Reliever Ken Giles has won his arbitration case against the Astros, Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports tweets. The Astros filed at $4.2MM, but Giles will take home the $4.6MM that he and his agent filed for instead. That salary falls $400K shy of the $5MM projected by MLBTR’s Matt Swartz, and represents a raise of about $4MM in his first trip through the arbitration process.
Though a bad taste may still linger in the mouths of Astros fans due to Giles’ poor postseason performance (11.74 ERA with 5 walks and 3 homers allowed in 7 2/3 innings), the fact remains that Houston’s 27-year-old closer has posted some eye-popping numbers across his first four seasons in the big leagues. Among qualifying relief pitchers, the right-hander ranks 7th in xFIP, 10th in K/9, 13th in ERA, and 16th in Win Probability Added since the start of the 2014 campaign. His 65 saves probably figured into his arbitration win as well.
Giles was drafted by the Phillies back in 2011. The righty made his big-league debut on June 12th of 2014, allowing a home run to the first major-league hitter he faced but striking out the next in a game the Phillies would eventually win over the Padres. Following the 2015 season, the Astros acquired him (along with shortstop Jonathan Arauz) in a trade that brought back former number one overall pick Mark Appel, Vince Velasquez and three others. Since coming to Houston, Giles has struck out nearly 13 batters per nine innings thanks in part to a fastball that’s averaged a whopping 98.3 MPH during that time.
Now can he be traded for that new washing machine?
Well that’s one more player who one his case, unlike JT!
who Juan their case?
Well played
How? Didn’t Giles wet the bed in the playoffs? They not taken into account in Arb cases? He had a Great regular season, but horrible playoffs
Only great against players that can’t hit a high 90’s flat fastball.
Seven innings.
Yet Kershaw is one of the highest players in baseball
I don’t get the analogy. Houston won the WS, despite a horrible Bullpen (Antithesis of the 2015 KS team, it was fascinating to watch because I consider your team an outlier moving forward, but could be wrong)
If LAD, won the WS, it would’ve been because of Kershaw— not despite.
Kershaw was 3-0 with a 3.82 ERA in 5GS.
Your boy Giles had an 11.74 ERA in 7.2 IP.
Glad you won, I have no horse in this race, but there’s a reason Kershaw is highest paid, and the whole Kershaw is a “post season choker” narrative’s outplayed (for 2017)
overplayed* not outplayed. Sorry. 🙂
Look at Giles’ comps and his body of work over three years of service, and tell us why seven post season innings should substantially lower his value.
Kershaw had an ERA over 4 during the world series, and a 4.35 ERA in the postseason, and you can certainly make the case that Kershaw cost them the world series by his performance in game 5
You’re using a 7 year sample size to make your case for Kershaw whereas I used 2017 overall playoffs to make mine — Just as I did with Giles.
Reason I used 2017 overall cumulative playoff stats, is because I truly believe Kershaw has changed! Guess we’ll have to wait to find out.
Giles has no playoff history, other than 2017. have to wait to find out for him as well!
ah very true, but you are using only 7 innings, where in all fairness, he’s was terrible, but that’s only 7 innings, maybe it was just a fluke that he was bad, and can replicate his regular season form during the offseason
Actually I think Greinke makes more than Kershaw
So the World Series is not considered the post-season?
brucewayne, It is, but it’s an anchoring bias. You’re so concerned about ‘sample size’ I gave you a bigger one (entire 2017 postseason) and you intend to focus on the smaller one (2017 WS)
And It’s not like Kershaw had a WS like Darvish, too
Framing* Bias, not anchoring Bias.
Whatever, You know what I mean 😉
And chances are they’re not in the WS if it wasn’t for Kershaw.
Nobody bases how good a player is off of that small of a sample size
The postseason is non-salaried work. Therefore, it does not factor into salary arbitration.
That’s a shame. As good as he’s been, many Astros fans hold there breath when he’s called on, long before the playoffs. He gets the job done but it’s not pretty. it feels like he’s I the edge of imploding at any moment. He’s held up by a solid by really flat fastball that will destroy him when his velocity drops.
mohoney, I did not know that! Good to know 🙂
So when his talents decline his performance will decline? Thanks for the warning.
Maybe Chapman or Jensen would be better. Oh, wait, we beat them BOTH in the playoffs.
