Altuve Magic, Brown Dominance and Wesneski Arsenal

Not everything has gone wrong for the Astros

Apr 18, 2025

By modern baseball metrics this shouldn’t be the case.

His expected batting average (xBA), which theoretically estimates the likelihood a batted ball will become a hit, says he’s not a good hitter and hasn’t been for…11 years.

At least not as good as his final batting average EVERY season, except for the Pandemic season.

He can no longer patrol second base full-time.

He’s bad at running bases.

His swings are softer and his batted balls leave his bat slower.

He should be mediocre, maybe even out of the league by now, or a part-time player.

But he still hits.

And hits.

It’s magic.

Altuve magic.

Hunter Brown Domination

With four quality starts in four outings this season, Hunter Brown continues a stretch now closing in on a full season (32 starts from 2024-2025) of remarkable pitching.

During that time, Brown has averaged 6 innings per start, thrown 85% quality starts, limited opponents to a .213 batting average, .296 slug and given up just 11 home runs in 156.2 innings while compiling a 2.18 ERA.

Pretty remarkable stuff for a pitcher you rarely hear about outside of Houston and the Astros broadcast team.

Wesneski Pitch Usage

If you’ve been following along, you probably know I’ve been tracking Hayden Wesneski as the “throw-in” in the Kyle Tucker trade and believe the Astros saw something the Cubs didn’t, particularly with his cutter and changeup.

Here’s what Wesneski’s first three starts looked like:

From nary a curve in his first start (and none last season), to 13% in start 2, to 10% in start 3.

And the four-seam fastball - 55% to 35% to 28%.

The cutter went from 16% to 18% to 6%, after Nolan Schanuel hit one into orbit Sunday.

On the season, here is Wesneski’s usage, compared to 2024.

Wesneski has thrown the cutter to left-handed batters 94% of the time and the changeup to right-handed batters 100% of the time so far in 2025.

I pointed out how effective these two pitches were last season, with minimal use.

The two pitches are still a relatively small percentage of his arsenal: 13.3% for the cutter and 5.7% for the changeup, but they have been effective, Schanuel’s home run aside.

Technically, the cutter has been one of his worst pitches because of Schanuel’s blast, the only hit Wesneski has allowed on the pitch, but it’s a tiny sample to date.

The big picture is that Wesneski potentially has at least 4 effective pitches (I’m counting the cutter).

It’s a fascinating watch to see if Wesneski blossoms under the Astros pitching brain trust.

Projected AL West Standings

I typically start paying attention to this around May 1, but here’s an early sneak peek.

Suffice it to say it’s wide open.

Astros MiLB

Checking in on selected Astros Minor Leaguers.

Quick hitters:

The guys at Sugar Land are starting to hit a bit more, but Brice Matthews still strikes out way too much.

This season Matthews has struck out 23 times in 56 at-bats and over his MiLB career 172 times in 468 at-bats.

On the flip side, Matthews is 9 of 10 on stolen bases for the season and 59 of 73 in his MiLB career.

Shay Whitcomb has played all over the field, starting 7 games at first base, 2 at third, 1 at shortstop, 4 in left, 2 in right and 2 as DH.

The great debate between Blubaugh and Gordon when the Astros inevitably need another starter seems to heading Blubaugh’s direction, but that of course could depend on when the need arises.