2025 Houston Astros MVP Ballot, The Winner Is….

If you feel a palpable void in your social schedule, or perhaps your very soul, it’s probably because October is here, and for the previous eight Octobers (hell, even an October in the middle of a pandemic), we have had playoff baseball in the city of Houston. This year, thanks to enough injuries to fill a small hospital and an offense that appeared to be using toothpicks to hit, the Astros are off for the month of October. 

The baseball gods have screamed, in classic Seinfeld Soup Nazi style, “Houston! NO PLAYOFF BASEBALL FOR YOU!” Sure, the injuries can be partially to blame, but at times down the stretch, when the schedule looked pretty easy, and the lineup was near full strength, the Astros wilted, sometimes in cataclysmic fashion. Losing six games to the A’s by a combined score of 43-8 is just one glaring example. 

So now comes the unpredictable part, because we’ve never seen owner Jim Crane operate under these conditions — determine how to move forward with a team he most assuredly sees as a World Series contender, but having missed the playoffs entirely. To be clear, the Astros have missed the playoffs on Crane’s watch, most recently in 2016 before this past weekend. They’ve never missed the playoffs with a top tier payroll, and high expectations. 

Nobody is safe. If I had to bet, I’d bet my life savings, at a minimum, hitting coaches Alex Cintrón and Troy Snitker will be fired. Joe Espada, who was being. Touted as a Manager of the Year candidate a month ago, is on thin ice. It’s one thing to miss the playoffs, but it’s another to collapse entirely. GM Dana Brown shouldn’t get too comfy either. Jim Crane let the previous GM, James Click, go four days after wining a World Series in 2022.

Espada and Brown meet with the media late Tuesday morning, assuming both are still in their roles, so the answers in this press conference could be fascinating, especially considering that Dana Brown didn’t really answer whether Espada would be back, when asked over the weekend: 

“As far as I’m concerned, Joe is under contract,” Brown said from his suite at Angel Stadium. “We’re going to take a complete look at all of our operations. As far as I’m concerned, Joe worked hard through this season. We had to battle through a ton of injuries, and I really think the injuries (are) what caused us not to get to the postseason.”

On the one hand, bringing back Espada because of how he managed a practically unmanageable injury situation would be logical. On the other hand, it’s hard not to believe that Crane sees some other managerial prospects out there with a bit more juice, guys who can win a few more games on the margin with some good chess moves. 

For now, we close the books on the strangest season of Astros baseball I can remember. Somehow, they managed to go over their Vegas preseason win total of 86.5. Perhaps the easiest way to encapsulate how odd this season was would be to try to put together a classic MVP style ballot, 10 names, from 1st to 10th place, for the MVP of the Astros. 

In fact, let’s workshop this:

1. HUNTER BROWN, starting pitcher
Brown is the no brainer MVP of the 2025 Houston Astros. With a 12-9 record, a 2.43 ERA, and a team leading 6.1 Wins Above Replacement (WAR), Brown will likely finish in the top 3 for the AL Cy Young. With any run support in the second half of the season, he likely wins 16 to 18 games. He’s the one Astro who answered the bell at a high level all season long. 

Okay on to second place…..

Here is where the ointment is besieged by flies. There isn’t a single player that you can find that falls into Brown’s category of “season long stalwart.” The rest of the roster is made up of high level players who missed vast chunks of the season with injury (Yordan Alvarez, Jeremy Pena, Josh Hader), guys who were healthy all season but disappointed (Yainer Diaz, Christian Walker, Framber Valdez), and Jose Altuve, whose season is more complicated than we want to believe. 

So, for what it’s worth, here is what the rest of the ballot would like, and as you read this, just know that it may not be as simple as “fire Espada” or “we just need to get healthy!” 

2. JEREMY PENA, shortstop
3. JOSH HADER, closer
4. ISAAC PAREDES, third baseman 
These are the other three Astro All Stars in 2025. All three of them missed significant time with injuries, but I’d rather have 120 games (or in the case of Hader, 40 or so) of these guys than 162 of some of the others on the team. 

5. FRAMBER VALDEZ, starting pitcher
Framber was a nightmare in the final two months of the season, but when the Astros were at their most injured in the first four months, Valdez’s 13 straight starts in which the Astros won vaulted this team to the top of the division. He will be missed in 2026. 

6. JOSE ALTUVE, second base/left field/DH 
His 0.5 bWAR was lower than Zach Cole’s 0.6, but he’s the best player in the history of the franchise. I can’t have him languishing with the scrubs. I’ll plunk him at sixth. 

7. BRYAN ABREU, relief pitcher
8. JAKE MEYERS, center fielder
9. YAINER DIAZ, catcher 
10. JASON ALEXANDER, starting pitcher 
Man, it was hard to round out this ballot. Abreu was your second most impactful relief pitcher behind Hader. MEYERS was a borderline All Star before suffering a calf injury. Diaz was second in bWAR among everyday players. Finally, Alexander was your second best starter behind Brown for the final two months of the season. 

Countdown is on to March 26, 2026, Opening Day, and hopefully the beginning of a redemption season for our hometown team. 

This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.

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