The Astros announced that right-hander J.P. France cleared waivers and was outrighted to Triple-A Sugar Land. He had been designated for assignment a week ago when Houston acquired Kai-Wei Teng from the Giants. France will be in major league camp as a non-roster invitee.
France, 31 in April, had an exciting major league debut a few years back. He gave the Astros 136 1/3 innings in 2023, allowing 3.83 earned runs per nine. However, the past two seasons have been mostly lost. Shoulder problems plagued him early in 2024 and eventually required surgery, which put him on the shelf for most of 2025. He only made seven big league appearances over those two seasons. He was healthy by the end of 2025 but posted a 6.59 ERA in Triple-A.
The lengthy injury situation and poor results last year bumped France off the roster. He still has one option remaining but the other 29 clubs still passed on the chance to give him a 40-man roster spot. Players have the right to reject an outright assignment if they have at least three years of service or a previous career outright but France doesn’t qualify on either account. That means he sticks with the Astros as non-roster depth.
Houston goes into 2026 with a rotation that looks to have a lot of talent but also question marks behind Hunter Brown. They will hope to get more from Cristian Javier and Lance McCullers Jr., who each had underwhelming seasons in 2025 after lengthy injury absences. Tatsuya Imai will be making his major league debut after years pitching in Japan. Ryan Weiss is coming to North America after a decent stretch in South Korea. Mike Burrows still has less than 100 big league innings.
France will try to position himself to get the call if the guys in that group struggle or get hurt. He will have a steep path back to a roster spot, however, as the Astros have Spencer Arrighetti, AJ Blubaugh, Miguel Ullola, Jason Alexander, Colton Gordon and Teng on the roster as optionable rotation depth. Over the course of the season, some guys will get hurt but Ronel Blanco, Hayden Wesneski and Brandon Walter will be working back from surgeries performed last year.
Photo courtesy of Kamil Krzaczynski, Imagn Images
No takers is surprising to me.
Very few teams with roster space atm, which is why you’re seeing a lot of DFA’s as teams try and sneak players through. That will change in a week when camp opens and all the 60 day IL players are removed from rosters.
Very good point.
True that.
*Looking like grandpa simpson*
“That 60 day IL is ruining baseball”
I agree. He should definitely be a starter
Happy to keep France in Houston. He has ability & great aptitude
Glad he is sticking around. I think he will bounce back and be back with the big club before long
I am glad J.P. made it through waivers because you can never have too much pitching.
That said, he’s a JAG. He’s the current Brandon Bielak.
If the Astros viewed him as a starter then he would have made at least one start last year when the entire rotation outside of Hunter Brown and Framber Valdez were hurt. They were using openers and AAAA guys but J.P. stayed in the bullpen even after he was recalled from AAA.
He is no higher than 10th on the depth chart and may be in the teens
J.P was also hurt essentially the entire year until the very end. Because of this, he wasn’t an option as a SP or he would have been.
I think that’s Kai Wei Teng now.
Yesssssss! We get to keep him as non-roster pitching depth.
How did he look when he came back last year? Shoulders are tricky
He didn’t come back until the end of July. He only threw over 70 pitches twice. He struggled with his command. In his own words he “felt lost”.
He remained a pro though. His stuff is still good. He struck out a lot, but walked a lot too. Those suprised he cleared waivers arn’t paying that close of attention.
He looked like he was turning a corner toward the last couple of games in the season though.
ChazzyB
Agree to disagree
J.P. started his last game in AAA and went 5 innings then was brought up for the final 3 weeks of the season.
He sat in the bullpen, pitching the last inning of an 8-3 loss 9/14 and 3 innings as the 3rd pitcher after an opener on 9/27.
The Astros chose not to use him despite scraping the barrell for starters including using Jayden Murray and A.J. Blubaugh as openers out of desperation.