Houston’s first World Series championship-winning team set an incredibly high bar for offensive production.



The 2017 Astros mashed at quite literally a historically great rate. By adjusted OPS+ (123), they were the best in the Expansion Era. Of the nine positions in their lineup, they extracted worse than league average production from only one of them.



Could this season’s Astros rival the .282/.346/.478 line compiled by their 2017 team? That it’s even an open question speaks to the 2019 offense’s potential. They have some catching up to do in the runs per game department, where their 5.08 pales in comparison to the 5.53 of two seasons ago.



But the first fifth of their season suggests there’s a path for them to at least make a run at the 2017 offense. They enter Thursday night’s series opener against the Rangers batting .275/.348/.493 with a major-league best 127 OPS+. Unlike the 2017 team, they...