HOUSTON — In his fourth month with a new franchise, Hector Neris asked the Houston Astros for help. He spent eight previous years with the Philadelphia Phillies and established a spring training tradition of inviting every Latin American minor-league prospect to dinner. Continuing it with his current club felt natural.
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Neris asked the team to assist and even offered to drive a van back and forth if it could not arrange transportation. The team did, so around 60 prospects enjoyed advice from a veteran reliever and dinner at a Colombian restaurant on Neris’ dime. The act affirmed what many around the game already knew: Neris is a clubhouse cornerstone in addition to an elite reliever.
Neris’ two subsequent seasons in Houston only reinforced his reputation. His presence became invaluable on a pitching staff full of young Latino players navigating their first few professional seasons. Pairing Neris with veteran catcher Martín Maldonado produced a powerful foundation that permeated beyond just the pitchers.
That battery will take its talent to Chicago: Maldonado with the White Sox on the South Side and Neris in the Cubs’ bullpen in the North. The Astros had some interest in a reunion with both players, but nothing that ever became substantial. Signing Víctor Caratini and Josh Hader represented upgrades at their vacated positions, but the departures do prompt wonder about how Houston’s clubhouse leadership structure will manifest.
Multiple people in and around the Astros’ clubhouse last season pointed to Neris, Maldonado and Michael Brantley as the team’s most impactful leaders. Brantley’s retirement earlier this month means none of them will return next season, offering a test for rookie manager Joe Espada and an opportunity for younger players to reprise the roles those veterans occupied.
“It falls on all of us who have been here for a while,” third baseman Alex Bregman said. “We have to fill that void and set a tone this year, kind of set the standard that has been set here (to) continue that expectation that we have — the focus every single day and hold each other accountable.”
Bregman, Jose Altuve, Lance McCullers Jr. and Justin Verlander are the only four players who’ve been on the major-league team for each of Houston’s seven consecutive ALCS appearances.
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Maldonado appeared in six of those seven seasons, and Brantley arrived in time for five of them. During the past two seasons, Maldonado earned much of his playing time almost solely due to the rapport he formed with Houston’s pitching staff and the immeasurable trust he engendered from them.
By the end of his tenure, Maldonado had morphed into the team spokesman: He and Bregman were often the only veteran voices available to reporters during difficult stretches. Maldonado led many of Houston’s team meetings during an uneven 2023 regular season. Brantley’s speech between games 3 and 4 of the 2022 World Series remains an almost mythical moment in Astros lore.
“I don’t know if you can just replace guys like that,” outfielder Kyle Tucker said. “They take a lot of pride in what they do and what they bring to the field every single day. I’m sure (Maldonado) is going to do a great job over there helping their team get better. We have a great group of guys still — a lot of guys from last year that are still coming back. Overall, we have a really good group of guys. A lot of our starters are returning. We’ll have a little bit different look, but I think it will be pretty good.”
Tucker has witnessed the transfer of power firsthand. Carlos Correa, Brian McCann, George Springer and Yuli Gurriel are among the other cornerstones that have departed since Tucker made his major-league debut in 2018. All offered leadership in various forms — Correa’s became more visible than most — but others ascended to fill the gap after they left.
Neris, Brantley and Maldonado were three of the most influential people to do it. Their departures do not at all suggest Houston has a leadership void, but this might be the most substantial collection of prominent clubhouse figures to leave the Astros at once since their American League supremacy started in 2017.
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“There will be other pillars stepping up,” Espada said. “You know, that’s the way they’ve done it. They know when one of those guys leave, somebody’s got to step up and that organically will happen. We got guys in there that understand that they know that’s important to us to sustain our success.”
Espada is inheriting a clubhouse held together by a player-driven culture that seems to strengthen in the face of change or chaos. In 2022, McCullers described it by saying, “If you’re wearing this uniform, you’re one of us — if you’ve been here one day, been here 20 years. We’re going to laugh, be happy, smile, and we’re going to show up every day ready to play, and I think we need to have that mindset that makes everyone equals.”
Those already immersed in it are natural choices to carry it on. Bregman and Altuve are and will remain leaders, but both prefer to do it by example. McCullers and Verlander are more vocal — Verlander addressed his teammates after the Yankees swept them last season — but bringing more perspectives and personalities into the mix is constructive.
How that will manifest is a mystery. Leadership isn’t easily defined. There isn’t one standard way to show it, nor should it be confined to the four most tenured members of the team. So much happens behind closed clubhouse doors that it’s impossible for outsiders to discern how much influence anyone carries.
This month, though, McCullers acknowledged that “your catcher has to be a leader.” Maldonado was that and more, meaning 25-year-old Yainer Diaz must follow him.
Diaz is a veteran of just 110 major-league games. He often presents himself as soft-spoken and shy — two traits he’s tried to alter this winter.
“That’s something that I’ve been working on,” Diaz said through an interpreter. “I consider myself a reserved person, but that’s something that I’ve tried to work on and hopefully be better at it this year — be a little louder this year — and then next year be even better at it. It’s something I’m continuing to work on.”
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Pairing Diaz with Caratini, a seven-year veteran, should help that transition. Brantley spent most of the past two seasons mentoring Tucker, the budding superstar who might seem unenthused or unbothered on the field but has begun to blossom off of it.
“Kyle is a leader in our clubhouse. I know that from the outside looking in, Kyle seems very quiet, but he really is a big leader for us, and I think that he’s going to take a step forward and continue to be that great leader he is,” McCullers said. “We’ll look to our guys like we always have — Bregman, Justin — and we’ll just keep having the clubhouse how we’ve always had it.”
Added Tucker: “Overall, we have a really good group of guys. A lot of our starters are returning. We’ll have a little bit different look, but I think it will be pretty good, pretty solid. We’ve been playing with each other for a while, so the chemistry will be there.”
(Top photo of Martín Maldonado and Hector Neris: Joe Camporeale / USA Today)