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Astros 2025: A not-so-quick view of the bullpen

Yes, we return again to our preview series of the Astros 2025 season and move on to the bullpen. Your humble servant put this and the outfield post off waiting for other shoes to drop. In this case, the other shoe to drop was the trade of Ryan Pressly to the Cubs. The bullpen moves may not be complete, but there is enough meat here to feed some upfront viewing of their situation.

So, first a look back….

2024 By the Numbers

Here are the stats for the Astros bullpen in 2024 (stats are combined):

  • 29 Wins (T-7th in the AL)
  • 26 Losses (T-6th least)
  • 43 Saves (T-6th)
  • 62% – Save % (10th) – Note this includes whenever a lead is lost by the bullpen – not just the closer – note Josh Hader himself was 89% in save situations
  • 3.66 (4th)
  • .228 BA against (T-7th)
  • .310 OBP against
  • .691 OPS against
  • 1.25 WHIP (7th)
  • 551.1 IP (3rd most)
  • 9.7 Ks/ 9 IP
  • 3.56 Walks/ 9 IP

The 2024 Astros’ bullpen was very middle of the road. It certainly was not the dominating force the fans thought they would have when Josh Hader was added to Ryan Pressly and Bryan Abreu at the back of the ‘pen.

Here are individual stats for some of the prime pitchers to return (and to leave).

Stat Josh Hader Bryan Abreu Tayler Scott Bryan King
Appearances 71 78 62 28
W-L 8-8 3-3 7-3 1-0
Save 34 1 0 0
ERA 3.80 3.10 2.23 2.39
WHIP 0.958 1.162 1.165 1.139
BAA .171 .207 .188 .211
OBPA .248 .299 .299 .303
OPSA .591 .643 .609 .597
IP 71 78.1 68.2 26.2
Ks/9 IP 13.3 11.8 9.3 10.9
BBs/9 IP 3.2 3.7 4.6 3.4
Stat Kaleb Ort Shawn     Dubin Seth Martinez* Ryan Pressly** Rafael Montero***
Appearances 22 31 44 59 41
W-L 1-1 1-1 3-2 2-3 1-2
Save 0 2 1 4 0
ERA 2.55 4.17 3.59 3.49 4.70
WHIP 0.811 1.566 1.272 1.341 1.409
BAA .180 .256 .246 .264 .248
OBPA .215 .353 .321 .322 .348
OPSA .653 .728 .743 .718 .809
IP 24.2 45.1 52.2 56.2 38.1
Ks/9 IP 9.5 9.7 6.2 9.2 5.4
BBs/9 IP 1.5 5.2 3.1 2.9 4.5

*Picked up by the D’Backs in November

** Traded to the Cubs

*** Released off the Astros 40 man – signed back as a minor league FA

The Base

The best guess here is that the base of this bullpen is Josh Hader (9th inning), Bryan Abreu (8th inning), Tayler Scott (mid to late innings), Kaleb Ort (mid) and Bryan King (mid and left hand situations). Shawn Dubin may return as a multi-inning option.

The Subtractions

Obviously, the biggest bye-bye was Pressly. But beyond him the Astros also said goodbye to Seth Martinez, who was a multi-inning arm along with Hector Neris and Caleb Ferguson, who provided some support at the end of the season. Whether Rafael Montero is back or not the team will be paying him $11.5 million. It would be nice if he found the 2022 magic again and got put back on the roster.

40 Man Roster

The 40-man roster has a number of possibilities to add to the bullpen.

The great white whale, Forrest Whitley has to be prime among those options. This will be his 10th season in the organization (though two of those seasons he sat out) and he is coming off his most successful minor league season (4-1, 1.89 ERA in 32 relief appearances at AAA).

Nick Hernandez has pitched pretty well the last couple seasons at the minor league level. At the MLB level with the Padres and Astros? Not so much with a 9.00 ERA over 7 appearances.

Similarly, Luis Contreras (4-1, 1.74 ERA) was nails at Sugar Land in 2024, but had a 9.00 ERA in 5 appearances with the Astros.

