Brian McTaggart makes his predictions over at Tag's Lines. What do we get?
At the end of the day, it's going to come down to talent and health. This is not a bad team when it's healthy, certainly not a team that will compete with Washington and Pittsburgh for the worst record in the NL. But it's hard to convince me at this point the health of the Astros won't be an issue.
Thus, I'm picking the Astros to go 79-83 and finish in the middle of the pack in the NL Central. That's a more optimistic prediction than most, but still well short of contending for the playoffs.