It’s 2025 already. Happy New Year! Perhaps this is a good time to understand how the Astros’ performance might change in 2025.
Make no mistake about it. Dana Brown is re-shaping the Astros’ offensive profile this off–season. Brown’s major transactions so far are among position players; and, therefore, this article will address the changing profile of the offense. The personnel changes are obvious: the loss of Bregman and Tucker, accompanied the new 3b and 1b, Isaac Paredes and Christian Walker.
I previously evaluated the probable change in team WAR as a result of those changes. Based on the Steamer projections at the time, I concluded that the transactions resulted in a 1.9 win loss for 2025, compared to an Astros team with Tucker and Bregman. However, subsequently Steamer revised Walker’s projections based on playing in the Houston ballpark. Walker’s WAR increased to 4.0 and his wRC+ increased from 119 to 124. As a result, the previous 1.9 decrease in projected wins is now only 0.9.
In fact, the revised offensive projections for both Walker and Paredes are upward based on playing with the Astros. Walker’s projected HR total increased to 32. Paredes’ projected wRC+ is 126 and his projected HR total is 25. Compare that to Paredes’ 2024 wRC+ of 117 and actual total home runs of 19. Walker and Paredes may or may not perform as expected in 2025. But give Dana Brown credit for acquiring players who are expected to benefit from the change in ballpark.
In this article, I will use Steamer projections to examine the potential changes in the Astros offensive profile in 2025. Many of us hope that the Astros acquire one or more additional outfielders, but at this point the analysis is based on fielding an outfield with internal resources. I would prefer to utilize both Steamer and ZIPS projections, but Steamer currently is the only available projection. That is a notable limitation, since projections other than Steamer may produce somewhat different results for individual players. In addition, my analysis is based on Steamer’s playing time projection for each player.
In order to arrive at team-level stats, I have utilized Steamer projections for the top 16 position players on the Fangraphs’ Astros depth chart. (Pedro Leon is position player no. 16, and players lower on the depth chart are statistically immaterial.) These are assumptions, but I can’t really argue with them.
Based on the Steamer projections, the Astros’ 2025 offense is expected to be an improvement over 2024. The Astros are expected to hit 25 more home runs in 2025 (215 projected vs. 190 home runs in 2024). As shown below, most of the offensive metrics are expected to improve over 2024.
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