From honors to money, what a November for the Houston Astros

What a month of November has it been for the 2022 World Series champion Houston Astros. They were able to close out Game 6 at Minute Maid Park and raise the Commissioner’s Trophy in front of their home fans on November 5. Two days later, the City of Houston held a parade to celebrate the franchise’s second World Series pennant with an estimated 2 million Astros fans coming out to celebrate and cheer their team after a great year of baseball.

So let’s fast forward to Awards Week. Justin Verlander wins the Cy Young Award unanimously and later wins AL Comeback Player of the Year. Yordan Alvarez finished third in the AL MVP voting and had a great season, slashing.306/.406/.613 while collecting 37 home runs and 97 RBI. Jose Altuve hit over .300 for the first time since 2018 and finished fifth in the AL MVP race. Framber Valdez had one of the best season he’s had in his young MLB career, from getting selected to his first All-Star Game to breaking the single-season record of quality starts with 25, previously held by Jacob deGrom in 2018 with 24. Lastly, there is your 2022 ALCS and World Series MVP, Jeremy Peña. A lot of Astros fans weren’t sure what they were going to get from this rookie. He had to take on a vacant position that was held down by Carlos Correa since 2015. During the season, he had to learn to adjust on certain offspeed pitches and, when it came to the 2022 postseason, he had no problem being on the biggest stage of them all.

Each team has that one goal, and that is winning the World Series. The Astros were there in 2021 but, unfortunately, they ran out of gas at the end to the Atlanta Braves, so you know this team had an ambitious drive going into spring training in 2022.

Let’s fast forward into the postseason. The Astros faced a scrappy team in the ALDS against the Seattle Mariners, a team that had the longest postseason drought in any major sport, and Houston swept them. Moving onto the ALCS, Houston ran into a familiar team the Astros have faced many of times in the playoffs … the New York Yankees. Undefeated in the playoffs so far with three, how about making that seven games in a row, and sweeping another team in the playoffs? Houston swept New York following the Yankees’ fanbase cheering, “We want Houston,” after beating the Guardians in the other ALDS matchup. Well, they certainly got it.

Now making it back to the Fall Classic in four of their last six years, the Astros have a lot of experience and know what to expect at the biggest stage, although the Philadelphia Phillies were on a hot streak of themselves. The Phillies made the playoffs as a sixth seed Wild Card, then beat the odds by eliminating the St. Louis Cardinals in Busch Stadium, the 2021 defending champs Atlanta Braves, and downing the shocking San Diego Padres in the NLCS. However, all Cinderella stories come to an end, and the Phillies were no match for Houston’s lineup and pitching staff.

All of the hard work that the players put in from spring training all the way to winning the World Series was well worth it. Each Astros player had received a playoff bonus of $516,347 after the ending of the World Series, the largest playoff bonus in MLB history.

Houston Astros owner Jim Crane loves to win and he’s looking to continue to win more pennants and raise the Commissioner’s Trophy for a long time.