The Astros are in the market for relief pitching, general manager Dana Brown said this evening (relayed by Matt Kawahara of the Houston Chronicle and Chandler Rome of the Athletic). Brown also restated his desire for rotation help and a left-handed hitter, which the club have been seeking for a few weeks.
Houston’s bullpen has been customarily strong this season. They entered play Tuesday ranked fifth in the majors in ERA (3.69) and topping the league with a 27.5% strikeout rate. That production has been built around an excellent top four of Ryan Pressly, Bryan Abreu, Phil Maton and Hector Neris. Houston has leaned hard on that quartet, as each has reached 45 appearances.
That’s a mark hit by only 22 pitchers thus far. Abreu leads MLB in appearances, while Maton is tied for second. Brown indicated they’d like another arm so they can ease off the workloads off their top four a bit down the stretch. Uncharacteristically middling performances from Ryne Stanek and Rafael Montero leave the relief depth a bit thinner than it has been in previous seasons, though it’s far from a glaring weakness.
Houston’s bullpen skews overwhelmingly right-handed. That could point toward a southpaw being ideal, but the Astros have been comfortable rolling with righty-heavy bullpens in recent seasons and been no worse for wear. Chris Stratton, Keynan Middleton, Reynaldo López and Kyle Finnegan are among the right-handed options who’d likely be available as middle relief targets. Brooks Raley, Brent Suter, Brad Hand and Sam Moll are among the left-handed trade candidates.
While the bullpen has been mostly healthy, Houston has taken injury hits in the lineup and starting staff. They’re getting healthier as the deadline approaches. Brown confirmed that both Yordan Alvarez and Jose Altuve were near game readiness and could be reinstated from the injured list before tomorrow’s contest against the Rangers, whom Houston trails by one game in the AL West. José Urquidy is a bit further off but could be back within a week to 10 days.
With Urquidy nearing a return, Brown indicated the Astros could be content acquiring an innings-eater towards the back of the starting staff. Houston’s front three of Framber Valdez, Cristian Javier and Hunter Brown is a high-upside trio, although Hunter Brown has some innings concerns and Javier has scuffled lately. “We may not need that frontline starter and that’s going to require us to give away a lot of prospects,” Dana Brown told reporters. “Our top three are really good and so we can just add to that. And (J.P. France) has been outstanding. So we’ll take our three big horses and we put France in the mix and then we’ve got Urquidy back and then maybe just add somebody else that can give us some innings, that could be very sustainable.“
After seeing today’s game, they should just buy all the umps for 5-10 million total. They don’t have that many games left anyways, and the umps are 90% of the reason Houston is down 1 instead of 3 after tonight. It can’t be too bad to bribe a few home plate umps in the playoffs. Who needs talent when the umps are on your team?
Manfred incorporated gambling into.the MLB….
Amazing
Bumbling
Puts.everyones lives at risk…
Every player, every coach
Every family.memeber of.every player, Every coach.
FIRE.MANFRED
When they got in bed with gambling, you knew what would happen.
All about the benjamins.
lol someone’s parents forgot to set the limits up on their tablet
What is your problem?
What are you talking about? I’ll give you that the two replays have been bad luck for the Rangers, but Tucker was clearly safe last night and Marcus clearly out tonight.
What are you talking about? It has certainly been some bad luck for the Rangers, but Tucker was clearly safe last night and Marcus was clearly out tonight.
That call to Josh Jung on 2-2 was unacceptable. Momentum matters. Then, Bradford gave up a homerun to Tucker.
Ok and the 3-1 pitch to Abreu last night was much worse than the call on Jung. Almost hit the ground and was called a strike.
Maybe he shouldn’t have given up the HR to Tucker.
Stop your whining. The tag was on him before he reached the plate. They got the call right on the overturn.
Cry. Baby.
Umpires have been terrible on balls and strikes. Worst I have ever seen.
If I were still a catcher, I’d probably get ejected every game. Hoping the automatic ump calls migrate to the big leagues next season.
