Astros Rotation in Jeopardy! Depth Concerns Threaten to Derail Houston’s Championship Hopes

With spring training games underway for the Houston Astros, the team is hoping the moves made this winter won’t result in them falling out of contention in the American League.

For the last decade, the Astros have been arguably the team to beat in the league. For seven straight years, they were able to reach the ALCS, but that streak was snapped in 2024.

Despite the franchise having the ability to return most of the core and make another run at it in 2025, they have gone in a very different direction this offseason.

With one year remaining on his contract, Kyle Tucker was traded to the Chicago Cubs for a package of players. This decision was a clear signal that the team was going to be retooling a bit this winter.

That was followed up by Houston not being able to re-sign their gold glove third baseman, Alex Bregman.

Both of these losses are significant for the Astros, but there is still some talent on this team. There is certainly a scenario in which Houston makes the postseason in 2025, and that will be because of their starting rotation.

Despite having a lot of talent in their lineup last year, the starting rotation was what carried the team in the second half of the season to the playoffs.

This offseason, the Astros did lose both Justin Verlander and Yusei Kikuchi in free agency, with Kikuchi being a significant blow after a great second half of the year. However, the unit still has talent, but it might not be perfect.

Brian McTaggart of MLB.com recently spoke about some of the potential depth concerns with the Astros’ rotation heading into the season.

Currently, Houston’s rotation will be heading into Opening Day with Framber Valdez, Hunter Brown, Ronel Blanco, Spencer Arrighetti, and Hayden Wesneski.

While the first four are proven with the Astros from last season, Wesneski was part of the Tucker trade and doesn’t have a big sample size of starts in the Majors.

Even though they might not have a lot of depth to start the campaign, they will have some reinforcements hopefully coming at some point during the year.

Currently, Lance McCullers, Christian Javier, and Luis Garcia are all recovering from surgeries. The hope is that they will be back in 2025, but there are never guarantees of timelines when coming back from arm surgeries.

The Astros know from last year that depth in the starting rotation is important and injuries happen. Hopefully, the unit can stay healthy to start the season, otherwise, they could run into some trouble.