(CNN) Maybe Sports Illustrated should start predicting the stock market.

The magazine anointed the Houston Astros as YOUR 2017 WORLD SERIES CHAMPS -- more than three years ago.

It may not seem like a bold pick the day after the young and talented Astros upset the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 7 to win the first title in franchise history

But in June 2014, when SI put the team on its cover, readers probably thought they were crazy. The Astros, the worst team in baseball the previous season, were in last place.

"We settled on 2017 because the Astros' young nucleus would by then be reaching its prime," SI's Ben Reiter wrote last week . "It was certainly a long shot, but so is everything in baseball."

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