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Ryan Pressly

Injured List Returns: Pressly, Mejia

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Catching up on some players returning to their teams’ active roster…

  • The Astros reinstated Ryan Pressly from the 10-day injured list, and left-hander Parker Mushinski has been optioned to Triple-A to create roster space.  Pressly hasn’t pitched since April 13 due to right knee inflammation, but he’ll now return to his usual role as Houston’s closer, though Rafael Montero did well in handling the ninth inning in Pressly’s absence.  Before hitting the IL, Pressly recorded three saves in his first four appearances, posting a 2.70 ERA over 3 1/3 innings.
  • Catcher Francisco Mejia was reinstated from the Rays’ COVID-related injured list.  Rene Pinto was optioned to Triple-A after yesterday’s game, so an open roster spot awaits Mejia’s return.  Mejia missed just under two weeks recovering from a positive COVID-19 test, which interrupted a blisteringly hot start (.986 OPS) in his first 24 plate appearances of the 2022 campaign.  Given how Mike Zunino has struggled, Mejia might earn a larger piece of the Rays’ catching timeshare if he continues to hit at anything close to that level.

Astros Place Ryan Pressly On 10-Day Injured List

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The Astros have placed closer Ryan Pressly on the 10-day injured list with right knee inflammation (retroactive to April 14), per Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle and others (via Twitter). In a corresponding move, Parker Mushinski has been called up to join the Major League team. Mushinski will make his debut if he finds his way into a ballgame.

Pressly has appeared in four games this season, earning three saves in 3 1/3 innings of work. The 33-year-old Dallas native is in his third season since taking over as the full-time closer in Houston. Without him, Houston could turn to former Phillies’ closer Hector Neris, or simply go closer-by-committee. Any number of Houston relievers have late-game experience. Rafael Montero has 15 career saves, and while Ryne Stanek, Pedro Baez, and Phil Maton don’t have much closing experience, they’re seasoned vets who could no doubt stomach the challenge of the game’s final frame.

The decision to add Mushinski could be in part because he’s a southpaw. Blake Taylor is the only lefty currently in manager Dusty Baker’s bullpen. The 26-year-old Mushinski made it to Triple-A for the first time last season – and including this year’s four appearances – the Texas native has tossed 17 1/3 innings for the Sugar Land Space Cowboys, posting a 2.08 ERA in that small sample.

Astros, Ryan Pressly Agree To Extension

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The Astros and reliever Ryan Pressly are in agreement on a two-year, $30MM extension, per Robert Murray of FanSided. There is also a vesting option for 2025 that could take the deal up to $42MM. Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports that Pressly will make $14MM in 2023 and 2024, along with a $2MM buyout on the 2025 option. (Twitter links) Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle relays that the $14MM option for 2025 will vest with 50 appearances in both 2023 and 2024. Pressly is represented by Scott Lonergan of the Ballengee Group.

This is the second time in Pressly’s career where he has signed an extension with the Astros while one year away from free agency. In March of 2019, the two sides agreed to a two-year extension that came with a $17.5MM guarantee, covering the 2020 and 2021 campaigns, along with a $10MM vesting option for 2022. Pressly needed to make 60 appearances in each of the 2020 and 2021 campaigns in order to vest the option, which he did. (In the shortened 2020 campaigns, all thresholds of this kind were prorated by 2.7, meaning Pressly’s 23 games were counted as just over 62 appearances.) Once again, Pressly has been locked up to keep him from hitting the open market.

Ryan Pressly |Troy Taormina-USA TODAY SportsAs noted by Murray, this deal makes Pressly one of the highest-paid relievers in baseball and is the largest contract ever given to an Astros reliever. The fact that the Astros are willing to commit to Pressly in this way is hardly surprising based on his performance. Just months prior to the first extension, Pressly was acquired by Houston from Minnesota in a 2018 deadline deal. After the trade, Pressly took his game to new heights, something he later credited to Houston’s analytics department. As a Twin in 2018, he pitched 47 2/3 innings with a 3.40 ERA, 33.2% strikeout rate and 9.1% walk rate. Although those were already quality numbers, his post-trade work resulted in an ERA of 0.77 over 23 1/3 innings with a 38.1% strikeout rate and 3.6% walk rate.

