The Astros have claimed left-hander Ashur Tolliver off waivers from the Angels, tweets Jake Kaplan of the Houston Chronicle.
The 28-year-old reliever made his big league debut with the Orioles last season after impressing with a 2.23 ERA, 10.2 K/9 and 3.2 BB/9 in 44 1/3 innings across three minor league level. However, Tolliver was still designated for assignment when the Orioles picked up Kyle Lobstein, and he want to the Angels on waivers shortly thereafter. Tolliver has just 4 2/3 big league innings under his belt, during which time he allowed three runs on five hits and three walks with five strikeouts, but he’ll give Houston an MLB-ready southpaw option to add to its depth chart.
Astros are looking good this year, maybe playoffs.
Brent Strom can fix this…hopefully.
Fix what exactly?
Fix what exactly??
I have zero faith in Brent Strom. I don’t feel that he is very good at noticing mechanical flaws or fixing pitchers who are in a funk. I think our AAA pitching coach has more to offer, maybe even the AA one.
Can’t be worse than Kevin Chapman.
Not many can be.
“and he WANT to the ..” i think you meant “went”. just a heads up
I’m guessing the Astros don’t want to spend money or give up prospects for a lefty reliever?
Maybe he can turn out good like will Harris or tony sipp who were also waiver claims once upon a time
Just don’t give him a contract like Sipp or else, like Sipp, he will immediately regress to the mean.
You should change your name to ASTROS Hater. Do you ever have anything positive to say about them?
It isn’t a good pick up to be fair. Tony Sipps contract is trash he’s right, oh and their pitching coach is bad. So he’s speaking the truth.. how do you take kuechel from being the cy young to being a 4.50 era guy.
If you aren’t a homer, you’re a hater. I live in reality and I only speak negative when people can’t see the forest for the trees. Step off of your soapbox and realize that not everyone shares the same opinions as you.
To be fair, Keuchel went from a back end starter type to a CY Young winner under Strom.
Touché!
EXACTLY on Strom/Keuchel. What do you expect to get from a rotation full of 4/5 starters. Expect everyone to turn out like Keuchel. So even though Sipp had a bad year, he can come back and have a good one? He didn’t lose any velo, so obviously he had trouble locating.
Keuchel also greatly regressed to stats eerily similar to his 2013 season to follow up his Cy Young award. Keuchel, Sipp, Giles, Gregerson, McHugh, Neshek, Foster, Chapman, and Harris all had worse 2016 seasons over their 2015 seasons. When one or two pitchers regress, that’s natural. When the majority of your staff does, something is wrong with your pitching coach.
Trouble locating is generally tied to something mechanical that isn’t in sync. Guess who’s job it is to find the flaw and fix it??
I’m assuming you’re talking about Fister, not whoever Foster is supposed to be. Both Keuchel and Fister lost velocity on their fastballs, and Fister didn’t play very much worse than his 2015 season, where he got moved to the bullpen. You could argue Harris actually improved, all his peripheral stats were better, but regressed on ‘luck based’ stats like BABIP and LOB%. Why is Chapman in this discussion? Neshek and Gregerson are getting older, and neither actually were demonstratively worse in 2016 than 2015. Giles had a rough transition, but settled down well. McHugh had something like the highest BABIP in baseball. Not to mention that Strom was the one who helped guide Keuchel, Harris, Sipp and McHugh from unheralded players to the standard that you’re holding them to. The astros had one of the best bullpens in baseball last year, and a fairly sold pitching staff overall, I think your anger is misplaced.
Yes I meant Fister, autocorrect changed it. Why do the simple-minded resort to petty things like accusing “anger” when someone doesn’t agree with them.
Your points you’ve made are valid to you and I disagree with most of it. It’s called life, we can just agree to disagree as they are opinions.
Our bullpen was a top 10 overall, but I wouldn’t say our pitching staff was solid. Aside from McCullers when he was actually healthy and Fister until the All Star Break, our starting pitching was a big let down overall. McHugh had flashes of dominance and even Fiers had his moments. Musgrove showed promise and I excluded Feldman since we traded him, however he was having the best season of any SP by a long shot.
To keep it civil and to hopefully get a chuckle, I rebuttals your Chapman question with a better one; why in the heck is he even on the Astros??
They should sign EE, Beltran will only be with us for 1 year, that way trading for a ace won’t hurt us as bad!! Heck I’d take Duffy or Odorizzi!!
Gotta do something with this starting rotation to utilize our strong batting lineup!!
Love how the white sox owner Riensdorf said he expects 4 can’t miss prospects!!
With that comment, he’d better stick to basketball!!
I’m all for Odorizzi as long as it doesn’t cost Springer, Tucker (not Preston), Whitley, or Martes. Offer Daz Cameron, Preston Tucker, Fiers and/or a lower level prospect.
Rumor is astros signed EE for 115m
Says who? Have a source on this?
David Grossman via Twitter. He is a Toronto sports reporter. Says EE gone to astros on 115m 5 year deal
No.
Do you have a link? I’ve tried to find anything and I’ve come up with nothing. Part of me hopes you’re right, and part of me thinks it could end up being a Carlos Lee type of deal…
mobile.twitter.com/DavidBGrossman
Thank you. If this is true, is almost certainly means a significant trade is in the works too. I am crying myself to sleep if it’s Springer or Bregman.
This was all over twitter about a week ago. Someone said EE was going to sign officially on the 1st… I’ll believe it when I see it, especially with Beltran in the fold, it’s very doubtful.
I can’t imagine it happening unless there is a blockbuster trade as a contingency that will really shock/hurt. I’m fine with the offense they’ve created without most likely over-paying for EE. To bring him aboard now would most likely mean Springer, Bregman, or Gurriel would get traded to make room. I’d be fine with Gurriel since he’s the oldest and th chances of him playing at a high level for much longer aren’t good historically.
EE isn’t gonna sign with us unless his price drops significantly. Odorizzi is nothing to get excited about imo. A true ace would be nice.
Check @MLBJerseySwaps to see him in his Astros Uniform!
When is the Rule 5 draft?
The last day of the winter meetings.
We typically do really well historically in the rule 5, however we also have been known to not protect good players and lose them too. This year they’ve not protected a few players who could get scooped up.