The 2023 series on team offense continues with the Houston Astros. The Astros finished eighth in the majors and third in the American League in 2022 with 4.55 runs scored per game.

This season I am using FanGraphs Roster Resource Depth Charts* as the source of default lineups. That Dusty Baker batting order is plugged into the Lineup Analysis Tool (LAT) using Musings Marcels as the batter projections.   That information produces the following results (Runs per game):

• Best lineup: 5.29
• Probable lineup: 5.20
• Worst lineup: 4.90
• Regressed lineup: 4.73

The Astros own the widest spread so far between their best and worst lineups, 0.39 runs. The wider the spread, the more care needs to go into creating a lineup. The default lineup captures 77% of the available value, so this is a pretty good order.

The lineup gets the grouping of the three weakest hitters right, batting Jeremy Pena, Chas McCormick, and Martin Maldonado seven through nine. The LAT would like them six through eight with Michael Brantley batting ninth, but the Astros are putting their power fourth in Yordan Alvarez in a more traditional batting order.

The LAT would like Kyle Tucker to take the clean-up spot, with Alvarez’s OBP in the second slot. (The LAT sometimes flips the two in their best batting orders.) Maybe when Brantley goes down with his annual injury, Tucker can get a chance to batter higher in the order.

This looks like an improvement over 2022. Yuli Gurriel projected to .316/.397, while Abreu comes in at .354/.458. The younger players should still be improving, so it may be tough to stop this offense in 2023.

You can follow the data for the series in this Google spreadsheet.

Previous posts in this series:

• Introduction
• Los Angeles Dodgers
• New York Yankees
• Atlanta Braves
• Toronto Blue Jays
• New York Mets
• St. Louis Cardinals
• Philadelphia Phillies

*This is the best version of this information I’ve seen, with everything you might want to know on one