An Astros FAILURE And WASTE Of Money

In 2022, the Houston Astros were the most dominant team in baseball, proving to the world that they can win a championship without any cheating. They had the Cy Young Award winner on their team, a dirty bullpen, one of if not the best lineup in baseball, led by Jordan Alvarez, finishing the season on top of the baseball world again. As strong as the roster was though, if you wanted to be nitpicky and look at weak spots, take a look at first base. Uli Gurriel overall had a really solid career as an Astro, especially for someone who didn't Going on to have some really good offensive seasons for Houston, with 2017, 2019 and 2021 being his best. He had a thing for even years, I don't know what that was about, but by 2022, the bad production just wasn't there anymore. He did play in the vast majority of the games that season, but he just wasn't a very good hitter at all. So after the championship was won, the Astros decided it was time to get even better and upgrade at first base, and who was now a free agent? Jose Abreu. So welcome, and if you're not subscribed to this channel yet, don't worry about that, I'll earn your subscription by the end of this video. Just like Jose Abreu earned what just recently happened to him, and also like he earned what originally happened to him that got him in a Houston Astros uniform to begin with. But to know the full context, we gotta go back, back to when Jose Abreu was one of the best hitters in the world. The issue? He was stuck in Cuba. That didn't stop him from dominating over many years at a young age. He played there for 10 years, improving pretty much every season as he continued to progress with age and experience, eventually setting a Cuban home run record in the 2010-2011 season and was named League MVP. Going on to eventually play for Team Cuba in the 2013 World Baseball Classic early on that year, where he was great. And later that same year is when things started to get real. Things that started to form during the WBC, where Abreu decided he was going to defect Cuba. And in August of 2013, there started to be rumors that Abreu had defected from Cuba in order to go after an MLB career. Rumors that ended up being true, as Jose successfully told Fidel Castro to go F himself, left, established residency in Haiti, and trained in the Dominican Republic. And just 2 months later, Abreu was not only just a big leaguer, but 68 million dollars richer, signing a 6 year deal with the Chicago White Sox worth that much. Life changing stuff, and Abreu didn't skip any beats, continuing right where he left off in Cuba, talent wise. Just now doing it at the big league level, winning Rookie of the Year. But to just say Abreu won the 2014 Rookie of the Year award would be undermining how good he actually was, like that would be really disrespectful. Because Jose Abreu was legitimately one of the best hitters in all of baseball in his very first year, hitting 36 home runs, having the highest slugging percentage in the game, being named an all star, winning a silver slugger award, and finishing 4th in the American League MVP voting. And Abreu was never quite that dominant over a full season stretch again, but he continued to be one of the better hitters in baseball, while also being reliable to play almost everyday, which is something that never changed about Jose. His health was never an issue, he hit for power, usually for a good average, won 3 silver sluggers, 3 all star appearances, signed another contract with the White Sox after the 2019 season for 3 more years with 50 million, before proceeding to go out and win the MVP award the next year. And yes, it was the shortened 2020, but he still was the best, at one point even hitting 4 home runs in 4 consecutive at bats, which tied an MLB record. And by 2021, Abreu finally got a taste of a full winning season with the White Sox, 8 years after originally signing with them, helping lead the south side to the postseason with a top 15 MVP finish that featured 30 home runs, well over 100 RBIs, followed by a 2022 season, the last on his latest White Sox contract, that was even better in some aspects, because his batting average jumped back over 300. And in what ended up as a disappointing year for the White Sox, Abreu just continued on being one of the most consistently good hitters in the game. So who other than him to take over at first base in Houston for what really was the Ashers only weak spot? Not only was Abreu one of the best and reliable hitters for pushing a decade at this point, but he also would add yet another veteran presence that never hurts. And so it happened, with Abreu signing a 3 year, $58.5 million dollar deal to join the defending champs, getting a base hit on opening day and proceeding to go on a 10 game hit streak to begin his Astros tenure, as the team would go on to not only win the AL West again, but go to the ALCS for the 7th straight season. If I left it at that, it sounds great, you would have expected everything to be fine, except there's just one thing. I skipped over the most important part regarding Jose Abreu, the fact that after that 10 game hit streak to begin the year, Abreu followed that up by hitting .231 with a .678 OPS the rest of the way in his next 131 games, which is really bad. And another very notable thing was the lack of power. Abreu had always been a guy with pop, lots of it, but it took Abreu until May 28th of 2023 to hit his first homer of the season in First with Houston, which also ended a home run drought of 260 at bats, the longest of his career, going on to hit just 18 on the season. Now, there was kind of a warning sign to this, considering Abreu's home run total pulled a Darth Maul from 2021 to 2022, cutting straight in half from 30 homers to 15 despite playing even more games in 2022, so clearly something was up there, and that only continued over the course of his first year in Houston. But of course, since baseball is so stupid, Abreu suddenly and magically became his 2014 self in the postseason, hitting 3 homers in the ALDS alone and 4 overall before the Rangers ended their season, but hey, at least that's a good sign that Abreu finished off strong, so hopefully 2023 was just a random off year. Well, 2 months into 2024, the opposite is true, because not only has Abreu not improved, he somehow got a lot worse, at one point riding a batting average of .099 and getting sent down to the Florida Complex League Astros to get much needed training and help by a bunch of 17 and 18 year olds, of course. A month later, he would rejoin the team, and yeah, it just wasn't working, at all. He continued to struggle at the plate more than he ever has in his life, with the Astros making the decision that they'd had enough, releasing Jose Abreu and the $30 million left O'Damn. And to me, and I'm sure most people, it's just confusing that it even got to this point, especially relatively quickly. I did mention the sign that his power was in decline, but everything else seemed normal. The batting average was up, he still got on base at a good rate, there's nothing that hinted toward the decline we saw in Houston that I don't even think should be called a decline. He just completely fell off a cliff. He did go on the injured list late last season because of a lower back issue, so maybe just age and little stuff like that contributed to Abreu's production declining, but I still just don't see how it would fall as far as it did. Literally going from one of the game's most reliable and productive hitters, again, for almost an entire decade, just to immediately become pretty much as dreadful as one can get at the plate. Like, it doesn't get any worse than that. And I'm not even going to shame the Astros for this, nobody should. This is one of those situations where you just gotta accept the L, take it on the chin, and move on. Nobody in their right mind could have ever seen this coming, not to this extent. Nothing over the years throughout his career hinted at Abreu becoming unplayable. You can't blame Dana Brown, the general manager, I mean, yeah, it's his fault, but it's the same fault anyone else would have made. They attempted to upgrade at first base by making a move anyone would have agreed with, only for their first base production to get worse. And if this is it for Jose Abreu's entire career, well, I think he should be remembered in a good way, obviously. For the vast majority of this man's career, he was one of baseball's best hitters, without a doubt. As for Houston, things aren't seeming as magical lately for them, things aren't falling into place like they did before, and I'm not going to throw the towel on them just yet, but things do feel a little different now. Maybe they'll start getting some more production out of first base, which would be something they haven't really had in years, we'll see. But as far as Jose Abreu's contract, it was a complete fail and waste of money, but at the same time, there's really nobody to point fingers to. It just didn't work out, and it is what it is. Let me know your thoughts, thank you for watching, and I'll see you soon.