You’re making rest of classy Astros fanbase look bad.
Nobody likes a sore winner, especially irrelevant one.
Do you think Darvish’s two WS games will affect his salary next year?
Yes.
But what does that have to do with anything?
Darvish is a FA — Giles is in Arbitration
Majority of players seem to have won so far. It’s a shame this is what players have to do to get compensated fairly. Fact is no owners are going bankrupt, it’s quite the contrary! Owners making big bucks off the young guys and apparently starting this year NOT paying the “old” guys.
Compensated fairly?? So if he had only received $4.2 million, that wouldn’t be fair?? Go sit down
right! I hate when players try to make the most money, how dare they take it away from the owners, they don’t have enough money
right. how dare the owners try to turn a bigger profit while running a business.
it works both ways.
but those profits are based on what the players do, for example, the Marlins, who underperformed, so fans didn’t show up to games, which hurt the owner’s pockets. You have to spend money to make money
Do you think a rebuilding team like the Pirates or say the White Sox see a revenue return on handing out a total of 15-20 mil on guys per year like Andrew Cashner and Jaime Garcia? You need arms to get through a season but guys like that certainly don’t put people in the stands when you’re rebuilding the team.
Millionaires VS. Billionaires ! Does it really even matter anymore? Personally , I’d much rather see the players get it!
I still have openings in my economics class.
How sad is that! Cant handle pressure and has a flat fastball.
I’d trade him for a bag of seeds!!
Do you even stats?
I’d love to see a bag of seeds throw a fastball like Giles can
If the bag of seeds turns into one of the better closers in baseball, then it’s a fair trade
Certainly proved that in the playoffs.
This is interesting thy all the players are winning their cases. Maybe it shows what teams are doing for free agency as well. Owners are all about their bottom line!!!
They aren’t all winning. Probably will turn out about normal when it is all finished.
Hope this guy can rack 40/45 saves in 2018.
Downvoted as an Angel fanboy. Cheers to a good season.
Giles is a fantastic closer. As a stros fan, he is in my view top notch. What happened to him in the playoffs is likely a dead arm – he had not pitched in as many innings or save situations in prior years as he did last year and I think he was pitching on fumes. He’ll be back this year, and I’m sure condition himself to stay stronger longer. Also adding Hector Rondon and Joe Smith to the bullpen gives the stros 3 guys who can close games, along with Will Harris and Chris Devenski who have been all-stars the past couple of years. The entire bullpen ran out of gas in September as Keuchel, McCullers, McHugh in the starting rotation all had to deal with injuries (missing 10 or more starts each) during the year and so the bullpen was taxed. Part of the reason that Luhnow when out and got Gerrit Cole. With a rotation of Verlander, Keuchel, McCullers, Cole, Morton, McHugh and Peacock the bullpen should stay fresh and Giles will be dominant the whole year including the playoffs.
Yeah, the Astros’ Front Office and scouting department have both definitely played ALOT of their cards extremely well..
The Astros, unquestionably, will be a force to be reckoned with this upcoming season.
All up and down their roster, the Astros are loaded with depth, and it’s difficult to find very many holes. Whether it’s their bullpen, their rotation, their catchers, their infield, their outfield, or their bench, the Astros have a quality starter and a quality reserve at just about every single spot. Not only that, their roster also has a very good mixture of youth and quality veterans. Overall, they definitely have one of the top, all-around 25 man rosters in all of baseball.
Then you add in OF Kyle Tucker, 1B/OF Yordan Alvarez, and 3B J.D. Davis, and Forrest Whitley, J.B. Bukauskas, and David Paulino, and you have 3 premiere position prospects all with excellent power, and 3 extremely talented, starting pitchers. Tucker is one of the game’s top position prospects, and Whitley is even arguably THE games top pitching prospect!!
You add that excellent type of quality talent in the minors to an already stacked major league roster, and it’s quite obvious the Astros are going to be a real force for several years to come!!
J.D. Davis is average at best.
Giles is a slider guy. Most pitchers that rely on sliders struggled in that post season. Giles was outstanding in the regular season. I think he gets a pass for his poor postseason performance with the caveat that the Astros need a viable back up plan for the next one.
Gotta give praise to ya boi ken Giles