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The big hole to fill for the Astros’ 2024

The Astros’ bullpen is sometimes easy to overlook. Most of the time, you don’t want the bullpen to draw much attention because the only time they get a lot of attention is when they fail.

The bullpen in 2022 was the best in baseball during the regular season and was almost flawless in a brilliant playoff run to the Championship. They were a step down in 2023, but still very good. They were fourth in ERA in the AL, basically in a tie with the third-place Orioles, and had one of the best save percentages in the league.

But the team has some shoes to fill after 2023. Hector Neris (6-3, 2 saves, 1.71 ERA) is the most obvious loss, but the team is also losing Phil Maton (4-3, 1 save, 3.00 ERA) and Ryne Stanek (3-1, 4.09 ERA).  They represent around a third of the 545.1 innings that the bullpen pitched in 2023. This includes 139 innings of pitching from the seventh inning onward. If you tuned in to Astros’ seventh innings, one of these three men were on the mound 40% of the time.

Yes, they are “just” relievers, and they are a dime a dozen right? Well, not really if you look at the kind of money Rafael Montero and Ryan Pressly are pulling down. But I digress.

As we discussed in the previous post….. Framber, Bregman, Pressly and one other trade chip – ALL THINGS ASTROS (chipalatta.com)  ….. there may not be a lot of cash lying around to chase some bullpen help unless the Astros send some payroll packing. But right now, the bullpen looks like Pressly, Bryan Abreu, Kendall Graveman, Montero (sigh), and ??? So, what are the choices here?

Fill from within

It would not be a surprise to see the Astros fill a couple of these openings from inside the organization.

  • Would they dare move Hunter Brown out of his starting arc into a seventh/eighth inning spot ala Neris?
  • It was suggested the other day that perhaps this is the way Forrest Whitley finally makes a major league debut behind that 98 mph fastball.
  • Could J.P. France fill in a multi-inning spot, if all of the starting pitching spots are filled by others?
  • How about a youngster like Spencer Arrighetti breaking camp with the team as a bullpen option?
  • Do Seth Martinez or Parker Mushinski (when healthy) have another gear?

Sign a Free Agent

  • It is not our money, so we don’t care if Jim Crane pays some kind of luxury tax … so why not sign Josh Hader?
  • Or perhaps a lesser name like Reynaldo Lopez or Jakob Junis?
  • Or stretch out there and sign a reliever out of Japan in Yuki Matsui?

Re-sign a Free Agent

  • Hector Neris is only predicted to sign for 2 years / $15 MM on MLB trade rumors. But they are also thinking there is no way he can squirm out of so many scoring situations like he did in 2023.
  • Phil Maton was the Astros’ best reliever for the first half of the season and then came back to ground. He could be in a bargain situation.
  • If Ryne Stanek could put up another season like 2022, he would be high on anyone’s list, but that may have been an anomaly for the high-velocity reliever.

Make a Trade

  • It is not likely that GM Dana Brown is going to send prospects out for a reliever when so much of his history is based on developing prospects into superstars. Plus, that would again be a salary they may not want to take on at this point.
  • So….it feels like the only way they trade for a reliever is if they are sending back a salary of some kind, as we discussed the other day.

The bottom line, filling out the bullpen may be one of the bigger challenges for Brown this off-season and how he approaches this may tell us a lot about the direction he is going to take in trying to sustain success with this franchise.

 

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30 responses to “The big hole to fill for the Astros’ 2024”

  1. Jordan Hicks or Aroldis Chapman. Hicks would be cheap, comparatively.

    Forrest. This is it.

    I agree on Neris. He’s been great, but all the stats say he can’t keep doing what he’s been doing. And he’s going to want something close to Montero money if he’s going to be sitting next to him all season again. Speaking of Montero, I think we get a better year from him.

    Arrighetti walked 5.1 per 9 in Sugarland.

    I don’t want to pull Hunter from the starting role. Maybe he’ll appreciate working with Diaz on a regular basis.

    Seth Martinez is my long man.

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  2. Just a small aside. Hunter was 3-0 in April, all of those wins were 7 innings with no earned runs. And yes, his catcher for all three was Yainer Diaz.

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    • For some reason this leads me to think of the Beatles “A Day in the Life” and the lyrics

      Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall

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  5. I probably wouldn’t want to see Brown to the bullpen. I will say when you see a guy fairly routinely get smashed in the 3rd inning it has to at least be a thought. There are some analytics that suggest that at least last year he would have been more effective in 1 or 2 inning situations – but that was last years stats. Pitchers are funny creatures. Hitters are much easier to predict – the ability to see and hit a baseball is so instinctual that only a few have the skill the improve their ability to tell a ball from a strike more often than the year before – but pitchers, learning to maintain their mechanics and velocity and hit the spot they want can be practiced and improved.

    Hunter Brown suffered from a “just tried to hard to throw the right pitch” syndrome. Did you know hitters had a .463 BAA when he was down in the count 1-0? That’s insane, that almost 50% of hitters got a hit on him when the count was 1-0. Sometimes they just try to hard. A year of experience can change stats like that. My seeing eye test noted many times that he needed to make THAT pitch after a bad call or a bad pitch and instead he followed it up with a bad pitch. To me, while he could be thing that solves the 7th inning high leverage spot, he should get the time to figure out as a starter. Jordan Hicks could certainly be a guy to look out for that spot.

