Most Houston Astros fans have been over Lance McCullers Jr. for a while. While it is certainly unfortunate that he has had to deal with the injuries that he has, the fact remains that the Astros have had to learn how to deal with his absence for years now, both on the field as well as their payroll. If you want to rankle fans, be a player who has missed a ton of time while having a very lucrative contract.
Still, the Astros seem hellbent on trying to extract what value they can while McCullers Jr. is under contract. Manager Joe Espada already went on the record to say that he is building up as a starter once spring training opens. Given McCullers Jr.’s history, that feels incredibly optimistic.
One can understand why Houston is taking this course of action. Despite his struggles, they are still paying McCullers Jr. $17 million in the final year of his deal this season. However, if McCullers Jr. struggles even a little bit, the Astros need to jump ship.
Astros need to have Lance McCullers Jr. on a very short leash starting with spring training
It is not crazy to think that some of McCullers Jr.’s struggles in 2025 after coming back were due to rust from his long layoff. However, when you look at almost any of his pitching metrics from last season, you struggle to find much hope. He still gets a good number of ground balls, but opposing hitters didn’t chase his pitches out of the zone, and when they did make contact, it was very often loud. Combine that with his diminished stuff, including his fastball velocity, and you have a recipe for trouble.
That’s not to say that Houston shouldn’t see what they have in McCullers Jr. at the moment. There is little to lose early in camp in giving him some innings to see if his stuff is improving the further away he gets from his injuries. If McCullers Jr. looks great and holds up, the Astros could very well have the rotation depth they were looking for all offseason.
However, that is not a smart bet. Whenever there was hope that McCullers Jr. would contribute in recent years, he either got hurt, suffered some sort of setback, or regressed mightily in the case of last season. The Astros should see if McCullers Jr. can help them this season, but they need to be willing to either throw him in the bullpen or cut him loose altogether. Houston has too many intriguing rotation candidates like Ryan Weiss and Spencer Arrighetti, among others, to do anything else.