Righty Adrian Houser was granted his release from his minor league contract with the Rangers, the team announced. Jeff Wilson of DLLS Sports reports that Texas hopes to bring him back (presumably on a fresh minor league deal), but he’ll have the opportunity to explore other offers.
Houser signed with the Rangers during the offseason. He has worked out of the rotation at Triple-A Round Rock, tallying 39 1/3 innings across nine appearances. While his 5.03 earned run average is pedestrian, that’s not all that uncommon in the Pacific Coast League. Houser has stronger peripherals. He’s striking out a decent 22.8% of opponents while running an excellent 57.3% grounder rate.
Ground balls are Houser’s speciality. He has gotten grounders at a near-52% clip over parts of eight seasons in the majors. That was up in the 58-59% range during his best seasons with Milwaukee but has been down to a more normal 46-48% mark over the past few years. That caught up to him last year, as he allowed 5.84 earned runs per nine across 69 1/3 frames with the Mets. Houser had begun the season in New York’s rotation but was kicked to the bullpen after seven starts.
His results in relief were much better. Houser carried an ERA north of 8.00 as a starting pitcher but turned in a 3.28 mark across 35 2/3 relief innings. Texas seemingly preferred him as rotation depth, though it stands to reason he could find interest from other clubs as both a starter and reliever.
Back to the Crew
When asked for a comment on this, Rocky Balboa could only yell out,
“ADRIAN !!”
Yo. Adrian.
Yankees?
I won’t be surprised at all if he takes Cade Horton’s rotation spot at Cubs’ AAA Iowa. If Craig Counsell liked him in Milwaukee, the Cubs will give him a shot.
Question for Rangers fans: Why does everyone seem to pronounce the name like “Simeon”? It was “SEH-mien,” with a short e, long ago when he was a White Sox. Is this a case of people’s minds reverting to a more familiar pronunciation, and then everyone following the herd? Or is it really pronounced Simeon?
Patrick Corbin, consistently the worst pitcher in baseball for the last 4 years gets a rotation spot, but not Houser. Someone make it make sense
I give it a go. Corbin made changes last year that Chris Young believed in. So far those changes have paid off. To date he is a 5 that is pitching like a 3. There, how’d I do?