Although Pressly couldn’t quite maintain the gaudy level of that small sample, he has still been one of the better relievers in the league since the signing of his previous deal. In the past three seasons, he’s logged 139 1/3 innings with a 2.45 ERA, 33% strikeout rate and 5.8% walk rate. Among relievers with at least 130 innings in that time, his ERA trails only Liam Hendriks and Josh Hader, with that strikeout rate coming in seventh and walk rate coming in sixth.

Now 33, this deal will keep Pressly in Houston through his age-35 season, and possibly for another year after that with the vesting option. For the Astros, they set a franchise record last year with a payroll of $187MM, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts. For this season, they’ve dropped down to around $174MM, per Jason Martinez of Roster Resource. That’s largely due to letting certain players walk, such as Carlos Correa and Zack Greinke. When this extension kicks in next year, there could be even more payroll flexibility, as Michael Brantley, Yuli Gurriel, Jason Castro, Aledmys Diaz and Rafael Montero are all set to hit free agency. There are also various players who have options for next year, such as Justin Verlander, Jake Odorizzi, Pedro Baez and Martin Maldonado. That means that, prior to this extension, there were just four players with guaranteed contracts for the 2023 campaign: Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman, Lance McCullers Jr. and Hector Neris.

In the end, the Astros get one of the best relievers in the game for a few more years, while Pressley gets the biggest payday of his career, one that pays him like the elite pitcher he is.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Ryan Pressly Reaches Vesting Threshold, Guarantees 2022 Salary

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Astros closer Ryan Pressly made his 60th appearance of the season in yesterday’s 9-5 win over the Angels, thus reaching an important contractual milestone.  As noted by The Houston Chronicle’s Chandler Rome, the Astros’ $10MM club option on Pressly’s services for 2022 has now vested into a fully guaranteed deal.

The original terms of Pressly’s two-year extension with the Astros guaranteed the reliever at least $17.5MM in new money, plus a $7MM club option for 2022.  That $7MM figure rose to $10MM once Pressly appeared in his 40th game of the 2021 season, and the option automatically vested if Pressly made 60 or more appearances in both the 2020 and 2021 campaigns.  Due to the shortened nature of the 2020 season, Pressly’s threshold for last season was adjusted to 23 games, and the right-hander hit that benchmark in Houston’s third-last game of the 60-game regular season schedule.

In all likelihood, Pressly’s option would’ve been a very easy call for the Astros to make even if he hadn’t reached the vesting threshold.  The 32-year-old has been one of the best relievers in baseball this year, delivering a 2.19 ERA/2.35 SIERA over 61 2/3 innings and converting 25 of 27 save chances.  As per the Statcast metrics, Pressly’s 33.2% strikeout rate and 5.0% walk rate are each in the 94th percentile, while his chase rate and spin rates on both his curveball and his 95.4mph fastball are in even more elite status (Pressly ranks first among all qualified pitchers in curve spin).  To top it off, Pressly’s 54.8% grounder rate was also the best of his nine MLB seasons.

This now makes four consecutive seasons of elite work for Pressly, acquired by the Astros from the Twins in a deadline deal in 2018.  Already a strong setup man, Pressly has emerged as Houston’s top ninth-inning option over the last two seasons, which only further enhanced his value to the bullpen.  Pressly has been named to the AL All-Star team in both 2019 and 2021.

With Pressly’s salary now officially on the books, the Astros have $101.9MM committed to nine players (Pressly, Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman, Michael Brantley, Lance McCullers Jr., Jake Odorizzi, Pedro Baez, Martin Maldonado, and Jason Castro).  That number will almost surely rise to $109.9MM for 10 players, since Yuli Gurriel’s $8MM club option looks very likely to be exercised considering Gurriel’s impressive numbers.  The team will have plenty of major holes to fill considering Carlos Correa, Zack Greinke, and the injured Justin Verlander will all be free agents, but since the Astros reset their luxury tax number and began this season with a payroll just shy of $188MM, Houston should have plenty of room to spend this winter.

