Well they went to the ALCS last season and took it to 7 games without Verlander, Osuna or Jordon Alvarez so no, that's isn't the case. Likely would have gone to World Series if they had just one of them.Maybe the Astros did cheat more, and all those years stats are the result.= aka they needed to cheat to perform how they did.
Not every Astro was using "the system". Some hitters refused to accept the help. Even if you know Fastball is coming it's coming at 95mph so it's no easy task to put it in play.