Houston Astros' Best, Worst Players After Inconsistent First Month of Season

Here are some team awards for Houston Astros players from a shaky first month of the season.

Apr 29, 2025; Houston, Texas, USA; Houston Astros designated hitter Yordan Alvarez (44) points to the dugout after hitting an RBI single during the seventh inning against the Detroit Tigers at Daikin Park. | Troy Taormina-Imagn Images

Slow starts have become commonplace for the Houston Astros, who got off to another one during the 2025 MLB regular season.

They didn’t win back-to-back games until April 18 and 19, but have been playing some better baseball since that point. Prior to that point, the team was 8-10; after that slow start, they went 8-4 to finish April with a 16-14 record.

There have been a lot of reasons for the streaky performance, with the team’s offensive production not being up to par, but the pitching staff more often than not stepping up and answering the call.

Who has been the standouts thus far for the Astros and who needs to pick it up? Here are some team awards from the first month of the season.

MVP - Jeremy Pena

There were some massive shoes for Pena to fill, taking over for Carlos Correa in 2022 after he departed in free agency to sign a deal with the Minnesota Twins. 

He burst onto the scene as a rookie, winning the Gold Glove Award, finishing fifth in the Rookie of the Year Award voting and winning the ALCS and World Series MVP.

Pena hasn’t quite been able to replicate that production, performing slightly below league average in the subsequent two regular seasons with OPS+ numbers of 95 and 99.

Thus far this year, he has started to put it all together as the most productive hitter in the lineup.

A .283/.351/.425 slash line and OPS+ of 123 are first, second, second and tied for first amongst qualified players. He has a team-high tying four home runs with five doubles, 12 RBI and five stolen bases.

LVP - Christian Walker

Can you blame Astros fans who are having some deja vu with their most recent free agent splash? They just went through a brutal experience with Jose Abreu, a first baseman in his mid-30s whose production fell off a cliff once he arrived in Houston and was released not even midway through his contract with the team.

It is still very early in his tenure with his new team, but Walker has not been good. He has a -0.1 WAR with a .190/.266/.345 slash line with a 74 OPS+. Coming off three straight National League Gold Glove Awards, even his feilding is slightly below average per Baseball Savant.

A 29.7% strikeout rate is also concerning. Walker fell woefully short of expectations through the first month.

He is far from the only player struggling, as Yainer Diaz and Yordan Alvarez both could have received this unwanted honor.

Cy Young - Hunter Brown

Over the last few months of the 2024 season, Brown was one of the best pitchers in baseball. Only Paul Skenes of the Pittsburgh Pirates and Chris Sale of the Atlanta Braves, the NL Rookie of the Year and Cy Young Award winners, had lower ERAs from May through the end of the month.

If there was any skepticism about his production being a fluke, Brown has put that all to rest with a dominant start.

He has an AL-high 1.8 WAR with a 5-1 record and 1.67 ERA through 43 innings pitched with 49 strikeouts. His 1.78 FIP is also the best in the AL.

His improvement with control and scaling back home runs being allowed have helped him ascend to All-Star level, prime to assume the role as the team’s ace.

Cy Yuck - Ronel Blanco

There were some concerns about the performance that Blanco provided Houston with in 2024 as a replacement for Justin Verlander.

Some of his advanced stats and underlying metrics did not match up with the raw numbers he was producing. Unfortunately, the regression to the mean has hit him hard.

Through six starts and 28.1 innings, Blanco has a 5.08 ERA and produced a -0.1 WAR. Control has been an issue with 14 walks issued, coming out to 4.4 BB/9. His ERA+ sits at 77 after recording a 143 last year.

His performance hasn’t been as bad as his ERA suggests, but his lack of a good fastball will limit how effective he can be, relying heavily on breaking balls to create success.