RIP Houston Astros Dynasty (2017-23)

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The end of last night's game felt more like the end of an era for the Astros than just the end of their season. Losing two games at home to your interstate rival with the World Series on the line is an exclamation point. It felt a little like this play from 22 years ago.

Tough to come back from that. That moment is when the Yankees dynasty (1996-2001) ended. They did go back to another World Series in 2003 and lost to the Marlins. But that always felt like a footnote, even in the moment. By that point, Paul O'Neil, Chuck Knoblauch, David Cone and Scott Brosius had all retired. Other players had moved on. I'm sure some Red Sox fans will say they slayed the Yankees Dynasty in 2004 but by that point, the roster was very different than the ones that won those World Series.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think the Astros will be a bad team next year. The playoffs are not out of the question by any stretch. But for a team that has made the last seven ALCS, I think that starts to get much tougher moving forward. Remember they won 16 games less in 2023 than they they did in 2022. They were two games away from missing the playoffs entirely. 

Dusty Baker already made his way out of Houston before Adolis Garcia got the ALCS MVP award. The timing seemed bizarre but the decision makes sense. The guy is 74 years old. Maybe a new manager is exactly what this team needs? It's going to start being a much tougher climb for the Astros. The Rangers are so much better than they were and the Mariners aren't going anywhere. Once the A's move to Las Vegas, they should spend money. I mean, they can't spend less. At least the Astros don't need to worry about the Angels. They are the rare team with a farm system worse than the Astros.

The Justin Verlander desperation trade is exactly what great teams do when Rome starts to catch fire. That's an end days kind of move. Trading your best prospect for a 40 year old pitcher who is noticeably worse than he was the year before is never ideal. Now, the Ranger did a similar move for Max Scherzer but they also have a deeper farm system to pull from and more young players surrounding him.

Now, I am guessing some people reading this don't consider the Astros run to be a dynasty. I disagree. For me, you win three titles in a short period of time, you are a lock for a dynasty. The 2010-15 San Francisco Giants were a dynasty. Obviously the 1996-01 Yankees are in that group. 

Now, if you win only two, you need more on the resume. I don't consider the 1992-93 Blue Jays a dynasty because they never won another pennant. But I do call the Big Red Machine a dynasty because while they only won two rings, they did go to four World Series from 1970-76. If you're going to call the 70's Reds a dynasty, you have to pay the same respect to the Astros who also have four pennants. 

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If this indeed the end, how will the Astros be remembered? It's weird. The cheating scandal from 2017 should probably be a bigger deal. But they did also win the World Series last year and even after they were found cheating, they still won. They lose their manager and GM and just kept trucking. I'm not defending what they did and if you're a Dodger or Yankee fan you should hate the Astros forever. You were legitimately cheated. But I do think if you are impartial baseball fan, you should question if it made that much a difference. 

It took seven games for the Astros to beat both the Yankees and Dodgers that year. If they lose one more game in either series, we aren't talking dynasty right now. If anything, the Astros have a 1990's Buffalo Bills aura surrounding them until they won in 2022. If you are on the side that the Astros dynasty shouldn't count because maybe they got just enough of an edge to win one of those games in that playoff run, I can't really argue that. When you cheat at anything, it makes a defense very difficult to create.

Forty years from now, when I am talking to Marty Mush (who will live forever because he has no thoughts in his brain to be stressed about) about old baseball dynasties that I've seen, I'll bring up the 1996-01 Yankees first. That was the greatest baseball team of my lifetime. I'll lament that the Braves should have won another title but I can't consider them a dynasty. I'll talk about those 2010-15 Giants and how great Bruce Bochy managed that bullpen and Madison Bumgarner's brilliance.

Then I'll bring up the Astros run with a shrug or a frown. They do belong in the conversation but it won't be Carlos Correa or Jose Altuve or Alex Bergman I'll think of first. It'll be the banging of trashcans. I'm not saying that's even entirely fair and maybe time will smooth that over. They had great pitchers in this run like Dallas Kuechel, Justin Verlander and Ryan Pressly. They didn't cheat. But memories aren't always fair.

Then again, neither were the Astros.