Am I the only one who actually feels more hopeful about the Astros future after this 2024 season?

After 2023 I had a bad feeling that the dynasty was ending. We had some real questions about our pitching staff. This year we found a lot of solid guys who answer those questions. Hunter Brown finally found his footing and has evolved into this team’s ace, we have him till 2028. Spencer Arrighetti developed incredibly quickly into an extremely solid pitcher, IDK how long we have him but I assume even longer than Hunter. Ronel was extremely solid for this whole year until he finally started to get gassed at the end. If we can resign Yusei then that means we just answered a ton of questions at SP. What about the BP? Well Bryan King emerged and was super solid all year. Our pitching coaches proved that they are some of the best in the league this year. After 2023 I was worried our pitching staff was gonna be in a consistent decline if some guys didn’t step up, but they did! If any of Garcia, Javier, Urquidy, or LMJ come back next year then some guys can get moved to a long relief role in the BP and give even more depth at SP if anyone gets hurt.

As for hitting/fielding, we have some prospects there. The way our staff talk about OF Jacob Melton, who is projected to arrive in 2026 right as Tucker leaves, has me very excited to see what he brings. IDK how Janek is doing in the minors, but depending on how quickly he develops he could take over at C by 2026 or 2027 and we could move Diaz to 1B, which would solve a lot of problems. We still need a few more good OFs and 1B will probably be an issue in 2025, but for the future I think we will be okay.

Espada had a rough start as manager but rallied the team and got us another AL West crown after being 10 games back. I think next year we start much better which will allow us to get a much better record. Dana Brown has had some mixed results, but after the Kikuchi trade and how good he was I think I’ll just shut up and let him cook. He’s made some bad moves (Hader 5 years 95 mil is the first that comes to mind🤦‍♂️), but he’s also made some good ones. Too early to tell with him, but he earned some trust with the Kikuchi move. If he can resign Breggy and Kikuchi I’d feel way better about him. BTW this whole post hinges on Breggy being resigned, if we don’t resign Breggy I think we are cooked.