News Astros Team Notes

Astros Looking For Starting Pitching

The Astros lost yet another rotation member to the surgeon’s table recently, with Ronel Blanco requiring Tommy John surgery. He will officially undergo that procedure this Friday, per Chandler Rome of The Athletic. Bob Nightengale of USA Today reports that the club is on the lookout for more starting pitching.

It shouldn’t come as a shock that Houston has this focus. They currently have six viable starting pitchers on the injured list, most of them unlikely to return anytime soon. Luis Garcia hasn’t pitched in the majors in over two years now, as he has repeatedly hit setbacks in his attempts to return from his own Tommy John surgery. Cristian Javier underwent that procedure in June of last year. Hayden Wesneski required it last month and, as mentioned, Blanco is next. In addition to all those Tommy Johns, J.P. France is still recovering from last year’s shoulder surgery and has an uncertain timeline.

Spencer Arrighetti is also on the IL, though he hasn’t required surgery. He suffered a right thumb fracture in a bizarre accident, getting struck by an errant ball while throwing on the field during batting practice. That means he could be able to return quicker than the guys who did require surgery, though he’s not especially close either. Manager Joe Espada said last week that the righty is now out of the cast and playing catch, per Leah Vann of chron.com. He suffered his fracture almost two months ago and will presumably need to ramp up his throwing program before going on a rehab assignment for a few weeks.

That leaves the Astros with a very top-heavy rotation in the short term. Framber Valdez and Hunter Brown are a fantastic one-two punch at the front but it gets flimsy behind them. Lance McCullers Jr. is back after his own two-year-plus injury odyssey and has made five starts thus far with mixed results. He is obviously talented but it’s anyone’s guess what to expect from him now after such a lengthy absence.

Ryan Gusto and Colton Gordon currently have two rotation spots but they have less than 60 big league innings pitched combined. AJ Blubaugh and Brandon Walter are also inexperienced arms on the 40-man, currently on optional assignment. Jason Alexander is also on the 40-man, though he’s a 32-year-old veteran swingman. Miguel Ullola is a notable prospect but he’s not on the roster and has only 36 Triple-A innings under his belt so far.

Taken all together, it’s understandable that the front office wants to add to this group. Doing so this far in advance of the July 31st trade deadline will be a challenge. Most clubs prefer to hang onto their players until closer to the deadline to see if they can hang in the playoff race. Even those teams with pitchers to offer usually prefer to wait with the hope that the pressure of the deadline will drive up prices. To get a major deal done earlier usually comes at a premium.

Even as the deadline approaches, the Astros will probably have to walk a fine line. They have clearly been trying to avoid paying the competitive balance tax this year. While they made some notable offseason additions such as signing Christian Walker, they also moved some money around by flipping Kyle Tucker and Ryan Pressly to the Cubs in separate deals. RosterResource puts their CBT number at just under $236MM, which puts them about $5MM away from this year’s $241MM base threshold.

Assuming they still want to stay under that line, they will have to avoid taking on significant salary in the coming weeks. Asking another club to eat money in a deal could help them in that regard, though that usually means having to pay a higher price in terms of prospect capital. Houston’s farm system is generally considered one of the weaker ones in the sport, so that could be a tricky balancing act.

Elsewhere on the roster, infielder/outfielder Zach Dezenzo landed on the 10-day IL a few days ago due to left hand inflammation. The club told reporters today, including Rome, that Dezenzo has a capsule sprain. He will be resting for the next two weeks and will get more imaging done at that time. Even if declared healthy at that point, he will presumably need to take some time to get back into game shape, either via some live batting practice or a rehab assignment.

Photo courtesy of Troy Taormina, Imagn Images.
Click to expand...

Source: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/06/astros-looking-for-starting-pitching.html
 
MLBTR Podcast: Jarren Duran Rumors, Caglianone And Young Promoted, And Pitching Injuries

The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.

This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Steve Adams of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…


Plus, we answer your questions, including…

  • If the Diamondbacks can’t climb in the standings, what does their deadline look like? (48:45)
  • As a thought experiment, if the Orioles were willing to listen on Gunnar Henderson, what teams would even have the pieces to pull off a trade? (54:10)

Check out our past episodes!


The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff. Check out their Facebook page here!

Photo courtesy of Brett Davis, Imagn Images
Click to expand...