Bennett Sousa had an excellent cup of coffee with the Astros in 2023 (0.00 ERA/ 0.158 WHIP) but missed all of 2024 with injury.

Any of those three could end up being bumped off the roster by a spring training move.

In an interview this week, Lance McCullers seemed to indicate that he was close to coming back and that he really is not intending to pitch out of the bullpen, basically stating that the frequency of appearances and not knowing when he would pitch would not be good for his arm health. So, it would seem if he returned to the rotation, someone, likely swing man Hayden Wesneski, would be headed to the bullpen.

Luis Garcia, who seems farther away from a return from injury than McCullers has worked a bit from the bullpen, none better than his 5-inning stint to win the 18 inning marathon in the 2022 ALDS clinching game against the Mariners.

Obviously, there is a chance that one of the top current minor league starters on the 40 man (Colton Gordon or Ryan Gusto) could earn a spot out of Spring Training in the bullpen.

2024 AAA

Many of the top pitching choices from AAA are mentioned someplace above. But there are a few additional worth mentioning for players off the 40 man roster. A.J. Blubaugh was another top starter at AAA (12-4, 3.83 ERA), but did not need to be added to the 40 man. Logan VanWey had an excellent season at Sugar Land. In 60 games he posted a 9-2 record with 4 saves and a 3.22 ERA.

Others

Among the Non-Roster Invitees are a few other pitchers picked up from other organizations, who could possibly earn a spot with the big club in a turning over bullpen.

  • Glenn Otto, righty, (7-13, 5.62 ERA career), who pitched for the Rangers between 2021 and 2023 with 33 starts and 6 relief appearances.
  • Steven Okert, lefty, (15-11, 1 save, 3.92 ERA) almost exclusively out of the bullpen with the Giants, Marlins and last year with Twins. He was very good in 2021 and 2022, before falling on harder times the last two seasons.
  • Blake Weiman, lefty, has made it to AAA for four different organizations, but never to the majors over seven seasons in the minors. Overall, he has a 26-12 record, 16 saves, 3.71 ERA with only 1 start in 240 appearances.

Might any of those three find the Astros’ magic that seemed to touch Scott, King and Ort last season?

And?

There could be other moves coming. A late free agent signing, a small trade, or even a pick-up of someone released from another team.

And Dana Brown has done a good job of finding bullpen help off the reject pile in a season, like Kaleb Ort and Hector Neris.

In the end the Astro have many options to build the back end of this bullpen. This will be an interesting area of the team to track over the rest of Spring Training.

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25 responses to “Astros 2025: A not-so-quick view of the bullpen”

  1. This is a much better topic than what we’ve been talking about, even though it could be a troublesome one.

    First though, I hope the powers to be use Hader as a closer exclusively. I hope they don’t ask him to get 5 or 6 outs, unless it’s an essential game late in the season and there are no other real options available. And using him in the 9th of a tie game did not work out too well either. We went 6-10 in extras. We continue to stink in extras. Maybe a little bit of small ball might be worth a try. The Nerds continue to fail us when we go past 9 innings. Do we need a new computer program?

    We’ve got a lot of untested guys and a couple of guys that showed up and gave us great work in 2024. Can guys like Scott and King and Ort repeat? And heck, I had no idea Whitley has been around for a decade. He must have the talent if the experts are still waiting. Does he really want it bad enough? I’m not worried about Abreu in a new role. I just want him to be healthy. And I think we’ll get some help from a couple of those AAA guys that will eventually be starters. So I just kind of feel like things will fall into place without having any stats to back up my hopes.

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    • I concur with the use of Hader in a non-closing situation for extra innings. That’s not really what he got him for. It seemed that he’d pitch the 9th, the game still tied and then we’d lose it in the next inning or so with another pitcher. Of course when you can’t score with a runner on 2nd and nobody out that doesn’t reflect too well on our offense. A lot of that is a manager based decision but if we don’t execute it’s a moot point.

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    • Was it 6-10? Felt worse.

