Insider Projects Houston Astros Use Interesting Starting Rotation This Year

The Houston Astros still have plenty of pieces that can help them win their third World Series championship.

Some questions still remain how those pieces fit together.

Josh Hader likely takes over as the closer for Ryan Pressly, but new manager Joe Espada hasn't announced anything official yet. The bullpen also has major depth concerns and some unproven players will become main contributors.

With unknowns still present entering the upcoming season, Brian McTaggart of MLB.com thinks the Astros will use a six-man starting rotation in 2024.

"... the Astros still have six solid arms they can turn to in their rotation. They have six off-days in the first six weeks of the regular season and could opt to use a six-man rotation out of the gate," he writes.

This is certainly interesting from a broad picture perspective.

Theoretically, this setup should help out an unproven bullpen if the starters can go deep into games whenever they're on the mound.

It also gives their young pitchers, J.P. France and Hunter Brown, additional starting reps instead of moving them straight into the bullpen out of the gate. In their first full seasons in the MLB, the rookies started 20-plus games and threw over 130 innings.

They project to be starters, so this was a good learning experience for them and a great opportunity for the front office and coaching staff to evaluate their skillset, strengths and weaknesses.

Lance McCullers Jr. and Luis Garcia are expected to return at some point during the summer this year, so it's likely both France and Brown are transitioned to relievers at some point.

That might be better for the team, however, as both of last year's rookies stumbled down the stretch.

Of course, this is just a projection from McTaggart as Espada hasn't indicated one way or another how the starting rotation will look, but it seems like there's a good chance they will have six to start out the year.