Upon further review
I see the case for acquiring Hader, but questions remain
Last week I doubted the Josh Hader rumors, but it indeed happened and with a weekend of explanation, hindsight and digging into some numbers, I get it.
There are still questions, though. While Ryan Pressly is said to be “all in” with the move he declined to be interviewed and apparently, the roles haven’t been decided, at least officially, though it’s difficult to imagine Hader anywhere but the Closer.
It appears both will be on the Astros 2024 roster and the trio of Hader, Pressly and Abreu will make up a formidable back end of the bullpen, perhaps the best in MLB.
But that doesn’t mean all the questions are answered about the situation or the bullpen in general.
To name just a few:
Should we assume that Pressly is the 8th-inning guy moving Abreu to the 7th or will it be on a case-by-case basis? This just isn’t Pressly being pushed back to a lower leverage role, Abreu is theoretically being moved from an 8th-inning role to a 7th-inning role despite a breakout in 2023 and Neris will be a hard act to follow.
Hector Neris was great at the 7th inning role, accumulating 33 shutdowns and 4 meltdowns, while Abreu had 23 shutdowns and 9 meltdowns. Will Abreu be able to replicate what Neris gave the Astros, despite melting down 9 times in 2023? Abreu pitched 12 times in the 7th last season for 9.1 innings and a 1.93 ERA.
What happens if Hader falters a time or two? Do they turn to Pressly?
If Abreu falters do they shift Pressly to the 7th and put Abreu back to the 8th?
Who covers the 146 appearances and 139 innings of Phil Maton, Ryne Stanek and Kendall Graveman?
It seems like a situation fraught with problems the Astros haven’t faced recently.
If Hader fails fans will question why Pressly isn’t the guy.
If Pressly fails fans will question why pay Hader if he isn’t the guy.
We’ll see how it works out, but I doubt this goes as smoothly as so many seem to think.
On paper it looks great, but we’re dealing with humans. Rich humans. Who have egos. Giant egos.
On to some numbers.
The numbers above from the 2023 season are pretty clear and convincing: Hader is better.
Still, there are at least a couple of things we need to recognize:
Hader’s going to walk some people, maybe more than twice as many as Pressly.
Hader’s going to induce fewer ground balls and we can expect fewer double plays than with Pressly on the mound.
On the flip side, you can live with 1 and 2 above if a) Hader strikes out 12.58 and gives up 0.48 HR per 9 innings, less than 6% of his fly balls turn into home runs, and he gets 6.6 saves per blown save.
As for Pressly, he’s been very good for the Astros, but yes, there were some signs of regression:
He gave up more than twice as many home runs per 9 IP as Hader.
His LOB% was low (meaning inherited runners scored at a high rate).
Balls in the air tended to go over the fence at a higher rate.
His ERA, xERA and FIP where much higher than Hader’s.
Pressly had 10 meltdowns in 65 appearances.
Pressly blew a higher percentage of save opportunities.
Pressly’s a very good closer, but Hader, at least at this stage of their respective careers, is better and this move makes the Astros bullpen a weapon, assuming the other pieces fall into place.
Now, a rookie manager just has to be able to massage the egos and manage the bullpen to perfection.
No big deal, right?
Thanks for reading!