The Houston Astros are a bad team.  Most MLB fans knew they would be before the season started.  In the last few years the Astros have traded star players Michael Bourn, Hunter Pence and most recently, Jed Lowrie, for younger players, most often pitchers.  These trades have made the Astros young, some would say too young to compete. So far this season, the Astros have been proving the doubters right.

There is a lot wrong with the Astros right now.  The team is last in the league in ERA as a team. They have three starters on offense whose best position is first base in Carlos Pena, Brett Wallace and Chris Carter.  This has caused the Astros to put Carter in left field, where he is horrible. The Astros also have a tendency to strike out, at an alarming rate.

It is understandable that a team this young would strike out a lot, but some of these players are striking out at an alarming rate.  Carter currently has 52 strikeouts in 34 games. That puts him on pace for 247 strikeouts this season.  That’s 24 more than Mark Reynolds’ single-season record of 223.  Just one player striking out at a high rate would be fine, especially if that player is a supplier of as much power as Carter is, but he is not alone.  Jason Castro and Pena, are both averaging one strikeout per game.

So, what is causing this team to swing and miss so often?  It very well could be youth, as other than Pena, no current starter (now that Rick Ankiel has been released) has more than three seasons worth of experience.  Or it could be coaching, Bo Porter is a rookie manager, and has a lot to learn himself.  It also could just be that the GM of the Astros gambled on these players that have a tendency to swing and miss, and so far, that gamble has not paid off.

It seems like it has been a perfect storm of all three.  The Astros went out and got Carter and Pena, who have shown a tendency to strike out.  The team is young, the entire offense lacks experience.  Then you have Bo Porter, who has no real record to speak of at the major league level. It has to be hard to step up to the MLB level like he did and have to fix major problems like this, but it is that inexperience that is allowing the problem to continue on.

No matter how you look at it, Houston has a problem.  And that problem isn’t going away anytime soon.