Astros Notes: Diaz, James, Pressly

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Aledmys Diaz will be activated from the 10-day injured list prior to Monday’s game against the Mariners.  The utilityman has been out of action since his left hand was fractured by a Ross Stripling pitch on June 5, though Diaz will indeed return within the original rehab window of six to eight weeks.  Diaz has been a very valuable part-time player over his three seasons with the Astros, hitting .269/.338/.460 in 432 plate appearances and playing multiple positions.  Diaz is likely to slide right into third base duty while Alex Bregman is still on his own minor league rehab assignment.

More from Houston…

  • Josh James restarted his Triple-A rehab assignment today, The Athletic’s Jake Kaplan tweets.  The right-hander has yet to pitch this season after undergoing hip surgery last October, and then suffering a hamstring injury back in June.  Just when it seemed James was working his way back from that hamstring issue, he re-aggravated the problem last week, which required a check-up from team doctors.  It isn’t yet known when James might make his 2021 debut for the Astros, but he does seem to be once again making progress after this latest setback.  James has recorded a lot of strikeouts (34.1 K%) but also too many walks (13.4 BB%) over his 101 2/3 career innings in the big leagues, posting a 4.60 ERA with the Astros since the start of the 2018 season.
  • Ryan Pressly hit a notable benchmark with his appearance in Sunday’s 3-1 victory over the Rangers.  It was Pressly’s 40th game of the season, and as Chandler Rome of The Houston Chronicle notes (Twitter link), Pressly’s 2022 club option has now hit its maximum value of $10MM, as reaching an increasing number of games pitched this season gradually raised the reliever’s option from its original $7MM figure.  Should Pressly hit the 60-game threshold this season, that $10MM option will automatically become guaranteed.  Given that the right-hander has excelled at Houston’s closer, it seems like a pretty good bet that Pressly’s option will vest, and the Astros won’t mind retaining an All-Star reliever for $10MM.

Ryan Pressly Reaches Vesting Threshold For 2022 Option

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Ryan Pressly reached the vesting threshold for a $10MM option in 2022, per Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle (via Twitter). For the option to fully vest, Pressly needs to appear in 60 games in both 2020 and 2021. This season’s appearances are prorated because of the shortened season, however, meaning he needed 23 appearances to reach the equivalent of 60 over a full year. Pressly’s one-inning outing on Friday night was his 23rd of the season.

Pressly has been a huge part of the Astros’ bullpen over their current run, which includes 4 consecutive postseason appearances and counting. Since joining Houston via trade from the Twins on July 27, 2018, Pressly has posted a 2.19 ERA/2.42 FIP across 104 appearances out of the Houston bullpen. He was particularly effective down the stretch after joining the Astros in 2018. His first 26 appearances resulted in a 0.77 ERA to finish out that 2018 season.

This season he stepped into a new role for Houston, serving as its closer for much of the year. The Astros lost Roberto Osuna, Chris Devenski, Josh James, and Brad Peacock from their bullpen over the course of the season. Pressly has stepped in ably to record 12 saves in 16 opportunities while finishing 15 games. He’s thrown 21 innings in total with 12.43 K/9 to 3.00 BB/9.

The 31-year-old is on the books for $8.75MM next season. If he stays healthy, it’s certainly likely he’ll reach that 60 games threshold to lock in a $10MM salary for 2022. That said, any injury could deprive him of enough opportunities to hit that mark. He made just 55 appearances in 2019 for the Astros, though he twice spent time on the injured list, including missing a month from late August to late September. He has twice reached 60 appearances in a season prior to this year (2016, 2018).

The Astros books are pretty clear for 2022 as of right now. Zack Greinke, Justin Verlander, Lance McCullers Jr., Osuna, Devenski, and Carlos Correa are all set to be free agents after the 2021 season. Only Jose Altuve ($29MM) and Alex Bregman ($13MM) are currently owed significant sums for 2022. Clearly, lots can change before then and at least a few of the Astros’ potential free agents are likely to sign back. Regardless, if Pressly continues to pitch as he has, $10MM would not be an exorbitant price to pay, nor would the contract be immovable should that be their preference.

Astros Place Chris Devenski On Injured List, Select Carlos Sanabria

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The Astros have placed pitcher Chris Devenski on the injured list, retroactive to July 29th, per Mark Berman of Fox 26 (via Twitter). To replace him on the roster, Houston selected the contract of Carlos Sanabria.