      Keep replacing guys with cheaper guys and you find out why they are cheaper. The inability to get a runner in from 2nd with no outs plagued us not just in close games but the playoffs. Is Correa a better hitter than Pena? By leagues. But it’s easy to say Correa will cost you 28M a year and Pena plays for peanuts, and the gap isn’t the same as the salary gap. But at the same time you spent all year asking Pena to hit 5th and put runners across in the 10th inning against elite pitching, and he just isn’t as good at it. It feels like our lineup is full of guys that are here playing for us because they cost a little less. Walker cost less options like Alonzo, Paredes cost less than Bregman, McCormick costs less than Tucker, Gamel costs less than Verdugo or Santander, on and on.

      And the bullpen, same thing. Seth Martinez probably lost 2 of those 10, but it’s OK, he did it for minimum salary instead of having Maton or Stanek available. Ort and King pitched at such small sample that I don’t know that they repeat that with more exposure and push towards 50-60 innings.

      Fans should count their blessing that Altuve and Alvarez are willing to play below market value.

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    • Was it 6-10? Felt worse.

      Keep replacing guys with cheaper guys and you find out why they are cheaper. The inability to get a runner in from 2nd with no outs plagued us not just in close games but the playoffs. Is Correa a better hitter than Pena? By leagues. But it’s easy to say Correa will cost you 28M a year and Pena plays for peanuts, and the gap isn’t the same as the salary gap. But at the same time you spent all year asking Pena to hit 5th and put runners across in the 10th inning against elite pitching, and he just isn’t as good at it. It feels like our lineup is full of guys that are here playing for us because they cost a little less. Walker cost less options like Alonzo, Paredes cost less than Bregman, McCormick costs less than Tucker, Gamel costs less than Verdugo or Santander, on and on.

      And the bullpen, same thing. Seth Martinez probably lost 2 of those 10, but it’s OK, he did it for minimum salary instead of having Maton or Stanek available. Ort and King pitched at such small sample that I don’t know that they repeat that with more exposure and push towards 50-60 innings.

      Fans should count their blessing that Altuve and Alvarez are willing to play below market value.

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  3. Entering last season we talked about how no one in the league could match our bullpen’s 7-8-9 guys. Unfortunately, they blew some early games and then got overused. Yes, I blame Espada for most of that. Did he learn from his mistakes? I sure hope so because there is less of a safety net this year. My real concern is what happens if the rotation can’t get us deep into games with regularity? What happens if the offense struggles to give us enough leads that can be protected?

    I do think Whitley can be a key player if he actually stays healthy. He misses bats (and the zone). I hope the other guys can contribute enough that a bullpen arm is not the top priority around the trade deadline. I’m tired of acquiring guys like Kendall Graveman or Caleb Ferguson.

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      • I think the last thing I read was disc replacement surgery would take place on August 1, 2024. I guess there have been no updates since then. That likely means he’s not getting ready to sign a FA contract.

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  5. The bullpen has potential. Historically you always see so many hard throwers in the bullpen because typically they have at least a semblance of command on that one pitch and no command on others, and so they need the velocity to get outs. Times are changing and some guys are becoming bullpen guys before getting relegated to it.

    We got some throwers. Bryan Abreu isn’t quite hitting the 98-99 as often as he used to, but he still sits comfortably at 97. Hader hits 95-97 pretty consistently but has that delivery where he is kind of slinging it, letting go of it 2-3 inches closer than most guys, and fools people. I think we could get some help from Gusto in that regard as another plus plus velo guy before all is said and done. And we know Whitley is probably the hardest thrower of them all. Montero was still have days where he was sitting at 97 last year, though a lot of days where he looked lazy at 94. Ort is another banger. The arms are there. Is the command?

    Bryan Abreu figured out how to command that fastball and is still in my opinion the best pitcher on this team, the guy I want to get THAT out, but he definitely struggled with velocity last year at times and become a little more hittable. I haven’t looked at the percentages but I also felt like he was throwing offspeed last year more than previous years. The bullpen still runs through him to get to Hader.

