If you weren’t aware that the defending World Series champions are even more formidable this year, look no further than what took place last Friday night. Playing against the NL-leading Arizona Diamondbacks, the Houston Astros won 8-0 behind a magnificent complete game, 16-strikeout performance from starter Gerrit Cole. I repeat: sixteen strikeouts! Oh, and he also only allowed one hit.
This sort of success has been nothing new for Cole, who the Astros acquired from Pittsburgh last winter, in the early stages of the new season, though. After two unremarkable years following a 2015 All-Star appearance, the twenty-seven year-old flamethrower has reasserted himself as one of the best pitchers in baseball, as his performance Friday night lowered his ERA to 1.42 (3rd lowest in the American League). More importantly, Cole now leads all qualified starting pitchers in WAR according to Fangraphs (2.5) thanks largely to his league leading FIP (1.55).
One thing you’ll also notice on Fangraph’s WAR rankings is that Cole is hardly the only Astro on this leaderboard. Justin Verlander — you may have heard of him — is second in WAR (1.8) and has the lowest ERA in the AL (1.13). Lance McCullers Jr. (17th in WAR) and Charlie Morton (27th), meanwhile, are a combined 8-1. And in the case of Morton, the hero of last year’s Game 7 victory over the Dodgers, his ERA is the 8th lowest in all of baseball.
Talk about starting pitching depth! Only one other team in the past ten years has had four starting pitchers rank in the top 30 in WAR. That club was the 2016 Chicago Cubs (a.k.a. the team that broke the 107-year-old championship drought). And we also can’t forget about Dallas Keuchel, the 2015 AL Cy Young winner who is surprisingly off to a 1-5 start. But I wouldn’t write him off: after all, he has finished with a sub 3.00 ERA in three of the past four years.
Also evident during Houston’s 21-15 start is that its offensive stars are one again spearheading arguably the most prolific lineup in baseball. Reigning MVP Jose Altuve is among the league leaders in batting average (.322), while George Springer (7 HR) is on pace to top his 34 home run total from 2017. Yet Carlos Correa has been the most impressive of the lot, as his .512 slugging percentage leads the Astros.
What’s surprising, though, is that the defending champs have actually been underperforming so far this season: with just a 21-15 record despite sporting MLB’s 2nd best run differential (+63), the Astros’ adjusted win total according to Baseball Prospectus suggests they have been playing like a team that should be 25-9, a mark of which that far outpaces their pythagorean win expectation at this point last May. In other words, Houston has yet to blossom despite adding a possible Cy Young candidate in Gerrit Cole to an already deep starting staff and receiving strong starts from their three offensive superstars.
Even with the Red Sox and Yankees looking like legitimate World Series contenders, the road to the Fall Classic still runs through Houston. And lost amid a series of noteworthy developments over the first five weeks of the season is that the world champion Astros are even stronger.
