Just what the heck is going on with these Astros anyway? The informal straw poll taken among most armchair general managers and casual fans in each of the last two seasons has led us to believe they looked very unimpressive on paper, and now for the second year in a row, they appear to be proving us wrong. Is there something in the water down there in the deep south that makes an average looking team into a champion? Perhaps it's the petroleum fumes permeating the air down there? This weekend, the Astros are under the microscope and I'm going to attempt to answer the question, "Is this team for real?"
When trying to determine where we as analysts might have gone wrong in looking at any baseball puzzle, the first thing to do is ask ourselves what going on that we didn't expect? The hot start in the W-L column might be nothing more than shear luck, so before we start looking at components, let's check the overall numbers.
In 2005, the Astros won 89 games on the strength of one of the two or three best pitching staffs in all of baseball. In a mild hitter's park they managed just 693 runs scored but allowed a microscopic 609 runs, for a pythagorean 90-72 season. They didn't have any noticeable "luck" last year. How about this year? Well, through 23 games in 2006, they've scored 122 runs and allowed 106 for a pythagorean 13-10 record (they're actually 15-8) so they've been a bit lucky so far, but that doesn't fully account for the difference between their record and what we expected. Most fans thought this team would struggle to stay near .500 with the loss of Roger Clemens and likely continued decline of Craig Biggio and Brad Ausmus (not to mention the absence of Jeff Bagwell). So what gives? How are they fooling us again?
The big thing that had many people believing they were done for in '06 was the loss of Roger Clemens. He pitched to the tune of a sub-2.00 ERA and ate innings like sunflower seeds. In 2005 they allowed just 3.76 R/G and we expected that replacing Clemens' astonishing final big league season with something more pedestrian would cost them potentially as much as half a run per game on average. Sure enough, these Astros are in fact giving up many more runs this year than last - 4.61 per game to be exact. This comes as no surprise and likely means the rate at which the Astros are allowing runs is pretty representative of what we can expect long term.
The big thing that's kept these Astros winning games despite their increasing average age and the loss of Roger Clemens is the offense, which has thus far been scoring runs at a rate of 5.39 per game. I think it's fair to say this kind of offensive production was almost completely unexpected by most pundits (myself included) at the start of the year.
The opening day line-up is was almost exclusively made up of the same players who last season produced a meager 4.28 R/G:
- Willy Taveras (CF)
- Craig Biggio/Chris Burke (2B)
- Lance Berkman (1B) (formerly Jeff Bagwell)
- Morgan Ensberg (3B)
- Jason Lane (RF)
- Preston Wilson (LF) (formerly Lance Berkman)
- Adam Everett (SS)
- Brad Ausmus (C)
Certainly, this didn't look like the worst line-up around before the season started, but Preston Wilson wasn't going to be an upgrade over Jeff Bagwell even at his questionable performance last season, and rest of the cast is exactly the same. Aside from the suddenly star-struck Jason Lane who finally got some playing time last year and "arrived" on schedule, and the formerly inconsistent and often frustrating Morgan Ensberg, this line-up is completely devoid of young stars with a lot of room for growth over last year's totals. Willy Taveras was perhaps the most overrated player in the NL - he's completely unable to take a walk, absent any noticeable power at the plate, and not exactly the best strike zone judgment for a lead-off hitter (121 Ks and 32 BBs between 2005 and 2006).
So we're left wondering, how are they scoring all of those runs this year? Let's just do a quick spot check of OPS numbers from last year and this year and see who's improved the most/ Then perhaps we can get an idea about whether it's reasonable to expect the Astros to keep winning like this.
| Player | 05 OPS | 06 OPS | 06 PA | Diff. | Impact |
| Willy Taveras | 0.666 | 0.697 | 107 | 0.031 | 3.3 |
| Lance Berkman | 0.935 | 1.117 | 105 | 0.182 | 19.1 |
| Morgan Ensberg | 0.945 | 1.254 | 103 | 0.309 | 31.8 |
| Craig Biggio | 0.791 | 0.861 | 100 | 0.070 | 7.0 |
| Jason Lane | 0.815 | 0.833 | 100 | 0.018 | 1.8 |
| Preston Wilson | 0.792 | 0.690 | 94 | -0.102 | -9.6 |
| Adam Everett | 0.654 | 0.688 | 75 | 0.034 | 2.5 |
| Brad Ausmus | 0.682 | 0.893 | 74 | 0.211 | 15.6 |
| Chris Burke | 0.678 | 1.227 | 33 | 0.549 | 18.1 |
| Eric Munson | 0.691 | 0.419 | 23 | -0.272 | -6.3 |
Now, to explain this table a bit. These are top ten position players in terms of 2006 plate appearances - the ten guys most responsible for the scoring in Houston. The 2005 and 2006 OPS of each of the players is listed in the leftmost columns with the exception of Eric Munson, whose career OPS was used due to limited playing time in 2005. If the Astros got the same production from each o those players as they got in 2005, you can be certain they would not have scored 5.39 runs per game and the fourth column of data represents the difference between this year's production and 2005. The column at the far right is the player's PA multiplied by that difference. This has no direct scientific meaning (what is a PA multiplied by an OPS figure in real world terms? Nothing really), but it gives us a really quick and dirty way to eyeball who has had the biggest impact on the increase in run scoring over last year or perhaps more accurately over out expectation for this year. Four players jump out as primary culprits here.
Morgan Ensberg is off to a molten hot start this year...one that is probably unsustainable in the long run. The Astros shouldn't be expecting production that exceeds his '05 OPS by more than a few dozen points this year.
Lance Berkman is also off to a great start but this is a bit more of a grey area. While his OPS was .935 last year, that was actually a bit of an off-year for him. While I doubt he'll hit for a 1.117 OPS all year, 1.050 is well within his reach.
Chris Burke hasn't had much playing time this year, but when he has gotten a start, he's done a LOT with it. Despite the small PA count, you can bet his ridiculously great production thus far has saved the 'Stros a couple of games that they shouldn't expect to get again from Burke as the year progresses.
Brad Ausmus has somehow managed to walk 11 times...he's on pace to out-walk his career best (2005) by 30, which is just not going to happen. He's also hitting .350 right now and anyone with 1/4 of a brain in their head knows that's not going to continue. Singles are largely a function of luck and more prone to random clustering and large swings in success rate than the other offensive events. Expect Ausmus to continue hitting exactly the way he's hit so far, and yet have that average drop from .350 to .200 in a big hurry. He's crusty...he's odl...and he's not going to suddenly pull a rabbit out of his hat and become a hitter.
Aside from a cool start by Preston Wilson, Houston has gotten more than normal from just about every player in their line-up every single day and it's just not likely to continue as the year goes on. Expect the Astros to eventually cool off and head back toward that .500 figure we all expected. Enjoy the wins while they come, fans...it may be a long summer once the glow wears off on a very mediocre line-up.
Questions or comments? Email the author at m_souder@yahoo.com.
