The Astros announced that they have avoided arbitration with righty Lance McCullers Jr.. He’ll receive $4.1MM, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic tweets.
That’s just what MLBTR and Matt Swartz projected McCullers to earn. But it’d be disingenuous to claim credit for this one. The talented hurler missed the entirety of the 2019 season, so he was clearly in line for a repeat salary.
McCullers, 26, will be looking to return from Tommy John surgery in his penultimate season of team control. When last we saw him, in 2018, he turned in 128 1/3 innings of 3.86 ERA ball with 10.0 K/9 and 3.5 BB/9. He carries a 3.67 ERA in his career. If McCullers can return to that sort of productivity and stay on the mound, it would go a long way towards helping the Houston rotation make up for the loss of Gerrit Cole.
LMJ is a bulldog! Just has to stay healthy.
Well if he’s hurt and unable to play all the time, he’s not a “bulldog”…
Tons of guys get hurt yearly, that doesn’t take away from the grit they possess, which McCullers has plenty of. Dude knew in August ’18 he needed TJ, yet pitched thru the pain up until October, to help his team out in the postseason. That’s a bulldog in my opinion, a couple of seasons jeopardized by injury doesn’t take away from the fact that he is, so exit stage left with that b.s.
Because he really helped the Astros by pitching 2 and a third innings after August 2018.
1 and a third of those innings came against the Orioles. Really, he only hurt himself and the team.
If they signed for multimillion dollars then the only thing they hurt was their team. Yeah he pitched against the……. orioles…. well he didn’t have to sacrifice his arm for two weeks to extend into a year of regular season so the only person he semi benefited was himself otherwise he gave up money to get money while hurt
Amen … you nailed that Randy.
2020 World Series MVP Lance McCullers.
Nope. I know the games still have to be played, but no
You take McCullers, I’ll take the field. $200?
He might bite if you give him some odds…
You are ignorant.
The Yankees will be favorites in a field with Houston, Los Angeles and other teams but the Yankees only have about a 25% chance of winning.
Baseball is more a game of chance than other sports. The best team does not always win and many times does not.
You can have the best talent on paper but if each player doesn’t perform as expected … then a lesser talented team (such as the Nationals) can sneak up and beat you
to be fair the Nationals we’re not that much of a lesser talented team. I would put them that far behind the Astros. I would not proclaim that I was surprised that the Nationals won.
I am an Astros fan. I actually picked the Nationals to make it to the world series when the playoffs started because of how hot they were. And quite frankly they were due. And it did not surprise me that they were able to beat the Astros. They have the pitching. They have the offense. They have the defense.
2017-2019 Playoffs MVP, Trash Cans at Minute Maid Park
*Yawn*
Seriously, astros*
you clearly have never been to a Major League baseball playoff game. You’re going to need something a lot louder than a trash can to signal someone at the batter’s box from The dugout at a playoff game. You can’t even talk to the person sitting next to you in the stands at a playoff game without yelling so that they can hear you. The noise in the stadium is extreme. You’re not going to be able to tell this from watching on TV because they drown that out. So that you can hear their stupid announcers make stupid comments….
we shall see. They are still investigating this. but I’m skeptical that any of this happened during the playoffs because of the difficulty of which you would take to implement it.
*Yawn*
Wild card player for the Astros this year
If they even make the wild card game.
They’ll make the wild card if not win the division. Seattle isn’t pulling anything off anytime soon. The rangers have heavily invested in their rotation and not a dime in the pen. The angels well are doing angel things signing players into contracts they can’t afford. Next year it’s astros taking the division with angels and rangers behind
Were is OAK?
Oakland is a strange team. They really should not be winning 95 plus games a season with the pitching staff they have. makes one wonder if they’re 95 + wins is more product of all the teams in baseball that have been tanking for draft picks
I’m saying he can be the difference maker for the Astros next year. Not that the Astros will make the wild card game lol
Watching him throw something like 30 straight curveballs to knock the Yankees out of the 2017 playoffs was a thing of beauty to watch. They knew it was coming and couldn’t do a thing with it. Can’t wait to see how he responds to TJ surgery, the sky’s the limit with him if he can just stay healthy.
Probably put in the pen for 2020 at least, but they would have to sign a couple of starters.