MLB: The Houston Astros have finally achieved lift-off with Springer, Correa and Bregman

Astros management can point to their plan of being the worst in baseball for several seasons as to why they are now considered the game’s best team, writes Gregg Patton.

George Springer, right, and the Houston Astros have arrested their slide from 2011-13, where the team had three 100-plus losses a seeason, and now lead the AL West. AP Photo

Certainly this was the plan a few years ago for the Houston Astros, when they were deliberately diving to the bottom of Major League Baseball.

Today they have the best record in MLB, a mere four years after losing 111 games at the tail end of their purposeful deconstruction.

Still, it is an amazing feat, not just because a start-from-scratch plan is actually working, but because they are the Astros.

Since their first year of existence in 1962, Houston have been one of the game’s great mediocrities, rarely posing a threat to anyone who would step over them.

Their less-than-storied history boasts an overall winning percentage of .489.

The team have reached the post-season 10 times in 55 seasons. Houston have appeared in, and lost, one World Series, in 2005.

Within a few years, management embarked on a burn-down-the-house strategy that incensed much of the baseball universe for their total disinterest in winning.

The Astros slashed their payroll, stocked their roster with unprepared prospects and gambled that the high draft picks they were collecting would pay off.

They would not be where they are today if first-round selections George Springer (2011), Carlos Correa (2012) and Alex Bregman (2015) were playing somewhere else.

Today’s renaissance, though, came with a cost: non-competitive carnage that included three consecutive 100-plus-loss seasons from 2011-13.

When MLB re-aligned divisions before the 2013 season, and balanced the American and National Leagues at 15 teams apiece, the Astros were picked to switch from the NL to the AL.

There was little objection, even in Houston, where people were hiding their eyes from baseball. Attendance dropped from a franchise-high average 38,122 people per game in 2004 to 19,849 in 2012.

Even today, Astros fans have not recovered as quickly as the team. Minute Maid Park crowds are averaging 28,144.

Too bad, since the Astros are an exciting bunch.

Right fielder Springer is having a breakout year batting lead-off with 16 home runs, 43 runs and 38 runs batted in.

The middle infield combination of Jose Altuve (25 extra base hits, .393 on-base percentage and 11 stolen bases) and Correa (11 home runs, 39 RBI, .388 OBP) is the gold standard.

Veterans Carlos Beltran, at designated hitter, and catcher Brian McCann, both acquired in trades with the New York Yankees, have provided some emotional stability.

Pitching ace Dallas Keuchel has been better than in his Cy Young Award year, 2015, when he helped Houston to their first post-season in 10 years.

The left-hander is 9-0 with a 1.67 earned-run average.

As a whole, the pitching staff has a 3.59 ERA, second in MLB, surprising because Houston play their home games in a hitter-friendly park.

Not surprisingly, the Astros have scored more runs than anyone.

This storm of talent put together a recent 11-game winning streak. Their 43-18 record is good for a dozen-game lead in the AL West and puts them on a near-record 114-win pace.

McCann recently told Yahoo Sports that he admired Houston’s gifted players, even before he arrived.

“Then you see their ethic, and how great they want to be,” said McCann. “It’s very scary.”

Some baseball analysts are casting them as the best in the game, and there is no doubt the team’s rise from worst-to-first has been impressive.

But becoming competitive again is not an unheard of trick, as teams in Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Minnesota and Colorado can attest.

Those examples make you wonder if Houston’s total tank job was necessary.

In any case, there remains that 56-years-and-counting matter, winning the franchise’s first World Series.

Maybe that will better cover the cynical scent still wafting from 2013.

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