As with many clubs around the game, consistently fielding a competent pitching staff is going to be bit of a whirlwind this season. Devenski has been a cog in their bullpen for the past four seasons, though a 4.56 ERA/4.57 marks an underwhelming last couple of seasons. Still, the Astros are working a lot of young arms into the mix this season, and Devenski’s veteran presence could help stabilize the relief corps.

For now, however, they’ll look elsewhere. Ryan Pressly continues to be held out of action, though he’s very close to being game-ready, per Brian McTaggart of MLB.com. Pressly figures to be a significant presence in the back end of the bullpen, especially with Will Harris now in Washington.

McTaggart also notes that Forrest Whitley has been dealing with some arm soreness. Despite a difficult season in 2019, Whitley will almost surely make his debut this year since there’s no Triple-A season. Still, he’ll have to get healthy first.

Sanabria, 23, will make his major-league debut should he get into a game. The 6’3″ right-hander pitched only as high as Double-A in 2019, making 37 appearances with a 3.11 ERA despite 5.9 BB/9. He’s a live-armed pitcher with some promise if he can get his command right. Fangraphs has him as the Astros’ 22nd ranked prospect.

Latest On Astros’ Bullpen

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The Astros are off to a nice 3-1 start to the 2020 season, but the reigning American League champions are nonetheless facing plenty of injury-related issues at the moment. Ace and defending AL Cy Young winner Justin Verlander is on the shelf with a forearm strain, 2019 AL Rookie of the Year Yordan Alvarez has been out for weeks and it’s unclear when he’ll debut this season, and the club has a handful of notable relievers battling arm troubles.

The Astros’ best setup man, Ryan Pressly, is now among the team’s wounded, as Brian McTaggart of MLB.com was among those to report that he’s fighting elbow soreness. Chris Devenski is dealing with the same malady, while another of the Astros’ righties – Austin Pruitt – has been shut down on account of his own elbow woes.

The 31-year-old Pressly was largely lights-out with the Twins and Astros from 2018-19, but injuries have slowed him dating back to late last season. Pressly underwent knee surgery in August, and while he did return to throw four innings of scoreless, one-hit ball with seven strikeouts and one walk at the end of September, he experienced more discomfort during the playoffs and was shellacked for 12 hits and seven earned runs in 5 2/3 October frames. Pressly still hasn’t pitched this year, though the severity of his newest injury isn’t known right now.

Devenski, who was subpar from 2018-19 after back-to-back terrific campaigns, has already taken the mound twice this season. The first of those showings went well, but he was the losing pitcher Sunday after giving up three earned runs in an inning of work. Pruitt, meantime, continues to await his Astros and 2020 debuts. They acquired the swingman from the Rays over the winter, but arm injuries – first to his shoulder – have weighed him down.

If Pressly and Devenski join Pruitt and the also-injured Brad Peacock in missing time, it will leave Houston with no established relievers aside from closer Roberto Osuna and fellow veteran Joe Biagini. As McTaggart points out, the Astros have a whopping eight rookies in their bullpen.

World Series Notes: Altuve, Astros, Nationals, Pressly

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Somewhere in the concourse beyond Minute Maid Park, there lies a stretch of concrete that will one day be the site of a statue in honor of Astros infielder Jose Altuve. Saturday night’s 9th inning saw the diminutive second baseman launch a towering shot into the night air of a tied elimination game in the American League Championship Series, sealing with one swing his place in postseason lore.

But Altuve’s ascension to Game 6 October glory is an unlikely development. While this seems like a pat statement at first glance–perhaps referring, as observers often do, to Altuve’s small, 5’6 frame–the truly unlikely thing about Altuve’s story concerns a nascent failure in his native Venezuela. As Alex Putterman’s 2017 story for The Atlantic explained, Altuve was cut by the Astros after appearing as a teenager in a club tryout camp because the organization considered him too short. At the behest of his father, Altuve returned to tryout for the club again, where he ultimately showed enough to earn a $15,000 signing bonus from Houston officials–hardly a considerable sum in an international signing landscape where seven-figure deals often grab headlines stateside. While a recap of Altuve’s many career exploits following that signing would be redundant at this point, tonight seems a fitting occasion to remember that tonight’s hero achieved his place in history due, in part, to familial encouragement and a little bit of old-fashioned determination. Apparently, even the tiniest of prospects can develop into statues, given the right conditions.

