Astros 2024 Projected Win Total

The Astros left some wins on the field in 2023

Many Astros fans were disappointed with the 90 wins the Astros registered in the 2023 regular season and truth be told, it “felt” like they let some games get away.

That feeling was perhaps exacerbated by losing 7 of 9 in September to the lowly A’s and the almost as lowly Royals.

“Analytics see every play, our memories only see highlights.” - Aaron Schatz on Wharton Moneyball Podcast 1/24/24

Win one more against KC and win the series against Oakland and you’re at 92. Split the 6 against KC and win the A’s series and you’re at 93. Win the KC series and the A’s series and you’re at 94.

This could go on forever, and you could keep finding “wins” without finding the games the Astros “should” have lost.

That’s one of the reasons I like analytics. As Aaron Schatz recently said, “Analytics see every play, our memories only see highlights.”

Or in this case, analytics see every game, not just the ones your team “should have won”.

Schatz more eloquently expressed my belief that we tend to remember when our team lost but should have won (in our minds), but not those times our team won, but should have lost.

The Pythagorean Theorem calculates the 2023 Astros should have won 93 games and my numbers came in at 92 when rounded.

Whether it was the losses to Kansas City and Oakland down the stretch or Houston’s 14-17 record against the middling AL Central is irrelevant for these purposes.

The Astros left 2 or 3 wins net on the field.

This includes games they “should” have won and games they “should” have lost.

The current win total for the 2024 season at FanDuel is 93.5, which should be no surprise given the numbers above and the fact that the Astros have made no major moves other than adding Josh Hader.

That said, it’ll be interesting to see how this moves now that news has broken that Justin Verlander is “a couple of weeks behind schedule”.

Hader seems like a big move, but in reality, we think he’s going to replace a guy who was already really good (Ryan Pressly) and Pressly will replace a guy who had a career year (Bryan Abreu) and Abreu is likely to replace a guy that had a fantastic season (Hector Neris).

The long and short of it is while Hader makes the Astros bullpen better, it doesn’t move the needle that much because the guys doing those jobs last season were good.

Plus, the Astros still have lots of bullpen innings to fill with…I’m not sure who.

Sitting here in mid-February, I think 93.5 is spot on.

It’ll fluctuate during the season with performance, injuries and the like, but it’s hard to quibble with right now given what we know about this team as constructed.

Thanks for reading!