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Astros Notes: Odorizzi, Valdez, Baez, Scrubb, James

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Astros’ brass met with reporters (including Brian McTaggart of MLB.com and Jake Kaplan of the Athletic) in recent days and provided updates on a host of sidelined pitchers. Righty Jake Odorizzi will make his regular-season debut sometime during the team’s initial homestand, which runs from April 8-14. The Astros inked Odorizzi to a two-year, $23MM guarantee in free agency, but he’s behind the 8-ball after sitting on the open market until earlier this month.

The Odorizzi signing came on the heels of Framber Valdez’s fractured finger early in Spring Training. At the time, there had been fear the left-hander would require surgery and miss the entire season. Valdez is attempting to rehab the injury without going under the knife, and it seems the early returns are positive. Pitching coach Brent Strom called the latest reports on Valdez’s health “very, very exciting and very good,” although the Astros have yet to provide word on a potential target date for his return.

Houston is also without a few key relievers due to health situations. Righty Pedro Báez – like Odorizzi, one of Houston’s offseason additions – won’t be ready for major league action for at least the first couple weeks of the season. The team hopes he’ll be back on the mound in late April. Báez, whom the Astros signed to a two-year, $12.5MM guarantee, has been on the COVID-19 injured list for three weeks. Fellow right-hander Andre Scrubb is looking at a mid-April return after leaving a recent Cactus League game with shoulder soreness.

Another righty, Josh James, is targeting late May or early June for a return of his own. The 28-year-old underwent surgery to repair a labral tear in his left hip at the end of last October.  The procedure initially came with a six-to-eight month recovery timetable, so it seems James is right on schedule.

COVID Notes: 3/30/21

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The latest on coronavirus-related situations around the sport…

  • The Astros announced that Myles Straw, Abraham Toro, and Garrett Stubbs have rejoined the team after clearing COVID-19 protocols.  (MLB.com’s Brian McTaggart was among those to report the news.)  The trio were absent for contract-tracing purposes in the wake of another positive test within Houston’s camp.
  • Matt Barnes’ positive COVID-19 test over the weekend was determined to be a false positive or a non-infectious positive, and the reliever has been cleared to return to Red Sox camp.  Barnes tested negative several times before being allowed to rejoin the team, and with only a few days of action missed, Barnes tells Julian McWilliams of the Boston Globe and other reporters that he is ready for Opening Day.
  • Tigers pitching coach Chris Fetter tested positive for COVID-19, manager A.J. Hinch told reporters (including MLB.com’s Jason Beck) yesterday.  Other coaches are out of camp while contact tracing and further tests are administered, though it appears to be somewhat precautionary, as Hinch said that “no one else — player, staff — has been impacted or affected by this.”  The Tigers have yet to decide who will act as on the on-field pitching coach while Fetter is quarantined.  Fetter is entering his first season with the organization after previously working as the University of Michigan’s pitching coach.

Astros Monitoring Outfield, Pitching Markets

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  • The Astros are looking for possible outfield or pitching additions as spring camps draw to a close, manager Dusty Baker told reporters (including Chandler Rome of The Houston Chronicle).  While every team keeps an eye on other clubs’ cuts or waiver moves at this time of year, the Astros may be more inclined than usual to make a move, given both some recent absences due to COVID concerns and the fact that outfield depth was already something of an issue.  Chas McCormick looks like the favorite for the fourth outfielder job, and Houston would have to make a 40-man move to include either Jose Siri or Bryan De La Cruz on the active roster.  None of this trio has any MLB experience, and starting center fielder Myles Straw could be facing some time on the COVID-related injury list.

COVID Notes: 3/28/21

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The latest coronavirus situations to monitor around baseball…

Latest Updates

  • Right-hander Spencer Turnbull will miss at least the Tigers’ first few series of the year, manager A.J. Hinch told MLB.com’s Jason Beck and other reporters.  Turnbull has been away from Spring Training camp since March 20 due to healthy and safety protocols, and the club placed him on the COVID injured list earlier this week.  Back on March 20, Hinch made the point to note that Turnbull wasn’t in violation of any team rules himself, so it’s possible Turnbull just needs some extra time to ramp up after pitching only nine Grapefruit League innings.

