Houston Astros Rotation Still a Question Mark as Opening Day Approaches
By Jason Burke
All offseason there have been rumors surrounding the Houston Astros in the Jose Quintana sweepstakes, but as of right now it looks as the the Colombian left-hander is staying put in Chicago. With Collin McHugh set to open the season on the disabled list, who will fill out the rotation?
The Houston Astros starting rotation ranked 13th in baseball in fWAR a year ago, but coupled with the best bullpen by the same measure, they ended up with a top five pitching staff. That is all without household names outside of Dallas Keuchel and potentially Collin McHugh filling up their starting blocks.
Of the starters still on the roster, McHugh is the only one to make a full season’s worth of starts, 33, to go along with a 3.95 FIP. However, it’s looking more and more like McHugh will be starting the 2017 season on the disabled list, which will open up a spot in the rotation for Joe Musgrove and Mike Fiers, per Brian McTaggart.
In that same article from Tags, he mentions that McHugh is slated to start his first game of the Grapefruit League on Monday against the Cardinals. Basically this means that he’ll need to work up his pitch count before he’s ready to make his season debut a week or two into the regular season. From there it’ll be interesting to see what happens to the Astros’ rotation.
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Obviously a lot of the decision-making process will have to do with performances in those first couple of starts for both Fiers and Musgrove, but with both of them in the rotation, that could leave Brad Peacock as the long man to start the season. Peacock was originally traded from Washington to Oakland in the Gio Gonzalez deal, then headed to Houston in the deal that landed Chris Carter in the Lone Star state in exchange for Jed Lowrie.
Peacock is out of options, so the odds of him beginning the season in the big leagues under the current circumstances seem high, but what happens to him once McHugh returns is anyone’s guess. He’d have to pass through waivers in order to report to Triple-A Fresno, so any appearances he makes with Houston to start the season could be an audition for a bigger role on another team down the road.
Once David Paulino returns from injury (he too is slated to start the season on the DL with a bone bruise) things could really get interesting in the rotation. Paulino is Houston’s third ranked prospect according to Baseball America. He made a brief appearance in the bigs last season, totaling seven innings in three appearances, one start, compiling a 5.04 ERA.
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Francis Martes is another prospect (#1) that could enter the discussion for a spot in the rotation a little later in the season, but he has been rumored to be a big part of a potential trade to acquire Quintana from the White Sox. Either way it appears as though the weak spot that many have been claiming the Astros have could be fixed by midseason in any number of ways, whether it’s some of their prospect base helping them out in the majors, or trading some of that base to add a proven big leaguer.
If Lance McCullers is able to stay healthy this season and the bullpen performs like it did last year, the Astros should be well on their way to making an October appearance.