    As for Hader, I don’t want to give him excuses. If you make 95M as a bullpen arm, the most expensive reliever in baseball history, if we need 5 or 6 outs, so be it. I would not use my closer in a tied game on the road, but at times I’m not sure Espada felt he had a choice. Games tied going into the 7th, he was still going to go Abreu/Pressly/Hader, but we already talked about the offenses lack of production in later stages because they hit the better pitchers, and sometimes the game is still tied. If he throws out Montero or Ort or King or anyone else he hasn’t built up that trust for yet, and they blow a game in the 8th or 9th, because he didn’t want to use his closer late in a tied game – he is getting crushed in the media. I remember a few times that Bryan Abreu got through the 7th in 15 pitches, and instead of maybe trying to erk another inning out of him, he would move to the next pitcher. And those times forced him into using Hader, uncomfortably? If that is the right word.

    Maton, Stanek and especially Neris, were important in that regard, arms that had won the trust of the manager. Maybe Ort and King have done that for Espada now, but its not like either one has a track record of success longer than 30 innings in Houston last year.

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  6. The bullpen has potential. Historically you always see so many hard throwers in the bullpen because typically they have at least a semblance of command on that one pitch and no command on others, and so they need the velocity to get outs. Times are changing and some guys are becoming bullpen guys before getting relegated to it.

    We got some throwers. Bryan Abreu isn’t quite hitting the 98-99 as often as he used to, but he still sits comfortably at 97. Hader hits 95-97 pretty consistently but has that delivery where he is kind of slinging it, letting go of it 2-3 inches closer than most guys, and fools people. I think we could get some help from Gusto in that regard as another plus plus velo guy before all is said and done. And we know Whitley is probably the hardest thrower of them all. Montero was still have days where he was sitting at 97 last year, though a lot of days where he looked lazy at 94. Ort is another banger. The arms are there. Is the command?

    Bryan Abreu figured out how to command that fastball and is still in my opinion the best pitcher on this team, the guy I want to get THAT out, but he definitely struggled with velocity last year at times and become a little more hittable. I haven’t looked at the percentages but I also felt like he was throwing offspeed last year more than previous years. The bullpen still runs through him to get to Hader.

    As for Hader, I don’t want to give him excuses. If you make 95M as a bullpen arm, the most expensive reliever in baseball history, if we need 5 or 6 outs, so be it. I would not use my closer in a tied game on the road, but at times I’m not sure Espada felt he had a choice. Games tied going into the 7th, he was still going to go Abreu/Pressly/Hader, but we already talked about the offenses lack of production in later stages because they hit the better pitchers, and sometimes the game is still tied. If he throws out Montero or Ort or King or anyone else he hasn’t built up that trust for yet, and they blow a game in the 8th or 9th, because he didn’t want to use his closer late in a tied game – he is getting crushed in the media. I remember a few times that Bryan Abreu got through the 7th in 15 pitches, and instead of maybe trying to erk another inning out of him, he would move to the next pitcher. And those times forced him into using Hader, uncomfortably? If that is the right word.

    Maton, Stanek and especially Neris, were important in that regard, arms that had won the trust of the manager. Maybe Ort and King have done that for Espada now, but its not like either one has a track record of success longer than 30 innings in Houston last year.

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    • I was looking at Hader a bit. Last season he pitched more than an inning in 7 of his 71 appearances. Does not sound like a lot really. But if you look back – if you look at the four seasons 2020-2023 he only pitched once (1.1 innings) more than one inning.

      He had made it clear he was not going to “strain” himself before getting the big contract.

      Before that he worked multi-innings frequently – 16 out of 35 appearances in 2017, 33 of 55 in 2018 and 23 of 61 in 2019 when he was doing mostly closer work.

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      • And if I recall Dan some of those 7 appearances that went more than once was for a 10th inning, so the plan wasn’t to use him for multiple innings it just went that way.

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    • There’s a lot to unpack here. My take is that we were talking this time last year about our Abreu-Pressly-Hader trifecta making games over after 6 innings. That didn’t happen. In fact, we blew a number of games in April and put ourselves at a big disadvantage as Seattle got off to a hot start. You’re probably right that Espada threw his relievers the way he did for fear of facing the media should a non-money guy blow it.

