Looking at the Upward Trend in Offense, And A Peek At Playoff Odds
The Astros’ offense began the season in unimpressive fashion. Sure, there were signs of future improvement ibased on the quality of contact. But the theoretical only takes you so far. As the calendar heads toward mid-May, the offense has slowly but surely improved. Will it continue?
Let’s look at the current MLB offense rankings. We can use wRC+ as a measure of overall ranking above or below average The Astros currently rank 13th with a slightly above average wRC+ of 101. The Astros also rank 12th in offense WAR with 5.4 (one notch above the Phillies). The Astros also rank 12th in OBP and 21st in SLG (.322 and .375).
The MLB rankings can also provide us evidence that the Astros currently enjoy an upward trend. The stats below compare May 2025 to the season through the end of April.
wRC+ (Rank)
Through April 30 23rd (93)
May 1 to May 12 4th (129)
On April 30, my article was subtitled: “The Astros face a slow grind to erase an early season power problem.” The diminished power output has been the most notable aspect of the Astros’ offense. But the same kind of comparison shows that the “slow grind” to improve power output was apparent in May so far.
SLG (Rank)
Through April 30 25rd (.353)
May 1 to May 12 10th (.434)
ISO (Rank)
Through April 30 26th (.121)
May 1 to May 12 13th (.148)
In the April 30 article, the glimmer of hope was shown by the higher x-SLG, which exceeded the actual SLG by 45 points at the time. This may indicate that the Astros’ hitters were somewhat unlucky in the first couple of months.
This juxtaposition of x- stats and actual stats continues among Astros’ hitters to some extent. Does this suggest that continued improvement will continue going forward? Maybe.
With the exception of Altuve, Paredes, and Caratini, all of the Astros hitters currently have a x-SLG in excess of actual SLG. The x-SLG vs. SLG is shown ordered by magnitude of difference.
(SLG / x-SLG)
Alvarez .340 / .496
Rodgers .310 / .420
Diaz .385 / .473
Dezenzo .381 / .464
Dubon .255 / .313
Meyers .409 / .431
Walker .373 / .393
If all of the hitters above continue to push their SLG in the direction of x-SLG, the Astros’ offense might really hit its stride. Of course, Yordan Alvarez may be the most critical question mark. He is currently on the IL and even with the hand injury, he exhibited a huge difference between SLG and x-SLG. We don’t really know when Alvarez will return the lineup. But he is a significant “X Factor” for this lineup as the only truly elite hitter. The future is uncertain…but one can hope for a revived Top 5 – 7 offense later this season.
Playoff Odds
As we are prone to do from time to time, let’s take a glimpse at the Astros playoff odds, according to Fangraphs.
The odds are shown below for FG Regular and FG WAR. FG WAR utilizes WAR instead of BaseRuns to calculate playoff odds. At this point we don’t know which is the better method.
FG Regular
Mariners: Division 52% Playoffs 73%
Astros: Division 26% Playoffs 51%
Rangers: Division 16% Playoffs 38%
Athletics: Division 5% Playoffs 16%
FG WAR
Mariners: Division 49% Playoffs 71%
Astros: Division 30% Playoffs 54%
Rangers: Division 18% Playoffs 41%
Athletics: Division 3% Playoffs 9%
The initial takeaway is that the Fangraphs model likes the Mariners chances of winning the division, but gives the Astros decent odds of making the playoffs. Currently the model sees the Astros with an advantage over the Rangers. This will change, of course, because a lot of baseball remains to be played.