The Houston Astros made it through the 2016 offseason relatively unscathed. Gone from the team are Jason Castro, Colby Rasmus, and Luis Valbuena — none of whom finished with a batting average above .260 — and replacing them are solid veteran bats Carlos Beltran, Brian McCann, Nori Aoki, and Josh Reddick. These four will hope to add some stability to what was a top-heavy lineup in 2016 featuring young studs Carlos Correa and George Springer. Throw in a full season from ex-super prospect Alex Bregman, and there is plenty of reason to be excited about the Houston Astros in 2017.
New Arrivals
Brian McCann
McCann’s power is almost exclusively to right field, which is bad news, since Minute Maid Park is considerably deeper than Yankee Stadium to this wall:
Still, only one (maybe two if Mookie Betts was playing right field that day) of McCann’s 2016 home runs would not have also been a home run at Minute Maid Park (see above). In seven games over the past three seasons at Minute Maid, McCann has been a boom-or-bust option, scoring double-digit points in two games and zero points in another two (per our Trends tool):
Carlos Beltran
Like McCann, Beltran played the majority of his 2016 season with the Yankees and has demonstrated the most power to right field. Although Beltran finished his 2016 season with the Rangers, 22 of his 29 home runs were hit as a Yankee. Like McCann, Beltran is moving to a stadium that’s not a great fit:
Beltran’s park history over the past three seasons is not inspiring. He has exceeded double-digit fantasy points only once in 14 attempts:
Josh Reddick
Reddick is another player with a negative Plus/Minus at Minute Maid:
But at least he has a relatively high Upside Rating, with four career homers at Minute Maid and two performance in 2014 of 20-plus points:
The shift from Oakland to Houston will mostly be a neutral one, given his power profile:
Handedness
Last year’s Astros fielded a boom-or-bust lineup, and that’s best demonstrated by their home run and strikeout rankings. Against right-handers in 2016, Houston ranked 15th in home runs and eighth in strikeouts. Against lefties, they were even more extreme, hitting the sixth-most home runs while striking out at the second-highest rate in the majors. Overall, Houston bats combined for a negative Plus/Minus on 36 percent Consistency, tied for the third-worst mark in the league.
Every single batter with a positive Plus/Minus against lefties in 2016 is back on the roster in 2017:
Although each of the Astros big free agent acquisitions have typically fared better against righties, there is reason to be optimistic when stacking the Astros against lefties this year. One would first have to hope that Correa can return to his 2015 level of production against lefties, as his year-over-year production against lefties dropped by more than two fantasy points. Additionally, his batting average was around 40 points lower, and Correa didn’t even appear to be particularly unlucky: His batting average on balls in play (BABIP) was actually higher in 2016.
It’s hard to draw any conclusions on Bregman, who played in only 49 games last year in the majors and dominated both righties and lefties indiscriminately while in the minors. As a righty, he probably fares better against lefties. Add to the mix Evan Gattis — who punished lefties last season — and you have all the ingredients for a very intriguing stack to begin 2017. (Pro subscribers can use the Lineup Builder in our Player Models to construct multiple rosters with customized stacking configurations.)
Against righties, the Astros needed to add more help in 2017. Jose Altuve was the only Astro to finish above +50 in total Plus/Minus against righty pitching in 2016.
Beltran (+124.5 against righties) is unlikely to replicate his stellar 2016 season at age 39, but the last time his Weighted On-Base Average (wOBA) against righties fell below .340 was in 2010.
Reddick was presumably brought in on his ability to hit righties. Over his career, his wOBA (+50 points) and isolated power (+40 points) splits against right-handers have been dramatic.
Pitcher Types
Against the league’s hardest throwing pitchers — those whose average fastball velocities exceeded 93 miles per hour — the Astros ranked near the league average in 2016. The biggest surprise here was Correa’s disappointing -1.4 Plus/Minus against such pitchers:
Even with Correa’s somewhat underwhelming 2016 season, the -1.4 Plus/Minus is still a marked downgrade from Correa’s baseline of -0.4 Plus/Minus. Altuve finished near his baseline +0.8 Plus/Minus, and it was Springer who added the most value (baseline +0.3). In 2015, all three batters finished above their baseline Plus/Minus against the high-velocity group. Keep a close eye on Correa’s performance when matched up with these pitchers in 2017, as it may serve as a solid barometer for his fantasy viability.
Control pitchers — those whose average velocities fell under 92 miles per hour — befuddled Houston bats in 2016. Their collective -0.3 Plus/Minus tied for the third-worst mark in the majors. In this group, Altuve stood head and shoulders above his teammates:
Vegas
Vegas did not serve as a great fantasy predictor for the Astros last season. They finished as one of only seven teams with a negative Plus/Minus in games in which they were implied to score four or more runs. Even with at least 4.5 implied runs, the team’s Plus/Minus was exactly zero, the sixth-worst score.
The big bats were fine in these games:
But the bottom of the order was awful:
Sometimes it’s not a bad idea to stack players lower in the order on teams with good Vegas data, but that strategy did not work at all when applied to Houston bats last season.
Minute Maid Park
Righties
Minute Maid’s Park Factor for right-handed bats last season was 42, which put it near the middle of the pack in that category. Despite the neutral Park Factor, Minute Maid has been the most unfriendly park to righty bats over the past three seasons (in Plus/Minus):
So what gives? Batters at Minute Maid actually produced more DraftKings points per game (6.69) than at other bottom-ranked parks, indicating that players were priced up by DraftKings in these matchups and their fantasy production fell short of their salary-based expectations.
In terms of overall fantasy points scored by right bats, Minute Maid ranks 18th overall: Not great, but not the worst. How this venue plays in 2017 will very much depend on site pricing: Will these players continue to be priced up or not?
Lefties
Against lefties, Minute Maid’s 54 Park Factor places it in the upper-mid tier. Here again, though, Minute Maid ranked 26th (of 30) in terms of Plus/Minus. While Minute Maid may technically be a batter’s park, it has not played that way from a points-versus-expectations perspective since 2014.
Conclusion
The Astros failed to live up to lofty expectations in 2016 but return their talented core group of players in 2017 and have added some solid veteran bats to round out the lineup. Following Vegas was not a profitable strategy when targeting the Astros in 2016, and if that trend holds then Astros stacks might best be deployed in large guaranteed prize pools in games with less attractive implied run totals at lower ownership.