      I can sit here and complain about the relievers not pitching to their contracts, but we lost in the playoffs because our offense only managed 12 hits across two games and only had a lead at all in game 2 because AJ Hinch tried to show everyone he was really smart and failed. Relief pitchers are volatile and overrated. If you give them a lot of easy leads to protect they will look good. If you put them on the precipice of failure every outing they will look bad. Our offense is going to have to do the thing that Joe Espada hates and not have short innings being overly aggressive. They’re going to have to work to get runs in instead of hoping for a three run homer some times.

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  7. Steven, you’ve joined the duplicate post club! Congratulations.

    Hader really had an interesting 2024. First off, when the club sucked early, he did too. But on the season, he put up an 0.958 WHIP, a .591 OPS, walked just 25, struck out 105 in 71 innings.

    And when he was good, he was very good. Conversely, when he was bad, he was terrible.

    He had 16 decisions. In his 8 wins, the .OPS was .245, in his 8 losses, 1.449. Yikes! In his wins, his batting average against was .050. In his losses, .419. I could go on.

    I’d like to see him have fewer decisions in 2025. And I do believe, regardless of what he has said about being willing to pitch in any situation, I think if Joe can tweak when he is used, the bullpen will be better for it.

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  8. I’m pretty excited about the bullpen as there are a few surprises on the farm we will eventually plug-in. Ryan Gusto was a real stopper coming down the stretch in Sugar Land, and AJ Blubaugh will turn some heads in Spring. I think they’re grooming him. Souza is a real darkhorse, hope he’s healthy. Ort had a setback yesterday and could land on 15-day at OD. It would really be something if Otto could return to form, recalling his debut against us! Miguel Ullola has some ether around his 70 grade fastball, and a couple longshots like Pecko and Nezuh will make a run. With such depth, I assume we’ll pass unless they’d take MiLB deals on David Robertson 1.75 WAR, or A’s Scott Alexander 1.23 WAR. As always super excited to play ball again!

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    • His stats away from Coors field look like a guy that is strictly a product of that environment.

      This is once again the Astros trying to put salt on the crap and serving it to us as dinner. Another cheap signing that they hope contributes more WAR than the number in front of the million. Meanwhile your icon is in camp trying to put his best face on but doesn’t even know what position he is playing. Your top 10 DH player doesn’t even know where he is batting in the lineup. You traded your future HOFer because the number in front of the M was going to surpass the WAR. You for some reason continue to be indecisive about your all star pitcher, and have not even approached his agent with a question about what parameters and expectations do you have. Nice birthday celebration for your new 3B, but does he really know if he is your new 3B or your new 2B? Your 15M a year pitcher doesn’t know if he is a starter or reliever anymore, and certainly hasn’t been approached about either.

      I’m about done with Brown. Bregman is a priority. Tucker is a career Astro. I’m almost ready to put Espada in the hole with him. The only way we keep a star is if they are willing to play below market.

      Oof I’m starting to sound like Josh Jordan there on sportsmap.

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      • The guys at Locked on Astros also suggested that this move could be the end of Singleton in Houston. Someone has to go if Rodgers hits well enough to get a 40 man spot.

        I don’t think this should spell the end of Jon. It should have already been spelled. But you can probably DFA him and get him to accept the assignment to AAA, where he can play 1B every day and be available in case of an injury to Walker or Yordan. It’s not like he wasn’t already playing at Sugar Land on a last chance minor league deal before we put him on the 40 man and promoted him. And I would love to see what happens at AAA playing everyday uninterrupted, and he isn’t blocking some hot shot 1B prospect climbing the ladder.

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      • Rogers is just coming to spring training to fill in some innings, get some at bats, and showcase himself for another opportunity. I don’t see any future for him in Houston unless there is an injury in spring training or guys like Dezenzo fall flat.

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      • You are. I think it will take a month or more before my natural cynicism clicks in. But as I noted last week, Dana might already be taking some heat, although I think he’s had a pretty good winter so far. I’m pretty sure his job really sucks sometimes. That said, I think we’ll end up being a pretty good club.

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