The Houston Astros need to regroup after their early playoff exit.
For the first time in seven years, they weren't able to reach the American League Championship Series when they were eliminated by the Detroit Tigers in the Wild Card round, ending their AL record of consecutive appearances.
Injuries certainly played a part, especially in their pitching rotation throughout the entirety of the season, but the Astros also felt different at the plate this year when they weren't able to come through with clutch hits like they have done so often in the past.
In fact, their ranking of 12th in the RBI category was the lowest it's been since 2016, the campaign before they won their first World Series, when excluding the COVID-shortened 2020 season.
While the raw numbers were certainly noticeable, that was a result of them having the second-highest chase rate and third-highest swing and miss rate. This was all compounded by them seeing the fewest pitches per plate appearance by any lineup in the league.
Houston completely got away from the approach that made them feared in the batter's box, and general manager Dana Brown is giving their hitting coaches a clear direction about what needs to happen heading into 2025.
"We need to start seeing more pitches. We've been far too aggressive too early in the count. Second and third, no outs, we're swinging at breaking balls early in the count. We need to get away from that. We need to hunt the fastball, we need to be a little bit more patient, and aggressive in zone, not so much aggressive out of the zone. I think if we can do that, that's going to make a big difference," he said per Chandler Rome of The Athletic.
The insider also revealed that Brown, members of the front office, and manager Joe Espada met with hitting coaches Troy Snitker and Alex Cintron to go over these changes.
It will be interesting to see what comes out of this.
The Astros had a disappointing result in Espada's first year as skipper, but it's hard to put the blame solely on him when this team was struggling at the beginning of the season because of poor play and injuries and he was able to guide them to yet another AL West title.
Still, this is the first challenge for the young manager.
The front office has given him and his coaching staff a clear directive on what they want to see from this offense, so how he goes about ensuring that gets done will be seen.