Houston Astros 2016 Season in Review
By Jason Burke
The Houston Astros surprised everyone in 2015, making the playoffs as one of two wild card teams and pushing the eventual World Series champion Kansas City Royals to the brink of elimination. The team entered 2016 with higher expectations, but after a slow start to the season the Astros were unable to make up enough ground to push for a postseason berth.
That’s the basic gist of the Houston Astros 2016 season, but there was much, much more at work in the “why” they faltered this year en route to an 84-78 record. Today we’re going to take a look at some of the reasons behind the Astros not meeting the expectations of many, upcoming free agents and look for how they can correct some of their shortcomings headed into 2017.
Before we get into that, let’s briefly look at where Houston ranked this season in terms of offensive production, defensively and with their pitching staff.
At the plate the Astros ranked in the middle of the pack in all of baseball in runs scored with 724, one behind the Dodgers and two up on the Twins. While their cumulative wRC+ of 99 is just a touch below league average, that’s a solid lineup to throw out there one through nine. That 99 ranked tenth in baseball. The downside here is that they also ranked 8th in the American League in both runs scored and wRC+.
On the rubber, the team ranked first overall in the AL in pitcher’s cumulative fWAR with Collin McHugh leading the way with a 3.0 WAR. In terms of the rotation alone, that ranking drops to sixth in the AL, meaning that the bullpen was a much bigger strength than many will likely consider them, given the struggles of Ken Giles and others at times over the course of the year. The starters ranked 8th in the league in ERA with a 4.37 mark, which was close the the AL average of 4.20 this year. The bullpen’s cumulative WAR came out to 7.9, which is 1.5 more than the second-best club in the Yankees, who had the trio of Aroldis Chapman, Andrew Miller and Dellin Betances for a few months.
In the field, the Astros were the best defensive team according to DRS (Defensive Runs Saved), taking away 51 runs from the opposition throughout the course of the year. That’s nearly one for every three-game series.
That’s where things get interesting, however. Colby Rasmus was responsible for saving 20 of those runs by himself, and will hit the free agent market this winter. He likely won’t make nearly as much as he did by accepting last year’s qualifying offer, but he’s still likely in the $10-12M per year range. With George Springer, Yulieski Gurriel/Alex Bregman and Teoscar Hernandez/Jake Marisnick roaming the outfield, the Houston Astros have options, and could allocate some of that money in other ways.