The Players That Got the Houston Astros to the World Series

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Despite the disappointment of losing the World Series to the Washington Nationals, 2019 has been very much the year of the Houston Astros, with them accruing a formidable winning record and showcasing some of the best players in the MLB.

One of the reasons this has been a year of victories for the Astros, with one notable World Series sized blip, is because of their huge talent pool. 

Because of the paucity of their players, they remain one of the best-ranked teams in the MLB, highlighted by the fact that you can get 6-1 odds of the Astros being the winners of future MLB World Series games as far out as 2037.

In this article, we will be looking at some of the best players in the Houston Astros during the 2019 season and the role that they played in getting the Astros to the World Series Finals.

Alex Bregman

The mark of a great batsman is knowing which balls to hit and which to leave. This requires steady nerves and lots and lots of patience, something that Alex Bergman has in spades. The downside to this deliberate, calculated, and patient approach to batting is that it can skew the reading on a lot of counts.

Not that this matters to Bergman, who can just point to the fact that he hit .304/.393/.611 after falling behind in the count 0-1. His patient approach has snagged him the 16th-best post-0-1 OPS this century and made him one of the hottest hitters in the MLB at the moment.

Justin Verlander

Sometimes it takes a change of scenery to bring out the best in a player. There is no arguing that Justin Verlander made his mark during his career at the Detroit Tigers, so much so that his record would have been more than enough to get him into the Hall of Fame. After all, he led the league in strikeouts for four seasons and had seven starts which resulted in more than 20 swinging strikes.

As good as that record was, it pales in comparison to his work with the Astros, where his 10 starts resulted in more than 20 swinging strikes in this season alone, giving him the third-highest strikeout rate in major league history during the second half.

George Springer

George Springer has unarguably upped his game this season. His sprint speed has gone up, he put in his best year in terms of defensive stats, managed to get the hang of right-hand pitching, and added career highs in home runs and slugging to the mix.

Springer would have been a sure-fire pick for MVP had he not been out of action most of June due to a strained hamstring. While it can be hard to stand out in a team as packed with talent as the Astros, Springer has carved a place for himself with his clear dedication and gritty determination.

Jose Altuve

It’s a sad truth that second basemen have a high attrition rate and, looking at Jose Altuve’s stats across the 2019 season, it is pretty clear to see that he has slumped somewhat since 2017. He only stole six bases this year, as opposed to leading the league in them, and has dropped from successfully challenging .350 in 2017 to now unsuccessfully challenging .300.

Despite this, Altuve still put in a second-half performance to this season that was entirely MVP-worthy, leading in total bases vs all the other hitters in the MLB and racking up more than the next two hitters in the Astros combined.

Carlos Correa

Carlos Correa can be justifiably proud of the fact that he is currently 10th out of all the active players in the MLB in Wins Above Replacement (WAR) per game. He is quite possibly the best shortstop currently playing, with an arm reminiscent of Troy “Tulo” Tulowitzki and home run rate that has only been beaten by big names like Alex Rodriguez, Ernie Banks, and Trevor Story.

The only reason that he is not constantly at the top of the MVP list is the fact that he cannot seem to stay healthy for a full season.

Zack Greinke

Strikeouts make for an exciting game for the fans, but there is a place in every winning team for a pitcher like Zack Greinke, who can make sure that the opposite team is starved of homers and walks, something he is currently 9th and 3rd best in the league at, respectively.

Put Greinke ahead in the count and he is number 52 out of the 61 possible pitchers in strike rate. While that doesn’t seem great, loose pitching loses points, and Greinke is at his best when he is working around the edges, making sure he throws zero easily hittable pitches.

Michael Brantley

Hitting the big 30 is a difficult time in the lives of most sportsmen because the stats are against you and new talent is always on the way. The 2019 season made this pretty clear as all the players over 30 in the MLB collective had their worst season in the last 50 years. All of them except Michael Brantley.

Brantly has a reputation as a hard contact hitter, at his best when he pulls the ball. This year, however, he switched up his game, batting better than .400 in any direction and pushing that up to almost .600 when knocking it into the opposite field.

It’s All About the Talent Pool

So there you have it, with talent like the players above, it is easy to see why the Astros were the team to beat this year and, while the Nationals managed it in the end, it was no easy feat. 

2019’s only disappointment for the Astros was the World Series, but given the caliber of players they have at their disposal, there is a very good chance that 2020 could see them repeat their dominant performance in the league and go on to sure another World Series trophy.