Chapter 7: How The West Was Won - Lineups

Astros still best in West despite losing Bregman and Tucker

Mar 18, 2025

I admit to being a little bit surprised when I found out Fangraphs projects the Astros lineup to accumulate the most fWAR of any AL West team, given the preseason hype for the Rangers.

Yes, I was one of the early ones who said the infield was going to be better, and Paredes/Walker is an improvement over Bregman/Singleton.

But there is a giant hole in the lineup where Kyle Tucker used to reside.

Of course, the Astros went three months without Tucker in the lineup last season and did just fine, but we’re projecting and the Tucker for Chas tradeoff does not favor Houston this season.

Still, “trading” Christian Walker for Jon Singleton and Isaac Paredes for Alex Bregman is a net positive and offsets some of the fWAR loss of Tucker, if not the sting of jettisoning one of the most underrated players in the game.

I should emphasize that net positive is “on paper” and still has to play out on the field and in the clubhouse.

We shall see.

The first six in the lineup look set, but the bottom is a bit sketch, as the kids say.

Chas needs to hit the fastball again as I wrote in October and Jake needs to hit like he’s a rookie.

The bottom three are in flux, or can be early in the season.

I envision Cam Smith starting the season in Corpus and learning right field for a few weeks to a month, before being promoted to Sugar Land and eventually Houston.

What that means for Chas and/or Jake, or someone like Ben Gamel, is anyone’s guess at this point.

The point here is that the bottom three are weak, again “on paper”, with some potential upside if Chas regains his fastball mojo or Cam becomes MLB ready, both offensively and defensively.

What About Everyone Else?

A lot will have to go right for Texas to accumulate 25.5 fWAR from the lineup as constructed.

Last year the Rangers totaled 16.9 fWAR from batters, meaning hitting 25.5 would be a 51% increase. That doesn’t even include the bench players, of which Texas has the best in the division.

Fangraphs, and the public at large, is projecting a bounce-back season in Arlington and I get that, at least to some extent.

I’m simply postulating that everyone bouncing back in the same season is possible, but unlikely.