The Amazing Astros Dynasty Has Come to a Screeching Halt

As the saying goes: all good things must come to an end. This year’s Houston Astros are living proof of that, as their early elimination from the MLB Playoffs likely marks the end of their historic run of dominance.

For years now, these Astros have been annual World Series contenders. As a matter of fact, their elimination this season means an incredible seven-year run of making it to the ALCS comes to an end as well.

It’s been a while since we’ve seen such a stretch of play from any team, let alone one that used to be laughingstock of the league.

Entering this best-of-three series, it seemed that the Astros would take care of business over a Tigers team that didn’t have any business in the playoffs to begin with. That’s not meant to be disrespectful towards Detroit in any way, but they rode a hot streak to the postseason and didn’t feel like they matched up well against Houston on paper.

That’s why you don’t pay attention to how matchups look on paper. The Tigers barely broke a sweat in knocking the Astros off their throne and sending their players home early. This begs the question: is the Astros’ mighty dynasty coming to an end, or is this merely a one-off showing?

By now, the answer feels clear: the Astros are at the end of their historic run as the AL’s best team. Their core players are not getting any younger and some key cogs are set to hit free agency without any guarantee of them returning next year.

Let’s take a closer look at what the Astros have going on and why it feels like the end has arrived.

The Astros’ Dynasty Has Come to an End

For many years, the Astros have been carried by a core of the most recognizable names in baseball. Jose Altuve, Kyle Tucker, Yordan Alvarez and Alex Bregman are currently at the center of the organization and are all superstar-caliber players.

The end of their incredible run was something Just Baseball took a look at back in January, well before the 2024 season started. It made sense that an aging core would eventually run out of magic, but this was before a single game was played this year.

Sure enough, the Astros found themselves in the postseason once again, but such an early departure was not something anybody saw coming. They were beat by a younger team that was either hungrier or just hot at the right time.

Departing Players

Long-term Pieces of the Core

Over the years, the core group has slowly started to disband. George Springer, Carlos Correa, Yuli Gurriel and Michael Brantley all found new homes or hung up their spikes.

This leaves the current group, led by Altuve and Bregman, who have are first and second on Houston’s all-time leaderboard in playoff games. The former signed a contract extension that will keep him locked up through the 2029 campaign. He’s going to finish his Hall of Fame-worthy career in Houston.

The same cannot be said for the latter. In fact, the 30-year-old Bregman is set to hit free agency for the first time in his own storied career. He figures to be one of the more sought after options not only at third base, but in all of free agency.

The fact of the matter is that Bregman could very well leave Houston. His “thank you Houston” post on X could very easily be interpreted as a goodbye, but we’ll cross that bridge once we get there.

There’s also Justin Verlander, yet another future Hall of Famer. He struggled to get going during the regular season and was eventually left off of the Astros’ playoff-opening roster. He recently indicated that he’s open to pitch in 2025, and it seems likely that he’s about to leave the Astros for the second time in his career.

Other Pending Free Agents

It’s easy to focus on the long-term core pieces of this team, but there’s going to be a ton of players leaving in free agency in the upcoming offseason; not just Bregman and Verlander.

Other players around the roster that will be unrestricted free agents include Yusei Kikuchi, Kendall Graveman, Hector Neris, Jason Heyward and Caleb Ferguson. Ben Gamel, who didn’t contribute a whole lot at the big league level, is also part of that list, but his loss isn’t going to sting as much as some of the others.

Arbitration is going to allow Houston to keep some of their other top pieces like Tucker, Framber Valdez, Jose Urquidy and Luis Garcia, but the first three can hit free agency after next season. The time to win is right at this moment, but the Astros are going to spend the remainder of the postseason at home.

Houston’s front office has some deep pockets and they’re surely going to try everything they can to send a competitive team out next year and the one after that. There’s surely going to be a financial hit next year as Rafael Montero and Jose Abreu will make a combined $31 million from Houston while not playing an inning for them.

It remains to be seen whether they can retain any pending free agents or whether they’ll be forced to look elsewhere and hope they can luck out with external additions.

No Internal Help on the Way

One thing they will not be able to do is rely on prospects coming through their farm system. For the past few years, the Astros have been very top-heavy as an organization. Most of the talent has exclusively resided in the big leagues with the minors offering very little in the way of reinforcements.

That’s not to say that there hasn’t been any homegrown success stories recently, but the future is looking bleak.

According to MLB Pipeline, the Astros’ farm system has landed in the following spots in league-wide rankings over the past couple of seasons:

• 2022 midseason: 30th

• 2023 preseason: 27th

• 2023 midseason: 30th

• 2024 preseason: 27th

• 2024 midseason: 30th

Having just moved on from some notable prospects in Jake Bloss and Joey Loperfido, an empty farm system has gotten even emptier. There’s also Drew Gilbert and Ryan Clifford, who were shipped to the Mets for Verlander a few years back. The Astros could use them right about now.

Jacob Melton (MLB.com No. 1 Astros prospect) and Brice Matthews (No. 3) are two of the position player prospects closest to the big leagues. Walker Janek (No. 2) was just taken in this year’s draft and is multiple years away.

Knowing that their current core only has a year or two left, the Astros are going to have to hope and pray that Melton and/or Matthews is able to come up and make a difference before it’s too late for their present window.

Closing Thoughts

The Astros are in a tough place. With multiple players set to depart in free agency, their recent defeat at the hands of the Tigers is a tough one to swallow. For all we know, this could be one of their last shots at another ring before this playoff window closes.

Should Houston find a way to contend next year (and they very likely will), their best players are not getting any younger. A barren farm system is not going to be around to help fill in the gaps of the inevitable departures they’ll face.

Even if this is the end of their dynasty, the Astros gave this thing a hell of a run and assembled one of the most consistently strong teams we’ve seen in decades. Hats off to them, whether this is the end or not.