New Bats Invigorate Astros Lineup
Three players acquired at the deadline have turned the Astros lineup around
After taking two of three in Miami, the Astros head to New York to take on the Yankees for three over the weekend.
Things are set up well, with Hunter Brown and Framber Valdez scheduled in the first two, but as we found out in the A’s series, nothing is guarenteed.
Expected Wins, Should Be Standings and Projected Standings
Two of three in South Beach leaves the Astros at 89 expected wins.
I’ve updated the short term trend to just August, now that we’re a week in.
Hanging on by a thread in the Should Be Standings.
If the wins and losses and run differential continue at the current rate, we would expect the final AL West Standings to look like this:
Batter and Pitcher Season Projections
Correa continues to roll, though some of that was pitching and defensive play in the outfield for the Marlins.
Both Walker and Diaz continue to project over 100 OPS+.
Prior to the season I projected Walker to .251/.333/.479 with 30 HR and 92 RBI.
Ooof.
I will say that his torrid July/August have raised his current projections to 25 HR and 88 RBI, so not a complete bust, but it won’t be easy to continue playing at the level he has for the last six weeks.
Nice contribution from Blubaugh who was immediately optioned afterwards.
Quality At-Bats
Another indicator of what Correa has added.
The three new players as a whole are 30 for 65 (46.2%), while the team average is 39.5.
Cam Smith’s Plunging wOBA
We’ve all noticed this, just maybe not the severity of it.
Rando Stats of the Day
*It’s a tiny, six-game sample, but the Astros have registered a 112 wRC+ since the trade deadline, when before the acquisitions of Correa, Sanchez and Urias, the team wRC+ was 103. The wOBA was .318 before and .331 since.
*The Astros are batting .247 (16th in league) with RISP with a 101 OPS+. The Mariners are 29th in the league at .227 (89 OPS+) and the Rangers are 23rd at .238 (85 OPS+).
*Carlos Correa is slashing .346/.393/.538 with a .401 wOBA, 160 wRC+, 50% Hard Hit%, 91.5 MPH average exit velo and a max exit velo of 111.2 in his 28 plate appearances with Houston.
*Since July 1 (124 plate appearances), Christian Walker is slashing .306/.363/.514 with 6 HR, 24 RBI a .376 wOBA and a 143 wRC+.
*Taylor Trammell’s 14.6% walk rate is almost double the league rate of 7.7%.
*Despite his shutout inning on Wednesday, Bryan King has pitched to a 4.32 ERA post-All-Star Break, covering 8 appearances and 8.1 innings, giving up runs in each of the three appearances before Wednesday.
The left-handed King has a 1.97 WHIP against left-handed batters and a 0.90 WHIP against right-handed batters.
Lefties are slashing .373/.421/.490 against King, compared to .206/.250/.344 for righties.
King has walked 7.0% of lefties vs. 3.6% of righties.
Last year King gave up 0 home runs and opponents batted just .149 and slugged .213 on 218 four-seam fastballs. This year: 5 home runs, .246 average, .404 slug on 335 four-seamers.
While the velocity hasn’t changed much, 92.1 in 2024, 92.0 in 2025, the spin has decreased on his four-seamer by 3.9%, while the launch angle has more than doubled (7 to 15 degrees).
King throws a sinker 10% of the time to left-handers, while only throwing it 2 times (of 538 pitches) to righties. Opponents were 1 for 5 off his sinker last season (single), while this season they are 5 for 12 (all singles).
King has faced right-handed batters 71% of the time in 2025.
As always, thanks for reading!