Astros reliever Ryan Pressly tossed a scoreless inning to earn a hold in tonight’s 3-2 victory over the Rays. As Chandler Rome of the Athletic points out (on X), that was the veteran righty’s 45th appearance of the season. Combined with 65 appearances last year, Pressly has reached 110 games since the start of 2023.
That’s the necessary threshold to vest the $14MM team option on his contract for 2025. Marc Berman of USA Today wrote in February that the option also requires that Pressly not finish this season on the injured list. (It’s not uncommon for a vesting provision to require the player to pass an end-of-year physical.) Assuming he’s healthy at year’s end, he’s officially under contract for the ’25 campaign at $14MM. It’s a traditional vesting option, so Pressly does not have the ability to decline it in favor of free agency.
Pressly, who turns 36 in January, will be going into his seventh full season with the Astros. Houston acquired him from the Twins at the 2019 deadline in what turned out to be a fantastic pickup. Pressly carries a 2.77 earned run average in 327 regular season appearances. He has been even better in October, firing 44 2/3 innings of 2.22 ERA ball in his playoff career.
While relief pitchers can be volatile, Pressly has been an annual source of stability. He hasn’t had an ERA higher than 3.58 in any of his seasons with Houston. Pressly has reached at least 50 appearances in the previous four full schedules of his Astros tenure. He’s well on his way to doing so again. He spent the 2020-23 seasons operating as Houston’s closer and was consistently among the top relievers in the game.
The Astros signed Josh Hader to a five-year, $95MM free agent deal late last offseason. That pushed Pressly into a setup role for the ’24 campaign. That wasn’t an indictment of his performance so much as an opportunity for Houston to build a three-headed monster of Hader, Pressly and Bryan Abreu at the back of the bullpen. That trio struggled to a 5.40 ERA in April, a big reason the team got off to a slow start. They’ve been dominant for the better part of three months since then, combining for a 2.56 ERA over 102 innings. The team has correspondingly turned its fortunes around, erasing a 10-game deficit on the Mariners to hold a marginal lead in the AL West race with two months to play.
Including tonight’s performance, Pressly carries a 3.38 ERA across 42 2/3 innings. He has 19 holds and a pair of saves against six blown leads. Those generally solid results are in spite of an elevated .344 average on balls in play. Pressly is striking out a quarter of opponents with a solid 46.7% grounder rate and a tidy 7% walk percentage. While it’s a slight step down from his 2019-23 production, Pressly continues to turn in above-average performance late in games.
The Astros and Pressly’s representatives at the Ballengee Group have hammered out a pair of extensions over the years. In Spring Training 2019, they inked a two-year, $17.5MM pact with a ’22 vesting option. Pressly hit that mark, locked in his 2022 salary, then agreed to another two-year deal early in the season. That one guaranteed him $30MM — matching $14MM salaries for 2023-24 and at least a $2MM buyout on the ’25 vesting option. He’s now set to max the deal out at $42MM over three seasons by securing the $12MM difference between next year’s option price and the buyout figure.
Pressly joins Jose Altuve ($30MM), Hader ($19MM), Lance McCullers Jr. ($17MM), Yordan Alvarez ($15MM), Cristian Javier ($10MM) and Victor Caratini ($6MM) on next year’s books. They’re still on the hook for big salaries for José Abreu ($19.5MM) and Rafael Montero ($11.5MM) to close those respective ill-fated three-year free agent pacts. That’s $128MM in guaranteed commitments.
Framber Valdez and Kyle Tucker are both going to surpass $15MM salaries in their final arbitration seasons, while Bryan Abreu, Mauricio Dubón, Jeremy Peña, Luis Garcia and Jake Meyers are among their other arbitration-eligible players. Houston has a lot of commitments before deciding whether to re-sign Alex Bregman, Justin Verlander and deadline pickup Yusei Kikuchi. There’ll be a lot on GM Dana Brown’s plate next winter, but owner Jim Crane showed a wiliness to push into the second tier of luxury tax penalization this year in pursuit of an eighth straight trip to the ALCS and beyond.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
That’s a lot of cash to pay an 8th inning guy..
Can’t imagine they wouldn’t explore trading him at that price, and given the price of relievers at the deadline you’d have to think they’d have some buyers lined up.
He’d have 10/5 rights, but seems likely he’d wave it for a chance to pitch in the 9th again.
Deadline prices are going to be inflated due to a limited supply. But I think the Astros can trade him in the offseason to a bad-bullpen team which also needs a closer. The Yankees need one next year but not at that price for a non-elite closer.
Except if your team may be at a kind of crossroads potentially about to lose key players and that they want to increase the possibility of winning another World Series. Then it’s important and the price you have to pay in a competitive playoff scenario.
Still decent, but expensive.
As a diehard Mariners fan, I would say Pressly is my favorite Astro.
Looks like Dipoto made some great additions getting Turner and Arozarena despite the players they had to give up. With their pitching they could go all the way.
Interesting to see how MLB season finishes up. Can CLE be a force in the playoffs. They still need to get resourceful and improve their pitching. Can PIT grab a WC?
I don’t believe you can bring back Verlander and Bregman next year. I would say JV would have to go. Age and injury catches up to everybody.
Of course this works out for these cheaters. They’ll re sign the little weasel Bregman too and we’ll have to put up with them winning their garbage division every year for another decade.
Would you like the number of a counsellor. ?
“Pressly, who turns 36 in January, will be going into his seventh full season with the Astros. Houston acquired him from the Twins at the 2019 deadline”
If they acquired him at the 2019 deadline, Pressly will be heading into his sixth full season with them, not his seventh.
Actually his fifth if you don’t count 2020.
they acquired him in the 2018 deadline, not 2019 – typo or otherwise just a mistake from mlbtr
Great past performer. Even better contract for him!