Astros, the World Series streak that defies controversy

Houston is already a more than usual team at least in the Championship Series for at least the last six years where they have gone to the Fall Classic four times, counting the most recent one against Philadelphia. Their great streak, which peaked in 2017, had been called into question precisely because of how they won what is now the only World Series win in their history.

In that season, the Astros beat the Yankees with a series that was defined until the seventh game. Weeks after the great victory for the franchise, the credibility of the project was in doubt due to the scandal that meant stealing signals -using technology- illegally from its rivals throughout the season, which earned the team the fine maximum that is allowed for breaking the rule: the payment of 5 million dollars, in addition they were prohibited from participating in the first two rounds of the two following draws.

Looking to the future, in the franchise they have been in charge of reaffirming that their golden age is not a consequence of their actions against the regulations. After the issue was clarified and the guilty were punished, the line with Houston has not changed and the leading role is already a constant season after season. They have achieved this with several successes in the work within the template, which has been renewed year after year with great success.

Although player movements are common in any sports team, it is normal for the gaps left by casualties to be hard to fill, this becomes more evident if they are players considered as stars. Elements like George Springer, Dallas Keuchel and Carlos Correa are not part of the team, they left their mark but their absence was not felt in the subsequent activity. Now players like Kyle Tucker, Yordan Álvarez and the Dominican Jeremy Peña stand out, who was chosen as the MVP of the last Championship Series.

The formation of talent has been a huge key to the success of the team, since that is where the replacements of the great figures who are leaving have emerged. “The organization, the work they are doing. The scouting team, the front office, the general manager and the owners are putting a lot of effort to put the pieces together to replace guys who are difficult to replace … You have to give a lot of credit to (management) for the fact that we are still playing well and being in these situations,” José Altuve said before the World Series.

In the Minor Leagues, the team has not scrimped on projecting its elements of the future or even experimenting with its rookie players to have better elements for the Major Leagues. One of the examples of this is the “position addition” in which Astros players play in different positions than they are used to in order to have elements better prepared for when they have to make the jump to the MLB where they have a prestige to protect.

On the other hand, Yordan Álvarez hit the nail on the head about the brilliant present of the team: “(The great teams) do not depend on one, two players. They have a complete lineup that has a function to do, and obviously it does it, ”he sentenced in an interview for the MLB. In the Astros there is not just one figure, as several elements stand out in various statistics. Frambes Valdez’s 194 strikeouts in the regular season, Yordan’s 37 home runs before the playoffs, Kyle Tucker’s 107 RBIs and Jeremy Peña’s incredible postseason where he has three homers are some examples of the aforementioned.

Every great orchestra needs a great teacher, and what better than someone with experience, both in life and on the diamond, like 73-year-old Dusty Baker. Although many would think that it is difficult to manage a group with so much talent, the manager smiled when he stated that he lives with fun people. Among the keys to having a good group management, he highlighted that it has been important to be steeped in diverse cultures: “I think that managing (players from) different cultures is probably one of the easiest things for me, because I have lived in several cultures in my life (…) I think it would be convenient for most people to learn to speak Spanish, due to the number of Spanish-speaking people we have in baseball”, closed the Californian who played in Venezuela, Puerto Rico and Mexico.