This story was excerpted from Brian McTaggart's Astros Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

The Astros are no strangers to having a short offseason in recent years, and when you play your final game on Nov. 5 -- the date the Astros beat the Phillies in Game 6 to win the World Series -- the start of Spring Training comes fast. With that, it’s time to look ahead to 2023 with some predictions for the defending World Series champions.

1. The Astros will repeat as World Series champs

There, I said it. The Astros will win the 2023 World Series to become the first team to repeat as champions since the Yankees won three in a row from 1998-2000. So far this offseason, the Astros have added slugger José Abreu in free agency, brought back the steady Michael Brantley and lost Cy Young winner Justin Verlander, but starting pitching was a position of strength.

The Astros, as talented as they were, had a lot of things go right last season, including the emergence of an impact rookie in shortstop Jeremy Peña, a bounce-back season from Alex Bregman and a pitching staff that stayed largely healthy throughout the season. They’ll need their younger core players to continue to develop while remaining off the injured list. In 2018, the Astros’ bid to repeat was, in part, derailed when Jose Altuve and Lance McCullers Jr. suffered injuries.

So, who’s their biggest competition? The Yankees kept Aaron Judge and added pitcher Carlos Rodón and should be Houston’s biggest AL threat once again. In the division, the Mariners (addition of Teoscar Hernandez and Kolten Wong and full season of Luis Castillo) and Rangers (addition of Jacob deGrom) have improved, but the Astros won the AL West last season by 16 games, so there’s a huge gap. The rest of baseball won’t catch up, either. Houston will win the 2023 World Series.

2. An Astros player will win the MVP

Jeff Bagwell (1994 in the NL) and Altuve (2017 in the AL) are the only Astros players to win a Most Valuable Player Award, though Bregman came a few votes shy in '19 and Yordan Alvarez finished third last season behind Judge and Shohei Ohtani.

Making this kind of proclamation is going out on a limb, considering Ohtani is the best player in the game, Judge will be back in pinstripes next season after hitting 62 homers in 2022 and Rookie of the Year Julio Rodríguez leads Seattle. Still, Bregman’s terrific second half in '22, Alvarez’s and Kyle Tucker’s emergence as All-Stars and Peña’s postseason moxie give the Astros four hopefuls for an MVP in '23. And one of them will win.

3. Cristian Javier will win the AL ERA title

Javier’s days as a swingman should be over in 2023. He should be in the rotation on Opening Day and will blossom into one of the top starters in the AL, if he isn’t there already. Javier made 25 starts and five relief appearances last season, posting a 2.54 ERA in the regular season and a 0.71 in the postseason, including two starts in which he gave up a combined one hit and no runs in 11 1/3 innings.

Javier, who started the Game 4 no-hitter against the Phillies in the World Series, has some of the best stuff in baseball with his “invisi-ball” fastball and sweeping slider. Among pitchers to throw at least 300 innings in the last three seasons, his .178 opponents’ batting average is the lowest by any pitcher. His time is now.