When the Houston Astros assembled in spring training as the defending World Series champions, their manager, A.J. Hinch, was curious to see how the players would respond to last season’s success.

No team had successfully defended a World Series title since the Yankees won their third in a row in 2000, and Hinch was looking for reassurance that his players would not succumb to overconfidence or simply hit the reset button and do everything the same way, hoping for the same result.

Hinch saw something different, something better.

“In the spring, there was great humility in how we were going about our work,” Hinch said. “That helped us kick-start the year with, ‘If we’re going to do something special, we’re going to need to attack it differently than we did.’ It wasn’t just, we’re going to hit copy and paste from the year before.”

The key, Hinch said, was that whenever his players were pushed, they pushed back harder. That approach has worked so far. Now, as the Astros enter the American League Championship Series this weekend, they are even better than last season. They are a more complete team.