Earlier Today

  • Utilityman Abraham Toro and catcher/outfielder Garrett Stubbs are away from camp due to health and safety protocols, Astros manager Dusty Baker told MLB.com’s Brian McTaggart (Twitter link) and other reporters.  The Houston Chronicle’s Chandler Rome reported yesterday that a player in the Astros’ camp is a presumed positive COVID-19 case, and that at least three players (presumably Toro, Stubbs, and Myles Straw) were quarantined for contact tracing purposes.  Baker hopes to have the players back in camp within the next one or two days.
  • Eight members of the Red Sox organization are away from camp for contact-tracing purposes in the wake of Matt Barnes’ positive COVID-19 test, manager Alex Cora told reporters (including The Athletic’s Jen McCaffrey and The Boston Globe’s Alex Speier).  Four of the eight-person group are automatically in isolation due to being close contacts with Barnes, though Cora didn’t specify how many of the eight were players.  Assuming negative tests, any players included within the eight-person group would likely be ready to play Thursday on Opening Day.

Myles Straw Removed From Spring Training Game As Close Contact

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Astros Sign Lance McCullers Jr. To Five-Year Extension

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MARCH 26: The extension is official, the Astros announced.

MARCH 24: Lance McCullers Jr. won’t be heading to free agency next winter after all. One month after making clear he hoped to forgo the open market and stick with the Astros, the right-hander has reportedly agreed to a five-year contract extension that will begin in 2022 and run through the 2026 season. McCullers, a client of the Boras Corporation, will reportedly be guaranteed $85MM and receive a limited no-trade clause.

Because the deal doesn’t kick in until the 2022 campaign, it does not impact the Astros’ luxury tax ledger for the current season. That’s a critical point for the ’Stros, who have worked diligently to remain south of the $210MM threshold. The contract reportedly comes with a $3.5MM signing bonus, salaries of $15.25MM in 2022-23 and a $17MM annual salary from 2024-26.

McCullers, who’s about to embark on his age-27 campaign, has been a career-long Astro to this point. The team used the 41st overall pick on him in 2012, and he has since produced quality results in the majors. Dating back to his big league debut in 2015, McCullers has pitched to a 3.70 ERA/3.61 SIERA with an above-average strikeout rate (26.4) and a tremendous 55.2 percent groundball rate across 508 2/3 innings. With the exception of 2016, when his walk rate spiked to 12.8 percent, he’s generally kept that mark better than the league average as well.

Durability has been a problem for McCullers, though, as he has never even reached the 130-inning mark in a season. He topped out at 128 1/3 frames in 2018, the year after he helped pitch the Astros to a World Series championship, before undergoing Tommy John surgery.

McCullers missed all of 2019 as a result of the procedure, but he did make a strong return last year with 11 starts and 55 innings of 3.93 ERA/3.95 SIERA pitching, solid strikeout and walk percentages (24.7 and 8.8, respectively) and a 59.7 percent grounder rate. Still, this is an unprecedented guarantee for a starting pitcher who’s never made more than 22 starts in a big league season.

While it’s risky for the Astros to make this type of commitment to a hurler who has had trouble staying healthy, they know McCullers is at least a mid-rotation-caliber starter when he does take the mound. And this move will lead to less uncertainty in Houston’s starting staff a year from now, as veterans Zack Greinke and Justin Verlander could depart in free agency next offseason. Even if those two exit, the Astros figure to return McCullers, Jake Odorizzi, Framber Valdez, Cristian Javier and Jose Urquidy in 2022.

Of course, next winter’s free-agent class looks a bit less interesting with McCullers off the market. But Greinke, Verlander, Trevor Bauer (if he opts out of his Dodgers deal), Max Scherzer, Clayton Kershaw, Noah Syndergaard, Marcus Stroman and Kevin Gausman are among many established starters who could be searching for new deals then.

It’s an obviously strong class, and the Astros can afford to be major players in the market if they choose, given that even after this new McCullers deal they’re at $91.7MM in guaranteed money on the books. For a club that’s topped $160MM in payroll in each of the past four seasons now (prior to prorating in 2020), there will be ample room to spend on the open market.

Mark Berman of FOX 26 first reported that an agreement was in place. ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported the terms, while MLB Network’s Jon Heyman and USA Today’s Bob Nightengale added contractual details (Twitter links).

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Astros Release Steve Cishek

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Right-handed reliever Steve Cishek requested and was granted his release from the Astros on Thursday, Jake Kaplan of The Athletic was among those to report. He had been vying for a role in the Astros’ bullpen after signing a minor league contract during the offseason.

Cishek would have earned a $2.25MM salary had he made the Astros, but that looked increasingly unlikely after the team signed starter Jake Odorizzi to a two-year, $23.5MM deal earlier this month. After all, the Astros are hoping to stay under the $210MM luxury-tax threshold, and adding Cishek to their roster would have made that more difficult to accomplish.

The 34-year-old Cishek had a rough 2020 as a member of the White Sox, with whom he put up a 5.40 ERA/4.47 SIERA over 20 innings, but his track record suggests he’ll catch on with another team soon. Cishek has combined for a 2.78 ERA/3.36 SIERA with decent strikeout and walk percentages (25.2 and 9.2) and a 48.9 grounder mark over 576 innings since he first pitched in the majors in 2010. He gave up three earned runs in 7 2/3 innings and posted 12 strikeouts against two walks this spring.