There was something here that those won’t be implemented next because of the evil players’ union, and the year after, it would only be on challenges. They look at batter height and use the plate. The complaints are that it’s 99% right instead of 96%. That’s not a real concern. Put 25% of umps out of a job. It’s like players and umps have the same joint union.
SOMEBODY trade SOMEBODY.
hahaha this
Jordan walker to the mariners for Kirby and Gilbert could be coming shortly
Heh. No.
Cody Bellinger just seems like the perfect player for the Astros
His comments about Altuve and BREGMAN could be an issue.
Or the worst player for the Astros. A lot of history there.
Dana Brown is little more than a placeholder. The ownership group has a replacement lined up already so Brown simply goes around as the mouthpiece and says “yes sir” to whatever he is told to think and feel.
Bad take. Brown is on a 5yr contract as gm. The team might bring in another exec in to form of PoBO, but Brown will still be used and valued for why he was acquired: player evaluation from a long track record of successful scouting.
Take Reyes Moronta for a top 20 prospect!
We’ll take Justin Lawrence & Brent Suter off Colorado’s hands for our pen.
Ideally the Stros could land a bullpen arm with some years of control left like a Justin Lawrence since Neris, Maton, and Stanek will all be free agents next year.
Rangers gonna Ranger.
You must be new here.
Baseball has blown calls. It literally happens to every player on the field, and if you play enough it happens regularly. Literally everyone in the dugout has lost games to bad calls, and won games because of bad calls.
The NFL first used instant replay in 1976. It was finally implemented in 1985. They stopped using it for a few years because the rules and procedures were not structured well, and there was backlash from owners, front office and players. It came back in 1999.
Thus, the NFL has been experimenting and utilizing instant replay to review various elements of the gameplay, for 47 years.
Last season, how many of the people here had their football teams get screwed by bad calls?
Is the answer 0?
Matt Holiday missed home plate for the win that put the Rockies in their only World Series. A few years back Armando Gallarga had a perfect game blown with two outs in the ninth on a call at first so bad even the baserunner knew he was out and reacted that way, hitting his hands on the sides of his helmet like he was called out, but thought he beat it. Do you know how many perfect games there have been? That is a big blown call.
They happen every game. Get used to it.
They way you carry on, that is what is known as loser’s lip. No system is perfect. The NFL still changes replay rules. They still blow calls. Same with the NBA.
As for the umpires, you win some you lose some. The Astros are the most reviled team in the league. Did the umpires like that you think? You know part of their job is to identify, prevent and punish cheating, right? Did the umpires start gunning after the Astros? Of course not. That is because they are fans of the game, bigger fans than you, in addition to being professionals. There are fewer major league umpires than there are players. That is how elite these men are. They make mistakes. Replay has helped.
The Rangers had the same number of outs and innings to score runs with as the Astros, one call is not necessarily the whole ball game. Your team has many more chances to score, so don’t get too hung up on it. Walk it off.
Complain about bad umpiring, by all means. I do. I loathe Angel Hernandez. Joe West finally retired a couple of years ago, you could just start a thread about that SOB and let it ride, everyone has a story or three about him.
Point is, umpires get it right more than wrong. The reason they get a bad rap is because of a few attention seekers who like inserting themselves in to the game. Hernandez is a great example of a complicated situation. Fans generally, shall we say, strongly dislike him. He is not as bad an ump as far as calls go, but you probably won’t go three games without him doing something that makes him the center of attention. He also sued the league and lost in a promotion practices lawsuit. Maybe there was discrimination, but for him it was probably more like, “but you suck”.
These fools are the exception. Most umpires names you will never know. Which is fine, that probably means they are doing their job as professionals. You love a player that fails 7 out of 10 times at the plate, so an ump with 94% correct calls on the zone is technically way better at his job.
Good points early on, and the I got bored out of my mind!
Being that this is a thread about trading for relievers, and not umpires, we return you to our regular program. Both Cisnero(R) and Shreve(L) are available, and rentals, and likely would not cost much. For some reason, not getting much attention in the press.
So we’re seeking most anything? Lol