    Forrest Whitley either throws a ball 3 feet off the plate or right down the middle. He is not ready to face major league hitters. 98 doesn’t matter if you can’t follow Greg Maddux’s advice – the key to pitching is to make your balls look like strikes your strikes to look like balls.

    Resigning Maton seems to me the easiest, cheapest option that brings back a medium leverage guy that pitch anywhere from the 5th to the 7th, even an 8th in lower leverage 2 or 3 run deficits where you might be trying to conserve Abreu or Pressly, seems like a perfect fit.

    Stanek is a medium leverage kind of pitcher but sometimes when you have a success like he did in 2022 and a 99 MPH fastball you (and your agent) have plans on a high leverage type contract. Even if cap space were not an issue I wouldn’t want to see the Astros do something like 3/22 for a guy that you just can’t trust in the 8th inning; but there will be someone, like the Mets, that might. The market for Stanek could completely fall off and he could end up somewhere on a 1 year 4M deal or something like that – but rarely do you see a player back with his original team after missing on the market and taking a 1 year deal.

    Neris has been a good pitcher but not great until last year. You can’t blame him for trying to leverage that into multi-years. There are plenty of guys I would think is on Crane’s list of “yea we would go slightly over a cap for”, I don’t know that a relief pitcher is on that list. They might be able to stay under signing him, but they pretty much put themselves in a mode where the next move has to be a subtraction.

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    • Lots of interesting thoughts there Steven. Personally, I think Hunter could be a very good starting pitcher – I remember early Framber when he had trouble getting a ball to be close to the zone, but it was obvious his stuff was great. You can’t always abandon folks before they have time to develop.

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      • I’m sure they’ve already scoured every bit of information on Hunter from the beginning of 2023 when he was so successful. And successful in three 7 inning starts! That .463 BA against on the 1-0 count is remarkable. Is it remarkable enough to have been the result of tipping? Either by pitcher or catcher?

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      • So daveb, was Maldy pulling a little Crash Davis on Hunter as though he was Nuke Laloosh and tipping off the hitters on what was coming?

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      • Dave – I was leaning towards getting predictable in that situation. If he was tipping it would be more consistently bad in all counts. Scouting could have figured out that the only pitch he trusts when he is behind is a fastball, and had guys sitting fastball on 1-0 when he is likely to get it in the zone. I am sure somewhere we could more info about what pitch he threw in those 41 pitches – I just know they were trounced. 19 hits, 5 doubles, 4 homeruns, an OPS over 1300 if he fell behind he was crushed consistently. I would be surprised if they had that much information on him though, but maybe. It could have just been Hunter grooving 2nd pitches if he fell behind just trying not to get to 2-0.

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      • Steven, hopefully his catchers won’t be so predictable on a 1-0 count in 2024. Getting a better version of Hunter Brown sure would be a boost.

        I’m going to try not to keep picking on Maldy, but as an aside, Jim Bowden put out his “Top 100 remaining free agents” list yesterday. He has Maldonado at 75. “He’s one of the best game-callers in baseball but hit .191 with a 66 OPS+”. As far as I know, there is no statistical measurement of game calling expertise. cERA has been panned by now. But still, baseball establishment continues to sell Maldy. I just hope there is not an element inside the Astro organization bent on bringing him back.

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  6. Hot off the press!

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    • Billy Wagner was born as a right-hander but learned to throw lefty after breaking his arm; will he make it to the HOF soon?

      I was thinking that LMJ should try to throw knuckle balls. He throws knuckle-curves but maybe that is too stressful for his arm.

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      • AstroNut, if Billy Wagner does not get into the Hall, it will be a crime.

        These day I wonder more and more if we’ll see Lance pitch again.

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  10. Dan, you likely noted one of the links on thecrawfishboxes today was an article by Chandler Rome, basically stirring the pot by bringing up the possibility that Framber could be traded for the right deal. Maybe I still have a chance to see him go!

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  11. In regards to the possibility of trading Bregman I was thinking that the only way that deal gets done is for the other team can get a shot at a LT contract with him. We might even have to throw in some $ to get a deal done but the chances are not real good. I’d think about 30%.
    And Daveb7, I agree that Wagner deserves to be in the HOF.

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  13. Good morning! Some guy named Ari Alexander says the Astros have no interest in Seth Lugo. My plans for the 2024 season seem to be crumbling.

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  16. Gentlemen, I’m sitting here watching the Longhorns gouge the Cowboys.

    I’m also pondering trades for the Astros, as unlikely as they might be. But I’m trying to keep the conversation going too.

    I’m still convinced we should trade Framber. And for him, we’ll get our third baseman of the future, Noelvi Marte from the Reds, along with a well regarded, mature back up catcher in Luke Maile. Right now, the Reds need pitching much more than we need a third baseman, but this deal works for both teams, as long as Framber does not freak out on the Reds or win 23 for them.

    And yes, then we’ll trade Alex Bregman to whatever organization is willing to give us quality pitching, at least one guy that can pick up most of Framber’s innings. (Admittedly, not many of those guys around). The other option would be to simply get the best possible prospects for Bregman, and use the money saved on Bregman and Framber to get a FA starter and hopefully a pen guy.

    Sure it’s scary moving two anchors. And it might piss off a guy like Verlander. But we’re going to need to replace Bregman soon regardless and Framber is arguably worth more now than he will be at any point going forward.

    The big question: Can we still go deep into the 2024 season without those two guys? If we pull it off, we’re better positioned in 2025 and beyond.

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