"Playoffs?!" My unsolicited thoughts on the team

Like many of us fans, I played baseball my whole life, and now coach my son and just generally have a deep love and appreciation for the game.

There are some aspects of the game that I look at through a "baseball purist" lens, and there are other things I look at as an Astros fan. An example of what I mean by purist – I have a pet peeve for LOB. It's through my purist lens that I see having egregious LOB as rendering a team undeserving of winning a game. Some of that is driven by the knowledge that OBP is so strongly correlated to wins.

So when I look at the 2023 Astros, I'm obviously going to have some fan feelings and some purist feelings.

Fan: I very much believe we have the 2nd most skilled team in baseball next to Atlanta. I can make this case subjectively and objectively.

But alas, unlike other sports like football, you can't level up your performance inherently by getting stronger or faster on the track or in the weight room. I recognize there are caveats to this, but I think you all understand what I'm saying.

Baseball is a game of confidence because it is a game of failure. Football is not a mental game. Basketball is not a mental game. Again, I get that this is an oversimplification but the point stands.

The 2022 Astros played with an unrivaled confidence. Yes, the skills were there too of course, but those aren't skills that have changed drastically between 2022 and 2023.

The Astros' skills in 2023 haven't really mattered much honestly, though I guess it has kept us white-knuckling the playoff race.

Fan BLUF: Skills without consistency undermines confidence.

Purist: The Astros don't deserve a championship in 2023. Having the offensive arsenal on this roster and,

A) not executing consistently to find the wins vs finding sporadic annihilations, and

B) not finding a consistent and viable starting lineup where everyone knows their role,

….to me renders a team unworthy of the championship. That isn't to say they can't or won't. But beating the Red Sox 25-2 then losing the other 2 in a series is not execution, it is diminished returns and diminished value.

Dusty Baker: I have admittedly made some emotionally (fan) driven comments even here on this sub as they related to Dusty, to Chaz, to Yainer. Some were over the top and some were fair criticisms.

Defense of Dusty: he is exactly who we needed and I'm convinced he was the only man for the job in that moment in that year in the context of the scandal. I appreciated everything he brought to Houston including his player-centric older school wisdom and approach. This is a dying characteristic in baseball, and i think the game will suffer if it is ever removed.

Critique of Dusty: He has perhaps too deep and long of a history by throwing the Heisman at data-driven decision-making. At a certain point, it is pure stubbornness and dereliction of duty to not use tools you have access to. He has also showed a strong unwillingness to adapt when the situation changes and desired results aren't being achieved. We've discussed plenty of the specific examples of this that I won't get into here, because we've already done all that on this sub.

2023 Prediction: We crawl across the finish line into the playoffs and get crushed by Tampa Bay in the ALCS, who go on to lose to Atlanta in 5 games.