Absolutely agree. I’m really anxious to see what the prices look like once that last group of SP start signing. Any of Heaney, Lynn, Quintana, Pivetta, and a few others would really raise the floor of the pitching staff. Brown and Framber are a fine 1-2, and I feel really good about the depth overall. But it remains to be seen if any of Houston’s other SP will be ToR/playoff caliber starters. Any of Blanco, Arrighetti, Garcia, Javier, McCullers, Ullola, and Blubaugh have that kind of upside, but they all carry significant risk beyond the standard injury risk that every pitcher has. It’s a tough deal to manage, because Houston is short on payroll flexibility and there is a reasonable chance they could get to July and have an absolute glut of SP. But if they could get Pivetta, Heaney, Lynn, or Quintana for a 7 figure deal I think it would be smart.
Last year we had 9 available arms going into ST (FV, JV, Javier, Brown, Urquidy, Blanco, France, Bielak, and Arrighetti). We lost two before ST was over (JV and France). I thought we probably needed 1 more at that point, mainly because we wanted to go to a 6 man rotation and Arrigh had only 15 AAA games. I never expected McCullers or Garcia back except maybe Garcia in September. I did think we would get France back but we lost him, Javier, and Urquidy before the end of May. Thus we needed to trade for a pitcher. This year we enter ST with 8 available pitchers. Blubaugh, Gusto, and Gordon all have at least 25 AAA games. I still think we need 1 more pitcher, with another on speed dial, especially if we still want a 6 man rotation- not sure if that is the case anymore. I do think we get Garcia (?) back. Hopefully he just needs to build arm strength and pitch a few rehab innings in AAA instead of starting out in the majors. France (??) I think comes back in July, but hard to say. McCullers (???) is a complete mystery. I do not expect Javier back at all this year. Garcia had his surgery on 5/19/23 and that put a 15 month recovery on 8/19/24. Javier had his surgery almost a year and a month after Garcia on 6/6/24, that puts a 15 month recovery on 9/6/24. I am not expecting his recovery to go any differently that Garcia's. So I don't think we can trade a pitcher and probably need to add one.
The idea that our pitching coaches / scouts can produce Framber equivalent TOR pitchers with any frequency is belied by our history over the past two decades. Framber has gotten Cy votes 4x in the past 5 seasons. Lance once. Before that you have to go back to the Keuchel / McHugh one year blip in 2015, Brett Meyers (!) in 2010, and then Oswalt 5x back in the early aughts. We are fine producing #2 / #3 type pitchers. But we've had very little luck producing aces outside of Framber. We've had to trade for guys like Verlander and Cole. By contrast, we've produced several hitters in that time frame with top-10 MVP finishes. Altuve, Yordan, Springer, Tucker, Bregman, Correa. So I'm not sure the narrative holds up that we are good at churning out high quality pitchers but not high quality hitters, or that the latter is more difficult to find.
Yeah, I don't know the specifics of what might be going on or what all the Astros secret sauce is, but it seems like the Astros and Dodgers are the two teams that magically make pitchers better and are also the two teams that seem to have a crazy amount of starting pitcher injuries. Then again, I don't follow most teams that well, so maybe other teams actually do have similar injury levels too.
How can anyone who actually pays attention think Brown's and Arrighetti's rookie years were "basically identical"? They are the exact opposite. Brown started strong, and had a bad second half. Arrighetti took a while to get started and took off. Brown 2023 1st half: >5 1/2 ip/gs, 4.12 ERA, 1.330 WHIP 2nd half: <5 ip/gs, 6.57 ERA, 1.411 WHIP Arrighetti 2024 1st half: 4 2/3 ip/gs, 5.63 ERA, 1.600 WHIP 2nd half: 5 2/3 ip/gs, 3.18 ERA, 1.169 WHIP
The Astros had a good three year run of very few starting pitcher injuries relative to normal prior to last year. In 2022, McCullers got so lonely on the IL that he got healthy and had to shiv Odorizzi in the back just so he could get starts*. The Astros only had 2 starts from minor league callups that year. I think this is very rare. Maybe once a decade for any of the MLB team would be my guess. It might be more frequent than that, but it might be longer. Those 2 starts were Hunter Brown and I think only 1 of them was actually an injury with the other being rest due to the Astros just being that good. Pitchers doing what Hunter Brown was doing in AAA at his age don't typically stay in AAA for as long as Brown did in 2022. *Odorizzi may have been traded instead of shived to make room for McCullers.
... and the end result is virtually identical years, as I mentioned. One had a slightly better ERA; the other slightly better WHIP. Good half seasons, whether to start or the end the year, are not particularly predictive of the next year, as we saw with Brown. It all depends on WHY the change - for example, if they just wore down, then more experience with more innings should make them better the next year. If they got figured out, different story. Pitchers go on few-month runs all the time in MLB as well.
And if a rookie pitcher has a poor second half, then maybe the league made adjustments, maybe he wore down, maybe he was hurt. If a rookie pitcher has a better second half then those questions don't come up. I see no scenario where the seasons are thought if as " basically identical"
Predicting opening day staff: Hader: 9th Abreu: 8th Ort: 7th Okert: lefty Dubin: long relief Whitley: low leverage Montero: low leverage Framber: SP1 Brown: SP2 Blanco: SP3 Arrighetti: SP4 Wesneski: SP5 (placeholder for McCullers) Gusto: SP6 (placeholder for Garcia)
Or maybe it means you need 2 months to figure things out (like Bregman on offense). Players have good ends of seasons all the time and suck the next year. And vice-versa. There will always be questions about a player that had a few good months and a few bad months. There is a ton of variance between rookie seasons and 2nd years, both good and bad. Arrighetti is no more proven or reliable today than Brown was going into last year. An ERA of 3 wouldn't be crazy surprising, nor would an ERA of 5.
I will be very surprised to see Montero pitch in the MLB / Astros ever again. I’ll not quibble about who will be the 13th pitcher.
I like King over Montero, but because of experience I think Montero has a chance. They are paying him anyway. 2022 Montero would look nice in that pen.
There’s upside into giving Montero a chance to rebuild some value so that his remaining salary can be included in a deadline trade to offset salary from an incoming OF or SP that Houston is looking very likely to need.
Why, It's not like he lost his velocity. He just needs to stop being dumb and pitch what Diaz tells him to pitch. His issues have always been decision making. Going off-script.
No Tayler Scott? No Bryan King? No Bennett Souza? I predict these 3 have a better chance over Okert, Dubin, and Montero but we'll see. Agreed on Whitley earning a spot.
