Reason for optimism: Anchored by the youngest lineup in baseball in 2015, the Astros were one bullpen meltdown away from playing for the pennant.
Reason for pessimism: It might be nitpicking, but the offense wasn't that different than what it was in the darker days of 2013 and 2014.
In 2013, when Houston switched leagues, the Astros ranked 27th in runs scored, last in strikeout rate and 26th/29th/28th in AVG/OBP/SLG. In 2014, those five figures, respectively, were 22nd, 29th and 25th/21st/15th. That's improvement, to be sure, but it's still bottom-third in composite offensive categories.
Last season, in leading the AL West for the majority of the season and ultimately making the playoffs as a wild card, the Astros jumped to sixth in scoring. They must have really changed their offensive approach, right? Well, they remained 29th in strikeout rate, they were still bottom tier in batting average (21st), and they were an improved but still below-average 16th in on-base percentage. The big difference was in slugging, in which they were second in the majors, supported by 230 home runs, the second most in franchise history.
In the five seasons prior to last year, only one team hit more than 230 home runs, and that was the 2010 Blue Jays, who had a very similar profile. We're talking bottom tier in strikeouts, walks, batting average and on-base percentage, supported by a lineup of solo home run-hitting mashers. Home runs are skills, of course, but is hitting 230 a repeatable feat? The 2010 Blue Jays hit 71 fewer homers the next season yet were still an elite power-hitting team. When it comes to Houston, Evan Gattis, Colby Rasmus and Luis Valbuena, the team's top three producers, all had career highs in dingers in 2015, as did Jose Altuve. AL Rookie of the Year Carlos Correa hit 22 home runs in 432 plate appearances after a minor league career in which he hit 28 ... in 1,262 plate appearances!
It's not that the Astros didn't turn the franchise around; they played better than their 86 wins and were very unlucky to lose the division to the Rangers. It's that their whole offense dramatically relied on the home run. If they hit 30 fewer home runs this year, the remaining 200 will probably be good for no worse than fourth in the majors. That's still a prodigious output, but it might cost a team such as Houston, without compensating offensive skills, four to five wins, and in a division as evenly matched as the AL West, that could cost the Astros the crown they are favored to win.
Given my bullishness on a couple other teams in the division, that might be focusing on a weakness that is minor compared to the rest of the team's strengths. For example, Houston's defense was a big driver in last year's improved run suppression. After finishing 29th, 26th and 20th from 2012 to 2014 in adjusted defensive efficiency, the Astros finished eighth last year. However, that comes with a caveat: Houston had the best defense in the majors through the first 81 games of 2015 but ranked just 20th in the second half. The Astros need to stay somewhere between those two rankings to support a pitching staff that relies on a lot of ground balls.
Helped by the defense, the rotation posted the second-lowest ERA in the American League. Those results were somewhat better than the underlying skill sets of the starters, but don't expect regression this year. The staff, anchored by Dallas Keuchel, Collin McHugh and Lance McCullers, is actually stronger. Or, more accurately, it has the potential to be even stronger if new addition Doug Fister's 2015 ERA of 4.19 -- his highest in five years -- was an aberration. Fister and a full year of Mike Fiers will replace the 40-plus starts from Scott Feldman, Scott Kazmir and Roberto Hernandez that in aggregate were below league average.
For a variety of reasons, bullpen regression is something you can nearly set a clock to. The Astros' relievers, with an ERA of 3.27 last year, appear to be prime candidates for regression in 2016, as low-3.00 ERAs are difficult to replicate. That said, the reason low-3.00 ERAs are difficult to replicate is that collectively, bullpens don't normally have skills to support that level of run suppression. However, the Astros' relievers, who were third in both strikeout and walk rate in 2015, do, and they only got better in the offseason. Not only is every reliever who threw 50 or more innings for the Astros returning, but the team also added hard-throwing Ken Giles to the mix in a trade with Philadelphia. A ton of attention is being paid to the three-headed closer the Yankees, in an effort to replicate the Royals, are going to deploy this year, but the Astros have similar potential to be dominant.
I'm a little leery of the drop-off in defense in the second half of the season, as well as the difficulty of continuing to be an above-average run scoring team without hitting 230 home runs again. But that shouldn't lead to the conclusion that I'm here to throw shade on the Astros. To me, there is little separating Houston from the other teams that might emerge from a tight, three-team race to take the division.
Given that, absent injuries, Houston will most likely field an under-27 lineup, when weighted by at-bats, I'm certainly not going to take the under. It's just that with a total wins market of 88.5 -- five higher than that of anyone else in the AL West -- I don't think the Astros are quite the division favorites that those figures would lead you to believe.
2016 projection: 86-76 (second in the AL West)
Bet recommendation: Pass