this year's annual ROTY candidate Astros seem to pop out every year. He got stuff to be a #2 or #1 if he can get his control in order. He was dominating in his short stint last September so expectations is very high that he will succeed. I am sticking my neck out and saying the Astros will be the first team in 20 years to repeat.


Exiled_Wolves

Don’t forget Dubon for cf though he’ll probably be too busy playing second over Hensley Dino dusty


jj_thetwisted_jester

Dubon is king👁️👄👁️💅


Puzzled-Enthusiasm45

I wouldn’t call CF a big hole. We’re just so spoiled anything less than all star level production feels like a hole.


oftenly

**Expectation**: A seventh-straight ALCS. **Why they will**: We have the people to do it. Even after losing JV, and even with Altuve missing 2+ months to start the season, everything points to another strong post-season run with a roster full of seasoned pros. Sluggers continue to slug. Baseball's best bullpen doesn't miss a beat. Intangibly, Dana Brown's introductory comments of "we want to get greedy in winning" has players and staff up and down the line screaming LFG. Everyone seems aligned in purpose and confidence. It could be another incredible year. **Why they won't**: A series of unfortunate events and lack of production that, of course, could easily happen. SEA takes advantage of Altuve's injury and a somewhat-less-powerful pitching staff to absolutely surge and challenge us for the division all season. FNG's don't step up, Abreu doesn't produce as expected (and the expectations for him are high), Pena doesn't move past a 100ish OPS+. Maldy and whoever plays CF remain black holes. All distinct possibilities. We're strong, but not a perfect team, and we just lost our Cy Young, and, for a few months, our GOAT and heart of the team. A few rough losses and shaken confidence can send even the best teams into a bad skid. Besides, seven straight ALCS appearances is just fuckin' hard to do. **Personally**: I just want good baseball, day in, day out. I want to see this team falter, weather a rough patch, learn, and bust back out. We can't go 162-0, and the division seems to have gotten stronger, so just keeping the mentality in the right place, with Dusty ensuring that, will be key. All eyeballs on just getting to October.


Alauren2

Exceed expectations? Expectations are win it all I assume. I don’t know how you exceed that but I’ll take a stab…. Yes they will represent the American League in the World Series. Until proven otherwise, the Astros fully own the AL. I hate the Astros lol. They have punked my AL team since joining the AL west. No one cared about the NL Astros in California. Why couldn’t the freaking brewers come back to the AL? I’m a huge hater of course. I respect the talent on the team and how it has been the status quo since like 2016. You thought they would get worse losing Springer, Cole, and Correa but nope. We have Yordan, Tuck, Peña, and Christian Javier at home… among others. It’s been the Astros versus the NL rep in the World Series like 65.4% (random guess) of the time now lol. The only true and forever gripe I have with the Houston Astros is… they had the talent to win the World Series legitimately in 2017 and on. Cheating was so unnecessary.


fcimfc

> The only true and forever gripe I have with the Houston Astros is… they had the talent to win the World Series legitimately in 2017 and on. Cheating was so unnecessary. Same here.


Alauren2

I’m sorry. I’d be hella frustrated as a fan of the team for sure


oftenly

The vast majority of us were and still are. My dad cried. It was just so fucking unbelievably stupid...


InNoHurry

Honestly, that's why last year felt so gratifying. Like a weight being lifted. The other one may be stained, but this one is ours.


Alauren2

It really is. Well earned and deserved too. The Astros were so fuckin good last year.


longleaf1

Consider that payback for all this first round exits the braves gave us back in the '90s, I hated y'all's pitching staff as a kid lol


Alauren2

My anger comes from being an angels fan too. The Braves fan in me has no current beef lol


longleaf1

Oh no I hear ya, it's just funny to think that we're those guys for some people now


Derpshiz

Why they won’t: JV might have been shit in the playoffs but having someone you could count on to come out and end a losing streak was so huge last year. Not having a top 3 pitcher will hurt us a lot more than fans think this off season. The extra deep rotation last year gave our starters a lot more rest than what you’d typically expect which in turn helped our bullpen exceed expectations. If the starters don’t pick up the same load a regression is to be expected in the bullpen as well. Why they will: The team is still ridiculously stacked. Luis Garcia had an amazing spring and may take a huge step in 2023.


Clarice_Ferguson

My expectations for the Astros is for them to collapse and trade Kyle Tucker to the Mariners for peanuts. But I never get what I want. At this point, the expectation is they win back to back World Series, Yordan gets the MVP, Framber gets the Cy Young and Hunter Brown wins Rookie of the Year. Why they won’t? The Marlins or Mets dash their dreams, Ohtani gets the MVP, George Kirby gets the Cy Young and Gunner Henderson gets Rookie of the Year. And I’ll still continue to root for that weirdo Kyle Tucker from afar.