Source: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025...and-young-promoted-and-pitching-injuries.html
 
Astros Sign Omar Narvaez To Minor League Contract

The Astros signed veteran catcher Omar Narváez to a minor league deal and assigned him to Triple-A Sugar Land, the team announced (relayed by Ari Alexander of KPRC 2). The ISE client was granted his release by the White Sox last month.

While the White Sox are in a full rebuild, they had a crowded depth chart behind the plate. Edgar Quero made his MLB debut in April. Fellow top prospect Kyle Teel will do the same tomorrow. Former Astro Korey Lee remains on the Sox’s roster as a defensive specialist. Matt Thaiss, who had operated as the backup catcher early in the season, was traded to Tampa Bay. Teel and Quero are the potential long-term answers for the White Sox, so Narváez was never going to get more than a stopgap run.

The 33-year-old did spend a week on the MLB roster in mid-April. Lee had recently sprained his ankle and the Sox had yet to promote Quero. Narváez went 2-7 with a couple walks in four games before being cut loose. He returned to the organization on a new minor league deal and spent a month in Triple-A. He hit .218/.317/.345 over 15 games.

Narváez has some familiarity with the Astros organization. He signed a minor league deal with Houston last June — a move that came a few weeks after he’d been released by the Mets. He only hit .196 over 42 games in Sugar Land and never received a big league call. Narváez hasn’t hit much at either the MLB or Triple-A levels over the past few seasons, but the Astros evidently value him as a defender and clubhouse presence.

Houston is carrying each of Yainer Diaz, Victor Caratini and Cesar Salazar on the active roster. Narváez is unlikely to get a look unless one or two players from that trio suffers an injury. They didn’t have much in the way of non-roster catching depth in the upper minors, though. Joe Hudson, the only other backstop in the organization with MLB experience, is a 34-year-old who has appeared in 19 big league games and is hitting .129 in Triple-A.
Click to expand...

Source: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/06/astros-sign-omar-narvaez-to-minor-league-contract.html
 
Astros, Cooper Hummel Agree To Minor League Deal

The Astros are bringing back outfielder/first baseman Cooper Hummel on a minor league deal, reports Ari Alexander of KPRC 2. The Gaeta Sports Management client will head to Triple-A Sugar Land after electing free agency from the Orioles yesterday.

Hummel spent most of the 2024 season in the Houston organization. The Astros grabbed him off waivers from the Giants in early April. They quickly outrighted him off the roster but would later reselect his contract. Hummel didn’t get much MLB action, appearing in six games and going 0-8 with two strikeouts. He hit well in the minors, though, running a .277/.419/.454 slash line across 442 trips to the plate. He walked at a massive 17.9% clip while hitting 10 homers and stealing 15 bases.

The switch-hitting Hummel remained on the roster throughout the winter and Spring Training. He’s out of options and the Astros decided not to have him break camp. They had no choice but to place him on waivers as a result. Hummel signed a minor league deal with the Yankees and was limited to 10 Triple-A games by injury. He went on to sign a pair of MLB contracts with the Orioles but was only on the active roster for a combined four days and took one at-bat.

Hummel figures to have a little more stability in a familiar setting in Sugar Land. This is the second reunion signing in as many days for the Astros. They brought back veteran catcher Omar Narváez, who finished last year with their Triple-A team, on a minor league deal last night.
Click to expand...

Source: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/06/astros-cooper-hummel-agree-to-minor-league-deal.html
 
Astros Sign Jordan Weems To Minor League Deal

The Astros have signed right-hander Jordan Weems to a minor league deal, reports Chandler Rome of The Athletic. The righty will report to Triple-A Sugar Land and provide the Astros with some non-roster depth.

Weems, 32, was released by Atlanta a couple of weeks ago. He had signed a minor league deal with that club in the offseason and was at the Triple-A level to start the year. He logged 17 2/3 innings with a 5.09 earned run average. His 12.5% walk rate was on the high side but his 22.5% strikeout rate was decent and his 45.1% ground ball rate was pretty solid.

That wasn’t enough to get him called up to the big leagues but he has some respectable major league work on his track record. Over 2022 and 2023, he logged 94 1/3 innings for the Nationals with a 4.29 ERA. His 10.1% walk rate was a bit worse than par but he struck out 25.4% of batters faced. Unfortunately, things turned sour last year. His strikeout rate dropped to 17.9% and his walk rate ticked up to 12.2%, leading to a 6.70 ERA. He was outrighted to the minors in August and elected free agency at season’s end.

