Injury concerns for Josh Hader and Yainer Diaz highlight roster inadequacies.<\/p>\n
I want to preface this with the following statements:<\/p>\n
I like Dana Brown and I think he\u2019s done a good job overallI understand Brown is working with limited resources as the Astros are close to the first tax line and Jim Crane prefers not to exceed the first tax line on Opening DayToday is the first day of Spring Training and a lot can happen between now and Opening Day<\/p>\n
With that out of the way, I think we need to have a conversation about whether or not Dana Brown failed this offseason. Day 1 of pitchers and catchers did not cause this conversation, but it definitely exacerbated it.<\/p>\n
On the first day of pitchers and catchers, we learned that Josh Hader had an offseason setback, Yainer Diaz injured his ankle in winter ball, and that Enyel De Los Santos has been shut down with a knee injury.<\/p>\n
Josh Hader today said he is a few weeks behind schedule due to a setback in the offseason and is throwing off flat ground right now.<\/p>\n
That is a big difference from what he told KPRC2\u2019s Randy McIlvoy in December:<\/p>\n
Hader was shut down for the season August 12 with a sprained shoulder capsule. A sprain can mean a myriad of things, anything from an overstretching of the ligaments or the capsule tissue to a minor tear of either to a significant tear involving dislocation.<\/p>\n
We don\u2019t know how serious the injury was and the Astros certainly are not going to tell us.<\/p>\n
What we do know is that shoulder capsule injuries are very serious, and torn shoulder capsules ultimately require a surgery that is long known for diminishing the performance of pitchers.<\/p>\n
Recovery times on sprained shoulder capsules are generally up to 4 weeks for a mild sprain, 6-12 weeks for a more moderate injury, and longer for more severe injuries.<\/p>\n
At the time Hader spoke with McIlvoy at KPRC2, it was approximately 15 weeks since he had been placed on the IL. It is approximately 11 weeks from that time to now, for a total of 26 weeks (that\u2019s 6 months) and Hader is still only throwing from flat ground.<\/p>\n
Hader experienced bicep inflammation, which was the cause of his setback. However the premise is still the same.<\/p>\n
Hader was always going to be an injury risk coming into the season, and he is going to be one all season because of the shoulder capsule.<\/p>\n
The Astros still have 3 years remaining on the 5-year, $95M contract they gave Hader, and it is certainly in the team\u2019s best interest to keep their elite closer as healthy as possible.<\/p>\n
Even if he were to be healthy to start the season, the team had already spoken to not having him pitch more than one inning at a time in the early part of the season. Now it appears he will likely not be ready for Opening Day.<\/p>\n
That leaves the Astros pen with Bryan Abreu as the closer and a lot of question marks about who can step up to be the bridge to Abreu.<\/p>\n
Bryan King is a LHP who had serious reverse splits last season, and was ineffective vs lefty hitters to whom he allowed an .841 OPS to, as opposed to holding righties to a .573 OPS. Those numbers make King more of a middle reliever with select high leverage outings against all righthanded batters.<\/p>\n
Steven Okert was successful against both righties and lefties equally, holding both under a .500 OPS last season, but walks were his undoing when he struggled in July and September.<\/p>\n
Bennett Sousa looked to be stepping up to take the mantle of setup reliever last season before he wound up being shut down with a flexor\/pronator strain one week after Hader was shut down. Sousa was coming back from Thoracic Outlet Surgery the year before, a surgery that is often difficult for pitchers to return from. Sousa wound up pitching the best baseball of his career before his injury. The injury leaves him as a question mark going forward as well.<\/p>\n
As for the rest of the pen? It will likely be made up of righties who don\u2019t make the rotation. The Astros pen is very lefthanded (especially with Hader and Sousa both healthy – making 4 LHP in the pen) and with a shortened pen due to utilization of a six-man rotation, they will need arms who can go multiple innings.<\/p>\n
These things all lead to something I have been saying on AREA 45 on Sportsradio 610 since the season ended – the Astros needed to get a leverage arm for the pen to protect against injury downtime for Hader, and to a lesser extent, Sousa.<\/p>\n
