How have the Astros’ offensive projections changed over the course of the season? It could be worse…at least we’re not the Rangers
The Astros have been going through a tough stretch lately with little to show from their offense. But what about the future? Well, we do have projections to look at. Now, I know some of you don’t like projections. But it’s what we have, and some people spend a lot of time perfecting the projection systems.
The projections shown on Fangraphs are being updated continuously. As more actual data is known during the season, the algorithms adjust the future expectations. The results are shown as rest of season (ROS) projections and updated projections, which basically show us what the model now expects for the full season stats. I will use Fangraphs depth chart projections (a combination of Steamer and ZIPS) and Steamer updated and ROS projections.
So let’s look at the ROS projections for Astros’ hitters and see how much, if any, the projected hitting performance has changed. The following table compares the hitters’ pre-season wRC+ with the projected wRC+ going forward or ROS. Yellow is a decrease, and green signifies an increase.
Source: Fangraphs
Compared to pre season expectations, seven of the Astros’ hitters are projected to have their wRC+ decrease and the remaining six are projected to increase over the rest of the season.
Walker, Rodgers, Dezenzo, and Alvarez have seen the greatest lowering of expectations for the remaining season relative to the pre season projection. Pena, Caratini, Dubon, and Smith have seen the most significant upgrade in expectations for the rest of the season.
The projection foresees Pena hitting at a 113 wRC+ clip the rest of the way, and I think most of us would be quite happy with that performance. The projection has looked at Walker’s slumping performance so far and reduced his wRC+ from 122 (pre-season) to 112 going forward. While that’s a downgrade, I might feel pretty good about that rate of performance going forward, since it would be a major improvement over what we’ve seen so far. Alvarez suffers a downgrade going forward, but still if he returned and put up 161 wRC+ the rest of the way, that would be huge plus for the team.
10 of the Astros’ hitters are projected to post above league average performance over the remaining season, with only three projected to post below league average performance the rest of the way.
Turning to the full season updates, how many home runs will each of the hitters tally when the season ends.
Source: Fangraphs
Paredes is projected to lead the team with 28 HRs, followed by Walker with 25. The pre season prediction was bullish on Walker’s home run total (32) and the updated projection of 25 is 22% lower, but still would be a productive number of home runs. Walker’s projection is followed closely by Altuve (23) and Pena with 21. The updated projection foresees Walker ending the season with a 100 wRC+, which would be quite a bit lower than the Astros expected when they signed him.
Alvarez’s projected 18 HRs would be the lowest of his career, except for the 2020 season when he only played 3 games. From a projection standpoint, that may be most severe obstacle for the Astros offense this year.
A reminder that these updated ROS stats are a key input to Fangraphs’ playoff odds. And currently the Astros have the best playoff odds in the AL West (73%) and the best odds for winning the division (53%). The 2d place Mariners currently have 38% odds of winning the division.
We despair at our offense and it’s lack of runs. But as I noted previously: it could be worse—at least we’re not the Rangers. I was fascinated by Dan Symborski’s chart in his FG article about the futility of the Rangers’ offense. He ranks the teams by number of games it scored one run or less.
Fangraphs—Dan Symborski
I’m not showing this to make fun of the Rangers (though you can do so if you like). Rather I was surprised that the Astros had the 11th fewest games in which they scored 1 run or less. It seems like I have watched so many Astros low scoring games that I expected the Astros to rank closer to the Rangers in games scoring one run or fewer. It’s worth noting that the Maariners are tied with the Astros, both playing 11 games scoring one or fewer runs. The Astros’ next opponent, the Guardians, are also tied with the Astros at 11 games. Hopefully we won’t see too many more of those type games by the offense.