It’s Opening Day today in Houston as the Stros take on the Marlins this afternoon at Minute Maid Park, so it’s time for my annual preview of the Stros upcoming team and season (last season’s preview is here). Let’s first review what happened over the 2005 season and the off-season:

First, the improbable ride to the 2005 World Series.
An off-season snarky week in Strosland and Richard Justice’s continued petty criticism of Drayton McLane and Tim Purpura.
Why Milo Hamilton is wrong when he claims that Willy Taveras should have been National League Rookie-of-the-Year.

Comparing bad off-season deals and Roger Clemens, player agent.
Reviewing the top ten Stros minor league prospects.
Acquiring Preston Wilson may upgrade leftfield, but he’s no slugger.
Why Gene Elston should still be the Stros play-by-play announcer and the Stros connection to the latest Hall of Fame inductee.
The muddle over the disability insurance policy on Jeff Bagwell (here, here, here, here and here), the greatest player in Stros history prepares for the Hall of Fame, and something about steroids that Stros fans may soon be hearing about.

So, with that backdrop, the Stros begin their quest to make the National League playoffs for the seventh time in the past ten seasons as they close out the remarkably successful Biggio-Bagwell era. I was one of the few to predict that the light-hitting 2005 club could contend for yet another playoff berth, although even I wavered during the early part of the season and even later in the season. But after a horrible 15-30 record in their first 45 games, the 2005 Stros were a remarkable 74-43 for the remainder of the regular season to lock up the playoff berth with only three less wins than the 2004 club that came within a game of the World Series.
Most experts are again predicting that the Stros will decline during the 2006 season. Essentially, the contrarian view of the Stros is that inexperience in starting pitching, combined with the Stros’ overall lack of hitting and hitting prospects in the high minor leagues, will finally catch up with the Stros and cause them to finish closer to a .500 record than the 90-95 wins that are usually necessary to sew up a playoff berth (Baseball Prospectus’ Joe Sheehan has the Stros finishing 80-82). Although I understand the contrarian view, my rose-colored glasses view of the Stros is that the club has enough to make at least one more playoff run at the end of the Biggio–Bagwell era in which the Stros have posted a winning record in five consecutive seasons and 12 of 13 since 1993.
This season’s club will likely be better than last season’s club from a hitting standpoint, although that’s really not saying much. Last season’s club ended up at a -26 team runs created against average (“RCAA,” explained here) for the regular season (12th out of the 16 National League teams), which means that the 2005 Stros scored 26 fewer runs than an average National League team would have scored during the season.