The significant uncertainty of the pen and who could fill key leverage setup roles in the 7th and 8th innings should Hader be unavailable for stretches of time should have been all the red flags needed for the Astros front office to prioritize getting another high leverage arm in the pen.<\/p>\n
Maybe they find one among the extra starter arms they brought to camp. Maybe they still sign\/trade for one before Opening Day. It was a need as far back as November and it appears to be an ever greater need now.<\/p>\n
Not addressing this need appears to be a significant oversight from Brown.<\/p>\n
Diaz suffered a sprained foot in the Dominican Winter League, which is why his winter league season was cut short.<\/p>\n
While it appears that the Astros and Diaz may have avoided any kind of major trouble with Diaz right now, it underscores how preciously thin the team is at catcher. Houston already is concerned about whether or not current likely backup Cesar Salazar\u2019s bat can translate to heavier usage at the MLB level.<\/p>\n
Diaz is one player the Astros cannot afford to go down with injury because right now they have no one in the organization capable of carrying a starting catcher\u2019s workload.<\/p>\n
This is where not paying Victor Caratini really stands out.<\/p>\n
I understand paying a backup catcher $8M per year for 2 years seems like a lot of money. The reality is, they had no plan of succession for Caratini, who provided them important innings at catcher, first base, and DH. He was often the only lefty bat in the lineup. He was very clutch for them in pinch hitting roles.<\/p>\n
While no one in a team\u2019s front office wants to \u201coverpay\u201d a player, there are two times when it is ok to overpay a player:<\/p>\n
player is an elite talent and is worth more than just their on-field productionplayer is irreplaceable on your roster<\/p>\n
The latter was clearly the case with Caratini and the Astros.<\/p>\n
Now, the Astros didn\u2019t need to do a big overpay, this wasn\u2019t going to be a 5-year deal with nine figures. Giving Caratini an extra million per year over what he got to leave, however, would have been a small enough overpay to keep him with the Astros and give the team peace of mind at the catcher position.<\/p>\n
For a team worried about Salazar\u2019s ability to hit playing 1-2 times per week, they are one injury away from Salazar playing every day.<\/p>\n
Not bringing back Caratini and not having a plan for his replacement seems like another significant oversight by Brown.<\/p>\n
While De Los Santos projects at best as a middle reliever, it continues to underscore the question marks in the Astros bullpen. The pen is very back-heavy with Hader and Abreu, and then there is a significant drop off in \u201ctrust\u201d among the other relievers.<\/p>\n
If Hader is unable to start the year, it becomes a decent possibility that the Astros best righthanded reliever may be A.J. Blubaugh, who is both a starter and a rookie. Blubaugh had notable command issues last season before a midseason adjustment helped him and turned his season around at AAA, earning himself a call-up to Houston.<\/p>\n
The De Los Santos injury highlights the depth concerns in the pen and further underscores the importance of adding a high leverage arm to the pen.<\/p>\n
All told, while Brown did generate a lot of starting pitching depth, the major question marks on this roster at backup catcher and in the pen could be serious issues for the Astros to overcome. If they are, Brown will have failed the offseason badly.<\/p>\n
Agree or disagree? Tell us in the comments below:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Injury concerns for Josh Hader and Yainer Diaz highlight roster inadequacies. I want to preface this with the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":566792,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2389],"tags":[42,5,139,54,64940,65265,65394,72462,4522,32124,36802,3211,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-566791","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-astros","8":"tag-astros","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-houston","11":"tag-houston-astros","12":"tag-houston-astros-analysis","13":"tag-houston-astros-discussion","14":"tag-houston-astros-injuries","15":"tag-houston-astros-spring-training","16":"tag-houston-astros-news","17":"tag-houston-astros-roster","18":"tag-houston-astros-rumors","19":"tag-houstonastros","20":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116053790252968491","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=566791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/566792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}