Between last year’s major league work and this year’s stint in the minors, it hasn’t been a great stretch for the righty. However, as mentioned, he was a serviceable big leaguer in the prior two seasons. For the Astros, there’s no real risk in bringing him aboard via a minor league deal to get a close-up look at him. Their bullpen has been pretty good this year but there’s no harm in adding some extra non-roster depth in case some injuries pop up in the coming weeks or months.

Photo courtesy of Mike Lang, Imagn Images.
Click to expand...

Source: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/06/astros-sign-jordan-weems-to-minor-league-deal.html
 
Astros Designate Forrest Whitley For Assignment

The Astros announced that right-hander Forrest Whitley has been designated for assignment. Left-hander Brandon Walter was called up from Triple-A Sugar Land in the corresponding move.

Selected 17th overall in the 2016 draft, Whitley was once viewed as one of baseball’s top pitching prospects, and he was a fixture on top-100 prospect lists even as injuries and a 50-game drug policy suspension in 2018 hampered his career. Due to the canceled 2020 minor league season and a Tommy John surgery, Whitley went over 21 months (from September 2, 2019 to June 16, 2022) between a proper in-game appearance in the minor leagues.

That long layoff was the turning point in Whitley’s career, as he only showed flashes of his prior form once he returned to the mound. A lat strain limited him to 30 Triple-A innings in 2023, but a move to full-time bullpen work in 2024 seemed to put Whitley on the right track, as a 1.89 ERA over 33 1/3 relief innings for Round Rock earned Whitley his first taste of MLB action in the form of three appearances for the 2024 Astros.

More injuries arose this year, as a left knee bone bruise and left knee sprain resulted in two separate trips to the IL for Whitley. It is quite possible his health issues impacted his performance, as the righty struggled to a 12.27 ERA over 7 1/3 innings for the Astros, with two home runs and six walks allowed within that small sample.

Whitley’s lack of effectiveness didn’t leave Houston with much choice beyond a DFA, as Whitley is out of options and can’t be sent to the minors without first being exposed to waivers. Should he clear waivers, Whitley can be outrighted off the Astros’ 40-man roster and returned to Sugar Land, though it is worth wondering if the Astros might be ready to simply move on from Whitley entirely.

Given Whitley’s past pedigree, it wouldn’t be a shock if another team claimed him away to see if a change of scenery could finally unlock the right-hander’s potential. The pure stuff still seems to be there, as Whitley’s fastball (96.3mph) and slider (96.7mph) have plenty of velocity even if his walk rates have spiraled upwards. Whitley is still only 27 years old, and might yet be able to join the long list of former top prospects who became late bloomers in terms of big league success.
Click to expand...

Source: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/06/astros-designate-forrest-whitley-for-assignment.html
 
The Astros Are (Again) Not Getting Much From A Pricey First Base Signing

The Astros signed Jose Abreu to a three-year, $58.5MM contract during the 2022-23 offseason, seemingly sealing up a first base position that was one of the few weak links on the club’s World Series-winning roster from the prior season. Abreu was entering his age-36 season and his power numbers had dropped off considerably in 2022, but the former AL MVP still delivered a strong overall year at the plate by hitting .304/.378/.446 in what proved to be his final year with the White Sox. Coming off an impressive 137 wRC+, Abreu’s “professional hitter” track record indicated that he would continue to be productive into his late-30’s, making his deal a wise investment for Houston on paper.

In practice, of course, things quickly went south for Abreu in his new home. After hitting only .237/.296/.383 in 594 PA in 2023, Abreu hit so poorly (.124/.167/.195) over his first 120 PA of the 2024 season that the Astros chose to release the veteran in June of last year, and simply ate the remainder of his contract. Right now, roughly $11.9MM is still owed to Abreu through the remainder of the 2025 season.

Even with such a big chunk of Abreu’s deal still on the books for 2025, the Astros certainly felt the need to address first base in a major fashion this past winter. It should be noted, technically, that Christian Walker was Houston’s backup plan for the first base position. After acquiring Issac Paredes as part of the Kyle Tucker trade, the Astros then seemingly had another deal lined up with the Cardinals to land Nolan Arenado, which would’ve installed Arenado at third base and Paredes as Houston’s new first baseman. Instead, Arenado used his no-trade protection to reject the move to Houston, with later reporting revealing that Arenado wasn’t closing the door on the Astros entirely as a landing spot, but simply wanted a bit more time to evaluate the situation given that Houston had just dealt away a superstar in Tucker.