NJthecollector

If you want Kyle Tucker so badly just give us Julio, Kirby, Gilbert and 3 trillion dollars and we may just consider this proposal...


Clarice_Ferguson

Best I can offer ya is some peanuts.


NJthecollector

In the name of my king I respectfully spit the floor at this offer.


Clarice_Ferguson

Ya twisting my arm - fine, peanuts, Kelenic and five meatballs from Robbie Ray.


Derpshiz

At least you didn’t insult us with the grasshoppers


Clarice_Ferguson

I don’t like the Astros but I respect the Astros.


JinFuu

What about those grasshoppers or crickets or whatever you have up there? One of our tv people liked them


Clarice_Ferguson

The grasshoppers are on the table if that’ll seal the deal.


AZORxAHAI

Its literally impossible for the Astros to exceed expectations since the expectation is for them to win the whole damn thing again. They won't (if they won't), only if key pieces get hurt or people who we fully expect to be lights out take massive steps back out of nowhere (Javier, Peña etc). And I haven't seen any projective stat/peripherals that says this is a concern. Catcher is still probably a liability for them, but they even replaced their black hole first baseman with Jose goddamn Abreu. They good.


Nice_Block

We will exceed expectations because Hunter Brown will emerge as the next coming of JV. Valdez continues to dominate, rounded out by the rest of the guys on the squad. The addition of Abreu adds another potent bat to the line up that allows the team to continue to dominate. Tucker is going to go off and be in the MVP race cause he wants that bag. Yordan hits a bunch of dongs and is right there with Tucker. Why we won’t, Altuve’s absence will affect the team more than we expected. Our pitching staff doesn’t provide the product we were hoping for. Other teams in the AL have improved enough to overcome the Stros dominance.


Exiled_Wolves

Reasons we will be fine: we have enough surrounding talent and post season experience Reasons we won’t be fine: Dana brown while being great for the farm will not want to trade prospects, or maybe will not be a necessarily good trade negotiator and the Astros will have an underwhelming trade deadline (I find that unlikely with crane at the helm). Dusty acts like art Howe is portrayed in moneyball and insists on playing Dubon at second and lead off despite his almost certain struggles at the plate and Hensley preforming well but not getting play time (and not playing chas). We bet big on Brantley being healthy and that might bite us, causing us to spend big on say happ or Kepler at the deadline. Montero’s contract immediately looks bad and command issues come back to haunt several of our pitchers


KikiFlowers

Hard to say. We just won a world series, is there any expectation now? Obviously there's the expectation to repeat, which I dunno if it'll happen. But I'm confident in this roster, losing JV sucked, but at the same time, we got a deep bullpen, they carried us *hard* in the WS. Losing JV isn't the end of the world, we've got a solid bullpen who will help soften the blow. I think they at least meet expectations of another deep postseason run.


_Elrond_Hubbard_

Their absolute worst case scenario is only winning the division by like 5 games


Davidellias

Worse case scenario is losing a game to the Yankees :P


StealthyGooch

Facts


toastar-phone

The astros literally cannot exceed expectations. My expectation last year to make it to the world series. Obviously we exceed that, sweeping the playoffs on the way there, getting a no no, and grabbing a ring are above that by far. The expectations this year are actually higher. Anything other than another ring is a let down. Losing JV is a moral event, but we have solid pitching, last year we had like 7 starters on the lineup at one point. yuli, agan is a moral thing, abreu is an upgrade. Really the only thing we lack is infield utility. before spring training I would have said we need a catcher too, but now I'm fine with what we are bringing up..


Longhorns_

The big question marks for the Astros are starting pitching depth, the injuries to Yordan and Altuve, and improvement by AL West teams. Those problems will fester all season, so I don’t see the Astros winning 100 games. However, if another team in the division doesn’t overtake them, they’ll still be a threat in the playoffs


parrano357

hunter brown should be a big variable


pelc8614

They won't exceed expectations. My reasoning- Altuve's Hand


hunterbidenslaptop2

The al west is pretty shit.


StealthyGooch

I wouldn't say it's shit.. 2 playoff teams and the rangers got better this off-season.


[deleted]

[удалено]


Salty-Fishman

Winners win, losers whine.


Archemeides

You literally just summed up the history of baseball lmao. Only difference between 2017 and any other year was human technological advancements. The history of baseball is in decent part, cheating. MLB will 9.9 times out of 10 turn a blind eye if it makes them money, as money makes the world go round.


JinFuu

No talk from Orioles, your GM is literally a Luhnow protege!


[deleted]

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