Astros Toxic Positivity

This is the part two of my lab on Wednesday, but it is purposefully not a lab. My goal with the labs is to present information and do it in educational and hopefully interesting and educational ways. Occasionally, there is a need to take the information and make a declarative statement. That can’t happen in the lab. It can happen outside the lab and that is where we find ourselves today.

There is something happening inside the walls at Crawford and outside the walls amongst some fans and sports journalists. Toxic positivity is defined as “the excessive and unrealistic overgeneralization of a happy, optimistic state across all situations, resulting in the denial, minimization, or invalidation of authentic human emotional experiences.” To put that in plain English, it means those caught up in it avoid or minimize all of the negatives and focus on the positives.

I am thankful that we have the freedom here to be honest with everyone about how we feel about this team. However, there are still some that want to continue to forward a positive face on this whole thing. I get it on a certain level. We are fans of the team in addition to journalists that cover the team. It would take a pretty crappy person to root for failure in that situation. Even a dispassionate observer shouldn’t root for failure. Besides, when the team wins then people are interested in the team. When people are interested in the team then we get more eyeballs. That means more ad dollars and sponsorship dollars. When they are good then life is good. When it isn’t then we have to try harder.

Inside the walls at Crawford there is something similar going on. The Astros made improbable comebacks in 2005 and in 2024. There gets to be a point where you believe it is not only possible but inevitable. Of course, all things are possible until they aren’t. The Astros could come back and make the playoffs. Fangraphs has pegged it at 15 percent as I write this. That is nearly a one in five chance.

The problems come when you start making decisions with the one in five in mind and not the four in five. The four in five would have you playing for 2027 and beyond. It is probably too early to start dealing veterans and many of them are currently on the injured list anyway, but there are some decisions that have the whiff of desperation. The decision to bring Tatsuya Imai back for a start on Tuesday is a prime example of that.

In one of my other commentaries I mentioned the difference between first and second guessing. Most people second guess. A player or executive fails and we immediately pounce AFTER the failure. People in the business call it Monday morning quarterbacking. It’s a fun exercise, but there isn’t a ton to learn from it. Maybe a better decision can be made next time, but sometimes the initial decision-making process was fine. Sometimes good moves don’t work out. It happens.

First guessing occurs when a decision is so idiotic that you can smell failure 100 miles away. That was the decision to bring back Imai after two very shaky rehab starts. I am not close enough to the Astros to say exactly what is wrong with Imai, but it is clear he isn’t right. It might be physical. It could be mental. It could be psychological. There is one cure that meets all of those at once and that is success. Success takes time. It takes careful management. That can’t happen at the big league level.

The best thing for the Astros long-term is for Imai to be successful. The best way for that to happen is for him to experience success somewhere and then build on it slowly. However, that doesn’t help you right now in 2026. Unfortunately, when your job is on the line you start managing and general managing for today. You start managing every game like it is Game seven of the World Series. You start treating the roster like you are trying to squeeze all of the wins you can possibly squeeze.

I said I was out on Dana Brown earlier, but I am also out on Joe Espada. It isn’t about hatred or even the kind of sports hatred that we might feel about the Dodgers or certain players. The best thing for 2027 and beyond is for the manager to play the players in such a way where they can be the best version of themselves. It needs a general manager that can ignore the present and consider how to best position the franchise for the future. Neither guy is equipped to do that right now.

The Imai situation is just a small but perfect example. The funny thing is that when you get the majority of players to be the best version of themselves you obviously will win more games. That makes perfect sense from behind a keyboard, but I’m sure it looks different in the trenches. That is the reason both of these guys need to be sent packing. This task requires a different perspective they simply do not have. They are flailing as any of us might do in the same situation.

The Astros are hostages to the 15 percent. Their previous success cannot allow them to make decisions that make sense given the current situation. Some on the outside are also trapped by magical thinking. Whether it be extreme luck or clairvoyance, the Astros capitalized on some diamonds in the rough to the point where some within and outside the organization came to expect it. Serendipity is not a plan of action. It’s not reproducible or predictable.

This gets us back to second guessing. Some of us (myself included) bought into the serendipity. Some of us saw science where it may have been closer to art. In that vain, I feel bad for Brown and Espada for falling prey to beliefs that others also fell prey to. This season probably represents the failure of wishful thinking. It represents the failure of toxic positivity. They get to take the fall. It isn’t fair, but life has never been fair. It is time to take off the burnt orange colored glasses.