Looking onward to the 115th World Series, beginning play on Tuesday evening…

  • With champagne still raining in the Houston locker room, it’s obviously a bit early to talk pitching matchups–but that didn’t stop Nationals beat writer Jesse Dougherty of the Washington Post from giving it a shot (link). As Dougherty sees it, Max Scherzer and Gerrit Cole should square off in Game 1, Stephen Strasburg and Justin Verlander could conceivably follow in the second game, and Patrick Corbin and Zack Greinke project as the matchup for Game 3. For their careers, those six pitchers have combined for 269.3 bWAR. Cole, as has been stated ad nauseam this postseason, is slated for free agency this winter, and Strasburg could follow should he decline the remaining four years and $100MM sitting on the other side of his contractual opt-out.
  • Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle shares that reliever Ryan Pressly had some “scar tissue in his knee [break] off” during his third-inning appearance of Game 6 of the ALCS (link). Said scar tissue is, presumably, the result of surgery Pressly underwent in August to address soreness in his right knee joint. Pressly intimated to Rome that he will be “ready to go” for the World Series. If the pitching lineup Astros manager AJ Hinch used in the ALCS is any indication, then Pressly’s services would be especially vital in Game 4, which could be a bullpen game for the ’Stros. Todd Dybas of NBC Sports Washington shares that Hinch said in his postgame presser that he is “expecting” Pressly to be ready for World Series action (link).

AL Notes: Pressly, Tanaka, Gallo

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Astros relief ace Ryan Pressly was removed from tonight’s Game Six action after apparently re-aggravating his balky right knee while fielding a ball in the third inning. It was enough surely to make the Houston faithful hold their collective breath, since Pressly missed several weeks after having that same knee surgically repaired in August. For the time being, MLB.com’s Brian McTaggart relays that the righty is day-to-day with “right knee discomfort” (link).

With tonight’s game still hanging in the balance, it’s tough to know whether that “day-to-day” designation might be a moot point, as a win this evening would allow the reliever a few days to heal in advance of the World Series’ first game on Tuesday. Placement on the injured list, however, would likely force the team to turn to Wade Miley for their Fall Classic roster, who was left off the team’s ALCS roster after giving up two earned runs in a 2.2 IP appearance in the ALDS. The superlative Pressly pitched to a 2.32 ERA (2.66 FIP) in 54.1 innings in the 2019 regular season.

More notes from around the American League…

  • In other ALCS-related news, Yankees manager Aaron Boone indicated that Masahiro Tanaka should be available for a potential Game 7 scenario, according to Bob Nightengale of USA Today (link). Tanaka, much-hyped heading into Game 4 due to his impressive postseason resume to that point, ground through a five-inning, three-run performance on Thursday night.
  • How much is a home run worth, really? That’s a question that has become du jour in modern baseball, as the prevalence of longballs has seemed to diminish the on-field value–and off-field earning power–of power hitters like Joey Gallo of the Rangers. But, as Levi Weaver of The Athletic points out, Gallo is a player for whom it would be particularly difficult to draw up a contract extension. Gallo, the only player in MLB history to hit his 100th career homer before his 100th career single, presents a vexing extension case: he’s still young (26 on Opening Day 2020), unconventionally productive (recording a 144 wRC+ in 2019 despite a 38.4% strikeout rate), and he’s dealt with injury concerns (missing 92 games this past season with wrist issues). Perhaps, more than anything, Gallo’s meaty home run totals project to make him an expensive year-over-year arbitration case, further fueling the incentive to get a long-term deal done on the Rangers side of the negotiating table. In a courageous effort to pinpoint Gallo’s value, Weaver proposes a five-year, $85MM extension, perhaps with a sixth team option year valued at $25MM. For what it’s worth, the slugger is projected to earn $4.0MM in his first pass through arb this offseason, according to MLBTR’s projected arbitration models.
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