Rosternomics
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Astros HOU

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GM: Jeff Luhnow (since 2012)

2018 roster — every player, value & surplus

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+17.2
WAB — wins above budget
+23.6
TAB — roster Talent above budget
103–59 (0.636)
record · made playoffs
+34M
surplus $M (value/$)
61.4
roster fWAR
$175.4M
payroll
PlayerAgeServiceGfWARSalary $MSurplus $M
Alex Bregman 24 pre-arb 157 7.9 0.6 +26.3
Justin Verlander 35 FA-elig 34 6.6 28.0 -5.5
Gerrit Cole 27 arb 32 5.8 6.8 +13.1
Jose Altuve 28 FA-elig 137 5.8 9.0 +10.8
Carlos Correa 23 arb 110 3.7 1.0 +11.7
George Springer 28 arb 140 3.2 12.0 -1.2
Dallas Keuchel 30 FA-elig 34 3.2 13.2 -2.4
Max Stassi 27 arb 88 2.9 0.6 +9.3
Charlie Morton 34 FA-elig 30 2.8 7.0 +2.7
Lance McCullers Jr. 24 arb 25 2.4 2.5 +5.8
Josh Reddick 31 FA-elig 134 2.3 13.0 -5.0
Yuli Gurriel 34 pre-arb 136 1.9 12.4 -6.0
Marwin Gonzalez 29 FA-elig 145 1.8 5.1 +1.1
Tyler White 27 pre-arb 66 1.6 0.3 +5.0
Collin McHugh 31 FA-elig 58 1.3 5.0 -0.4
Héctor Rondón 30 arb 63 1.3 4.0 +0.3
Jake Marisnick 27 arb 103 1.2 1.9 +2.2
Will Harris 33 FA-elig 61 1.1 2.8 +1.0
Ryan Pressly↔ MIN 29 arb 26 1.0 0.5 +2.9
Tony Sipp 34 FA-elig 54 0.8 6.0 -3.1
Tony Kemp 26 pre-arb 97 0.8 0.4 +2.4
Ken Giles↔ TOR 27 arb 34 0.7 2.8 -0.4
Martín Maldonado↔ ANA 31 FA-elig 41 0.7 1.3 +0.9
Roberto Osuna↔ TOR 23 arb 23 0.6 3.2 -1.2
Brad Peacock 30 FA-elig 61 0.5 2.4 -0.6
Josh James 25 – 6 0.4 0.1 +1.2
Brian McCann 34 FA-elig 63 0.3 17.0 -15.8
Myles Straw 23 – 9 0.2 0.0 +0.7
Joe Smith 34 FA-elig 56 0.2 7.0 -6.4
Evan Gattis 31 arb 128 0.1 6.7 -6.5
Framber Valdez 24 – 8 0.0 0.1 +0.0
Reymin Guduan 26 pre-arb 3 -0.0 0.0 -0.0
James Hoyt 31 – 1 -0.0 0.0 -0.1
AJ Reed 25 pre-arb 1 -0.1 0.0 -0.2
Dean Deetz 24 pre-arb 4 -0.1 0.3 -0.6
Chris Devenski 27 pre-arb 50 -0.1 0.6 -0.9
Cionel Pérez 22 – 8 -0.2 0.2 -0.7
Tim Federowicz↔ CIN 30 arb 10 -0.2 0.1 -0.7
Derek Fisher 24 pre-arb 42 -0.3 0.6 -1.4
Kyle Tucker 21 – 28 -0.4 0.1 -1.7
J.D. Davis 25 pre-arb 42 -0.6 0.6 -2.6

WAR = FanGraphs (fWAR). Green = produced more value than paid (bargain); red = paid more than produced. Service: pre-arb (<3 yr) / arb (3–6) / FA-eligible (6+). Click headers to sort.

History: front-office performance & develop-vs-buy (1985–2024)

Trade ledger (realized WAR, all-time)

Best acquisitions
PlayerYearWAR for HOU
Jeff Bagwell199080.2
Yordan Álvarez201626.7
Mike Scott198221.9
Justin Verlander201719.7
Mike Hampton199319.2
Kevin Bass198217.5
Nolan Ryan198516.2
Moisés Alou199713.5
Ones that got away
PlayerYear tradedWAR elsewhere
Kenny Lofton199142.5
Curt Schilling199236.3
Ben Zobrist200633.1
Ken Caminiti199417.4
Freddy García199815.6
Jed Lowrie201313.0
Ramón Laureano20179.2
Patrick Sandoval20188.9
Rosternomics — quantifying front-office skill, attribution-clean. Follow @rosternomics on X. Decision-makers on record back to 1933; resource-controlled metrics (WAR & payroll) cover 1985–2026.
Data: FanGraphs (WAR), Baseball-Reference & the Chadwick Bureau register (rosters, IDs), the Lahman Database, Baseball America prospect rankings (via The Baseball Cube), and public payroll records. Transaction and trade data was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by Retrosheet. Executive birth/death data via Wikidata (CC0); bios are original. Emoji graphics by OpenMoji (CC BY-SA 4.0).
All figures are franchise-level outcomes credited to the decision-maker in the acquisition year — not solely attributable to one executive.