"They're tremendous players": New Astros manager Joe Espada hopes to have Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman beyond 2023 (Exclusive)

The 2024 season will mark Joe Espada’s first season as the Houston Astros manager but that doesn’t mean he is unfamiliar with his personnel.

Espada has spent the last seven seasons as the Astros’ bench coach. During that time, he has seen up close how important second baseman Jose Altuve and third baseman Alex Bregman are to the Astros.

The franchise has been to seven consecutive American League Championship Series. Altuve, the eight-time All-Star second baseman, and Bregman, a two-time World Series champion third baseman, have helped fuel that remarkable run.

However, Espada may only manage Altuve and Bregman for one year. Both are eligible for free agency at the end of the season.

Rather than worry about the duo’s long-term futures, Espada is just happy to have both Houston Astros stars at the present.

“I just hope they’re here for many years to come,” Espada said. “They’re tremendous players. They mean a lot to our culture and to our winning ways. So, the only thing I could say is I hope they’re here for many, many more years.”

Espada new man in charge

Espada was promoted in November to replace the retiring Dusty Baker. Espada has big shoes to fill as Baker led the Astros to the World Series title in 2022 and won 2,183 games in his 26-year managerial career.

Considering all the success the Astros have had recently, Espada isn’t looking to make sweeping changes. However, he is likely to add a few personal touches.

“When it comes to strategy and stuff like that, I think we’ll wait and see,” Espada said. “I think our team is dynamic. It’s an elite team. I think my job is going to be just kind of making sure that these players are in a position to succeed, making sure I communicate with them their roles where we stand as an organization.

“And I think it just taking the field and playing hard, that’s who we are. I think the players expect and know that’s what I’m going to ask from them. When it comes to philosophy, anything like that, it’s just putting players in a position to succeed, and you’re going to see an exciting team on the field.

One of Espada’s biggest challenges will be to keep the Astros from becoming complacent, which seeped in early last season. Houston started the year with losses in four of their six games and was still just five games over .500 on June 27 before using a strong finishing kick to edge the eventual World Series-winning Texas Rangers for the AL West title on a head-to-head tiebreaker.

“We need to continue to push and be better and continue to be better at doing the small stuff,” Espada said. “Those are the things that I think that as a team last year we sometimes we lacked on doing the small stuff, doing those things well. I think those are the areas that I need to make sure that we cover, and we go over and we get better at.

Counting on Diaz

The Astros’ roster returns pretty much intact from last year when they lost to the Rangers in seven games in the ALCS.

However, one big change will be at catcher after Martin Maldonado was not re-signed in free agency. Yainer Diaz will take over as the starter and veteran Victor Caratini was signed to a two-year, $12-million contract as a free agent to be the backup.

Maldonado was not much of an offensive threat but was lauded for his defense and ability to work with pitchers.

Diaz had a fine rookie season in 2023 as he hit .282/.308/.538 with 23 home runs in 104 games. He also had four defensive runs saved and threw out 30% of runners who attempted to steal.

However, the 25-year-old is still working on game calling.

“I’m excited about Yainer getting an opportunity to catch and play every day,” Espada said. “I’ve been talking to Yainer once a week. We’re going to do some things in January leading into spring training to prep him for spring training.

I don’t want us to get to spring training and start from scratch. So, this is going to be starting right now having conversations about our staff, how to attack certain lineups, things that we know that we can help him with, receiving, throwing.”

Pena ready for next step?

While Diaz had a fine rookie season in 2023, Astros shortstop Jeremy Pena had a first year to remember in 2022.

Pena was the MVP of both the ALCS and World Series as a rookie. In 13 postseason games, he batted .345/.361/.638 with four home runs.

That led many analysts to believe Pena was poised to become a star last season. Instead, he hit .263/.324/.381 in 150 games, and his home run total dropped by more than half to 10 after he went deep 22 times as a rookie.

Espada, though, believes Pena is a big part of the Astros’ lineup and the 26-year-old still has plenty of upside.

“When we talk about Jeremy, people kind of focus on the power, but there’s a lot of things that he did really well offensively better than he did last year,” Pena said. “I thought that he chased less, he walked more. I thought there was some maturity about his at-bats that you are looking for in a second-year guy.

I think he’s going to be that much better hitter in his third year. I think he’s going to go back, he’s going to find that stroke, he’s going to hit for power again.”

Espada believes Pena can become more of a stolen base threat, too. Despite being the fastest player on the roster, Pena was just 13 of 22 on steal attempts last season.

“I think he runs the bases hard,” Espada said. “I think he also has awareness and IQ to steal more bases. I think that’s something that we as an organization are going to look at now in spring training and we could do better at that.”

Hoping for Abreu carryover

While Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman, right fielder Kyle Tucker and designated hitter Yordan Alvarez fuel the Astros’ high-powered offense, they could also use a big year from first baseman Jose Abreu in 2024. Abreu struggled early last season in his first year with the Astros after signing a three-year, $58.5-million contract as a free agent.

Abreu, the 2020 AL Most Valuable Player while playing for the Chicago White Sox, hit just .211/.276/.260 through the end of May before putting together a .253/.309/.458 slash over the season’s final four months. The most encouraging sign was Abreu hitting seven of his 17 home runs over 26 games in September.

The 36-year-old may never match the career-high 36 homers he hit in 2014 as a rookie with the White Sox. However, the Astros believe Jose Abreu will show more power after trying to play through back pain during much of last season.

“I think Jose came in and he’s a guy that plays every single day,” Espada said. “He’s a gamer. I think he wanted to do that. He probably played through some nagging injuries and stuff like that, but a lot of respect for what he did and how he went about it. Once he took that little breather, we saw a different guy. But I expect him to come to spring training ready to go.”