Rather than wait for Arenado, the Astros instead made a splash on the free agent market by signing Walker to a three-year, $60MM contract. This made Paredes the new third baseman, and that part of the equation has at least worked out since Paredes is off to a great start in his first year in an Astros uniform.

To fill first base, then, the Astros seemed to be solidifying things quite nicely with Walker, a two-time Fielding Bible Award-winning defender. Walker had also hit .253/.332/.464 with 141 home runs over 3171 PA for the Diamondbacks from 2019-24, posting above-average offensive numbers except for his injury-marred 2021 campaign. He was showing no signs of slowing down as he entered his age-34 season, and in the eyes of many observers, Walker was a much surer thing at first base than Pete Alonso, who is four years younger and had to wait much longer than Walker did to land a new contract.

The 36-29 Astros are in first place in the AL West, and appear to be once again lining up to make a run in October. The 2025 season is also only 65 games deep, so we’re still dealing with relatively small sample sizes when discussing players who are or aren’t performing well. Yet, even with the caveat that Walker’s slow start isn’t really holding the Astros back to any great extent, it still isn’t good that his performance has suddenly cratered over his first two-plus months in Houston.

Through 260 plate appearances, Walker is hitting .207/.269/.350 with eight home runs, and only 16 qualified players have a lower wRC+ than Walker’s 76 figure. His 6.2% walk rate and 27.7% strikeout rate are each far below the league average, and on pace to be Walker’s worst BB% and K% rates over any of his full Major League seasons. Walker’s barrel and hard-hit ball rates are slightly down from his 2024 numbers but are still solid, yet his Isolated Power metric has plummeted from .217 in 2024 to just .143 in 2025.

A .258 BABIP is part of the problem, so again, it is certainly possible Walker’s numbers might normalize once more of his hard contact starts translating into hits. However, Walker is chasing more pitches out of the zone than usual, and his 47.9% pull rate is well above the 42% pull rate he carried into the 2025 season. One interpretation could be that the right-handed hitting Walker is focusing a little too much on taking advantage of Daikin Park’s short porch in left field, yet his splits pour cold water on that theory. Walker is hitting .250/.321/.431 at his new home ballpark, and only .165/.217/.273 on the road.

Another set of splits might offer another hint, as Walker has a .662 OPS over 227 PA against right-handed pitching and a .320 OPS in 33 PA against left-handed pitching. Walker’s career splits against righties and lefties are almost exactly even, yet his lack of production against southpaws (when he should have the advantage) may not stand out as much as how rarely Walker has gotten to face left-handed pitching.

This could be a bit of a statistical fluke, but the Astros’ overall lineup is absurdly lopsided in favor of righty bats. With Yordan Alvarez and Taylor Trammell on the injured list, rookie Jacob Melton and two backup catchers (Cesar Salazar and the switch-hitting Victor Caratini) provide the only left-handed balance in Houston’s current mix of position players. Opposing teams have little reason to deploy their lefty pitchers against the Astros’ phalanx of right-handed batters, and Walker may be having some trouble adjusting to this new reality.

If Walker’s batting numbers are a letdown, his glovework is perhaps more shocking than anything. Walker has produced -4 Defensive Runs Saved and +1 Outs Above Average over 543 1/3 innings at the Astros’ first base spot this year, down from a +7 DRS and +13 OAA in 2024. Adding to this puzzling situation is the fact that Walker is now suddenly a relative weak link on one of baseball’s better defensive teams — Houston ranks second in baseball in OAA (18), and Fangraphs’ overall defensive ranking system puts the Astros ninth in the league.

The overall result for Walker is a -0.3 fWAR to show for his first 63 games with the Astros. Needless to say, it is not what Houston expected from its biggest free agent signing, especially since inking Walker cost the Astros not just $60MM but also two compensatory draft picks, since Houston exceeded the luxury tax threshold in 2024.

Perhaps if Abreu’s contract wasn’t still sitting on the Astros’ books, Walker’s performance could just be written off as a slump, or an adjustment period for a player moving to the AL West after eight years in the National League. But, Houston fans can be forgiven for sounding some alarm bells over an underwhelming free agent first baseman, especially with Jose Altuve’s own struggles and Alvarez’s uncertain injury situation casting some shadows over the Astros’ good start. There is plenty of time for Walker to turn things around, of course, and to provide some more concrete evidence that Houston’s first base issue has been properly solved.
Click to expand...

Source: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025...ng-much-from-a-pricey-first-base-signing.html
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top