Angels Return Rule 5 Pick Jose Alberto Rivera To Astros

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The Angels have returned right-hander Jose Alberto Rivera, their pick in the most recent Rule 5 Draft, to the Astros, according to a club announcement.

Rivera, 24, pitched just one inning in an official spring game for the Halos, though he’d spent the entirety of camp working out with the club. He ranked as Houston’s No. 18 prospect at Baseball America in the 2019-20 offseason and was tabbed 11th among Angels farmhands by BA this winter. However, Rivera also hasn’t pitched above A-ball, and carrying him for a full season would give the Angels five bullpen arms who can’t be optioned to the minors (joining closer Raisel Iglesias and relievers Mike Mayers, Alex Claudio and Junior Guerra).

It’s common for Rule 5 picks to be returned this time of year, particularly by clubs with postseason aspirations, as the Halos have. The Angels also hadn’t signed either Claudio or Guerra at the time they selected Rivera, and both moves further restricted their ability to experiment with keeping the hard-throwing righty on the roster. Rivera’s most recent minor league action came in the Class-A Midwest League in 2019, when he tossed 75 2/3 frames of 3.81 ERA ball with a 29.8 percent strikeout rate and an 11.3 percent walk rate.

Astros To Release Steven Souza Jr.

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The Astros plan to release outfielder Steven Souza Jr., who has been in camp with them on a minor league deal, Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle reports. Souza has been vying for the fourth outfielder’s role alongside Jose Siri, Ronnie Dawson and Chas McCormick, but it seems his spring struggles have pushed the team in another direction.

Souza, 31, is 2-for-21 with a homer thus far in Spring Training. He’s drawn five walks and been hit by a pitch in 27 trips to the plate but has also punched out an alarming 13 times in that tiny sample of plate appearances.

Souza’s last full season at the MLB level was quite productive, but it also came back in 2017. He slashed .239/.351/.459 with 30 home runs for the Rays that year, prompting the D-backs to swing a trade for him in the offseason. But a pectoral injury limited his time on the field and productivity in 2018, and his 2019 season was wiped out by one of the most catastrophic knee injuries we’ve seen recent memory; Souza suffered tears of his ACL and LCL in play at the plate that also left him with a partial PCL tear and a posterolateral capsule tear. He returned to the big leagues with the Cubs last year but struggled through 31 plate appearances before being cut loose.

The Astros entered the winter with an entire outfield’s worth of free agents, as George Springer, Michael Brantley and Josh Reddick all hit the market. Springer went to Toronto, Brantley re-signed in Houston, and Reddick remains unsigned. With Brantley back in the fold, the ’Stros are looking at him in left field, Kyle Tucker in right field and speedster Myles Straw as the primary center fielder. McCormick is the likeliest option to break camp as the team’s fourth outfielder, given his ability to play center field and given that he’s the only player in that competition who is already on the team’s 40-man roster.

Astros, Lance McCullers Jr. “Deep” Into Extension Talks

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9:19pm: The Astros have made a “strong” offer to McCullers, and they’re “deep” in talks with him, Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle writes.

5:37pm: Right-hander Lance McCullers Jr., who’s in the last year of his contract, tweeted last month that he hadn’t heard from the Astros about an extension, but that has changed. According to Jon Heyman of MLB Network, the Astros have made a long-term offer to the Boras Corporation client. Details of the proposal are unknown, and Heyman adds that it’s unclear whether the two sides will get a deal done.

A career-long Astro, McCullers made his major league debut with the club in 2015 and has since produced quality results. The 27-year-old owns a 3.70 ERA/3.61 SIERA with above-average strikeout and walk percentages of 26.4 and 9.3, respectively. The problem, if there is one, is that McCullers hasn’t been particularly durable in the bigs. He topped out at 128 1/3 innings in 2018 and has accrued just 508 2/3 frames during his career.

McCullers underwent Tommy John surgery before 2019, causing him to miss all of that season, but he did get through last year unscathed. He rebounded from the procedure to finish second among Astros in starts (11) and third in innings (55), recording a 3.93 ERA/3.95 SIERA and a sterling 59.7 percent groundball rate along the way.

Despite the health issues that have dogged him in the majors, McCullers should do well on his next contract. His track record and age should make him one of the most appealing starters on the open market, but the Astros may prevent him from getting there. Of course, the Astros also have a few other high-profile free agents-to-be – including righties Zack Greinke and Justin Verlander and shortstop Carlos Correa – so general manager James Click & Co. have a lot of work to do over the next several months.

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