May 20: Per Chandler Rome of The Athletic, Walter has been selected and Wesneski transferred to the 60-day IL, as expected. Gordon has been optioned as the corresponding active roster move.
May 19: Left-hander Brandon Walter will start for the Astros tomorrow against Tampa Bay, manager Joe Espada told reporters (including Matt Kawahara of The Houston Chronicle). The Astros will need to add him to the 40-man roster. They can move Hayden Wesneski, who is ticketed for Tommy John surgery, to the 60-day injured list to create a 40-man spot. They’ll also need to make a corresponding active roster move involving a pitcher.
Walter signed a minor league contract with the Astros last August. It was apparently a two-year deal, as the southpaw spent last season on the injured list rehabbing a rotator cuff injury. Walter made his return to the mound during Spring Training, allowing four runs through seven innings.
He’s been working in a swing role at Triple-A Sugar Land, where he has started five of nine appearances. Walter owns a 2.27 ERA across 35 2/3 innings, backing that up with strong underlying marks. He’s getting grounders at a huge 60% rate, striking out upwards of a quarter of opponents, and has kept his walk rate to a minuscule 5.2% clip.
It has been a nice rebound effort for the 28-year-old lefty. Walter went from an unheralded 26th-round draft choice to one of the better pitching prospects in the Red Sox’s system a couple years ago. He was hit hard in his nine MLB appearances with the Sox, allowing a 6.26 ERA over 23 innings two seasons back. He owns a 4.19 ERA across parts of three Triple-A seasons. Walter isn’t going to overpower many hitters, as his four-seam and sinker each average 91 MPH. His five-pitch mix is headlined by his upper-70s sweeping slider.
Walter still has an option remaining, so the Astros can send him back to Sugar Land without putting him on waivers. For now, he joins rookie Ryan Gusto as swing options. Colton Gordon has taken Wesneski’s rotation spot, rounding out the starting five behind Hunter Brown, Framber Valdez, Ronel Blanco and Lance McCullers Jr. The Astros haven’t had an off day since May 8 and won’t be off until next Monday. They’ll likely use Walter and Gusto in some kind of tandem outing tomorrow to reduce the workload on the rest of the staff.
Every year the Astros seem to promote an unheralded pitcher who turns out to be pretty good. I know the Astros farm system is regularly panned, but it’s very effective at churning out arms.
Scrubs turn into Studs with great regularity in the Astro system. One thing I would like to have data on is injury ratio of Astro pitchers versus the rest of the league. I do believe it’s up everywhere, but it seems alarmingly high with the Astros.
Yes, in part because the Astros draft and sign pitchers with high spin rates. So naturally those guys will trend to have more torque on their tendons. Thus more likely to be injured. Brown is an exception, he is a velocity guy.
Astros fans thought the world was literally going to end and were after the GM’s head for trading prospects (whom in their eyes were the second coming of Jeff Bagwell, Craig Biggio, and Nolan Ryan) for Kikuchi last year…
When I saw we lost yet another pitcher to TJS i thought, wow, another year of a complete starting rotation on the IL. I know they have alot smarter people than me looking at this stuff but, I wonder if it has anything to do with the spin rate they prize so much.
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