However, the hitting of last season’s club stabilized over the second half of last season (a +2 team RCAA after the All-Star Game), and the upgrade of Wilson over Burke in leftfield, a full-season from star slugger Lance Berkman, and probable improvement from starters Jason Lane, Taveras, and Adam Everett will likely make the Stros at least an average — and perhaps a slightly above-average — National League club from a hitting standpoint this season. That is significant because, had the 2005 club been able to maintain an average level of hitting throughout the season, the Stros pitching was so strong that the club would have challenged the Cardinals for the best record during the regular season in the NL Central Division.
Unfortunately, the hitting will have to better for the Stros to make the playoffs this season because the pitching probably will not be as good as last season. Most importantly, it remains unclear at this point whether the Rocket will return in May to attempt to add a third straight playoff run with his hometown team. Even if he does, it is highly unlikely that the 43 year-old Clemens will be able to match his incredible 2005 season performance in which he saved the Stros an incredible 53 runs more than an average National League pitcher would have saved in the same number of innings pitched (“RSAA,” explained here).
Similarly, it’s just as unlikely that 34 year-old Andy Pettitte, whose 43 RSAA last season was second only to Clemens in the National League, will be able to match that performance in 2006. Thus, even though the Stros pitching staff’s 100 team RSAA in 2005 was second only to the Cardinals staff’s 130 among the 16 National League teams, it is not likely that the Stros 2006 staff will be able to approach that total.
That’s not to say that the Stros do not have some talented new pitchers ready to contribute. For example, rookie Taylor Buchholz, who was the key to the Billy Wagner trade with the Phillies from a couple of years ago, has been the best starting pitcher on the club during Spring Training. He earned a place in the starting rotation and clearly has good enough stuff to become an above-average National League starter. However, Buchholz has had arm and shoulder problems over the past two seasons in the minors and it is decidedly unclear whether he can survive the rigors of an entire MLB season.
Meanwhile, Brandon Backe, despite his heroics during the club’s playoff runs over the past two seasons, still has not pitched more than 150 innings in one MLB season, had a horrible Spring Training and has not yet ever achieved a positive RSAA for a season as a starter. The Stros other starter coming out of Spring Training — lefthander Wandy Rodriguez — was basically horrible last season (-20 RSAA), although a deceptively good won/loss record misleads casual observers into thinking that he was better than he really was.
The Stros do have some good, albeit inexperienced, pitchers (Fernando Nieve and Jason Hirsch being the first two) available if Backe, Buchholz or Rodriguez falters, and the bullpen anchored by Brad Lidge, Dan Wheeler and Chad Qualls will likely be one of the NL’s best. But there is no question that the starting pitching after Roy O and Pettitte is the 2006 club’s biggest question mark coming into the season.
The Stros made a couple of other off-season moves that bode well for the club. First, the versatile Burke looks as if he may play a considerable amount this season at shortstop, which would be a definite hitting upgrade over Everett at that position. Moreover, the Stros finally acquired a catcher who has the potential to hit, former Tigers first-round draft bust Eric Munson. Converted from first base back to his original position of catcher after being picked up by the Stros on waivers during the off-season, Munson mashed the ball during Spring Training and earned the backup catcher role behind Ausmus, who remains one of the weakest hitters among National League starting players. Giving at bats to Burke and Munson rather than Everett and Ausmus is likely to generate more runs for the Stros, and the Stros bench of Burke, Munson, Mike Lamb, Orlando Palmeiro and Eric Bruntlett is one of the strongest that the Stros have fielded in over the past decade.
As far as the Stros’ competition is concerned, The Cardinals’ veteran starting pitching and strong hitting make them the favorite again in the NL Central Division, and the Brewers and the Cubs both have enough talent to contend. However, barring injury to key players and if Clemens can provide a boost come May, I remain cautiously optimistic that this Stros club could get into the 90’s in wins for the season and achieve a third straight playoff berth. If the hitting is better than expected and the pitching comes close to last season’s performance, then the Stros might even challenge the Cards for the best regular season record in the division.
Thus, as the Biggio-Bagwell era draws to a close, the Berkman-Oswalt-Ensberg-Lane-Lidge nucleus of this club has taken over, and that’s a formidable group for the Stros to build around over at least the next five seasons. If the Stros can acquire another couple of above-average hitters while maintaining their strong corps of young pitchers within the organization, then I see no reason why the Stros cannot continue to contend for playoff berths over the next 5-7 seasons just as they have over the past 12 years. That would be a pretty darn good 20 year run, don’t you think?
By the way, every Stros game will be televised this season ó 130 on FSN Houston, 25 on KNWS (Channel 51), six Saturday games on KRIV (Channel 26) and a Sunday game on ESPN.
Finally, I have decided to modify my review routine slightly from the past two seasons in regard to blogging the Stros. After blogging every Stros game in the 2004 season and then providing weekly reviews during the 2005 season, I have decided this season to review the Stros progress after each 10% segment of the 2006 season, which works out to be essentially ten 16 game segments over the course of the 162-game Major League Season. Hopefully, that approach will allow me to provide a bit more perspective into the club’s progress than is feasible while doing daily or weekly summaries, so look for my Stros 2006 Review, Part One after the first 16 games of the season.