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2019 MLB preview and predictions: How the <\/a>White Sox<\/a> stack up against the Houston Astros<\/a> originally appeared on nbcsportschicago.com<\/a><\/p>\n As the 2019 season nears and the White Sox get ready to take on the rest of the American League, we’re taking a team-by-team look at all 14 of their opponents.<\/em><\/p>\n There are three uber teams, three playoff locks in the American League. And these Astros are one of them.<\/p>\n The 2017 champs are coming into 2019 with a lot more questions than they’ve had since rising from the AL West’s basement to be its dominant team (more on those in a bit), but they still provide plenty of reasons to be thrilled about their chances to put another ring on their collective finger.<\/p>\n The top four in their lineup is the best in baseball. Not even the New York Yankees with their Stantons and Judges or the now Harper-fied Philadelphia Phillies or the Cubs with three MVP candidates (when healthy) can compare. The defending-champion Boston Red Sox<\/a> can, of course, with Andrew Benintendi, Mookie\u00a0Betts, J.D. Martinez and Xander\u00a0Bogaerts. But I’ll still take the Houston quartet of George Springer<\/a>, Alex Bregman<\/a>, Jose Altuve<\/a> and Carlos Correa<\/a>. That’s a pitcher’s worst nightmare right there, four MVP candidates who can put up a ton of runs in a hurry.<\/p>\n I mean, trying to pick which one of these guys is the best is like trying to pick your favorite ZZ Top album: “Tres Hombres”? “Deguello”? “Fandango!”? “Eliminator”? It’s impossible to choose!<\/p>\n Bregman’s taking his turn as the star of the show, coming off an MVP-caliber season (he finished fifth in the voting, behind Betts, Mike Trout, Jose Ramirez and Martinez) in which he reached base at a .394 clip, hit 31 homers, drove in 103 runs, led baseball with 51 doubles and played a sensational third base. None of that should\u00a0overshadow just how good the other three guys are, household names the lot of them at this point. But, and this will become a theme with these Astros, they’re coming off relative\u00a0down years.<\/p>\n The 2017 season was spectacular, with everyone in the lineup seemingly firing on all cylinders. Altuve won the MVP, Correa and Springer combined for 58 home runs, and Marwin\u00a0Gonzalez had a season that landed him in the top 20 in MVP voting. Well, all those guys saw their numbers dip in the follow-up season, which isn’t unexpected, nor did it drop them to league average status. But they’ll all be looking for bounce-back campaigns, with Gonzalez doing it as a Minnesota Twin.<\/p>\n What was electric and helped the Astros get back to the ALCS, was the pitching.\u00a0Justin Verlander<\/a>, again, is still one of the best pitchers in the game at 36, fresh off a remarkable first full season with the Stros. He posted a 2.52 ERA with an AL-best 290 strikeouts in 214 innings last season. In still fewer than 40 starts as an Astro, he’s got a 2.32 ERA with 333 strikeouts. He’s a first-ballot Hall of Famer, and he’s still dealing enough to be a reason to pick the Astros to win the World Series. So, too, is his rotation-mate, Gerrit Cole<\/a>. Cole was just as spectacular in 2018, with a 2.88 ERA and 276 strikeouts in 200.1 innings.<\/p>\n But Dallas Keuchel, the 2015 Cy Young winner and the owner of a 3.39 ERA over the last two seasons, is a free agent. Charlie Morton, who had a 3.36 ERA in two seasons in Houston, is a Tampa Bay Ray. Lance McCullers Jr., who had a 3.86 ERA last season, is out for the year with Tommy John.<\/p>\n Take those starting-pitching departures\/absences with Gonzalez going elsewhere, a downgrade at catcher from Martin Maldonado (now on the Kansas City Royals) to Robinson Chirinos<\/a> and the aforementioned down years for some of the hitters, and this is hardly a team without its issues. And that championship window could be shrinking sooner than anyone might expect from a rebuild that just recently bore championship fruit: Verlander and Cole are both free agents after the 2019 season.<\/p>\n The good news is they still have a fleet of All Stars, whether they’re coming off elite seasons or not. Then there’s the addition of another All Star in Michael Brantley<\/a>, a big-time upgrade in left field who has quietly been one of the American League’s most consistently good hitters in recent years, with a .311\/.371\/.475 slash line and a 1.15 strikeout-to-walk ratio since 2014. And the Astros’ top two prospects are two of the highest-rated ones in the game: outfielder Kyle Tucker, who made 72 major league plate appearances in 2018 (with poor results), and starting pitcher Forrest Whitley, who had a 3.76 ERA at Double-A Corpus Christi last season.<\/p>\n