With the start of the regular season approaching, the Astros decided not to wait for Framber Valdez to get a second opinion on the fractured ring finger on his pitching hand before addressing their need for another starter. At least on paper, their agreement with Jake Odorizzi on Saturday solidified a rotation that would’ve otherwise likely included a promising-but-unproven prospect in Luis Garcia, behind a top four of Zack Greinke, Lance McCullers Jr., José Urquidy and Cristian Javier. Among that group, only Greinke, who is 37, has carried a major-league starter’s workload over a full 162-game season.
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Odorizzi isn’t exactly known for pitching deep into games — he averaged only a touch more than five innings per start in his parts of three seasons with the Twins — but he gives the Astros a lot fewer innings to fill than they had in the wake of Valdez’s injury. Odorizzi made 28 or more starts in five consecutive seasons from 2015-19, a span in which he averaged roughly 165 innings. However, he made only four starts last season because of various injuries, albeit none to his arm.
Let’s break down the deal for the Astros, both for the short term and the long term. As of Saturday afternoon, the salary component of Odorizzi’s contract was not yet publicly known. According to ESPN, the agreement is for two years with a player option for 2023.
What it means for 2021
Most importantly, the addition suggests the Astros don’t expect to have Valdez back any time soon, a major blow. He was their best pitcher in 2020, postseason included, and the team was counting on him to be a workhorse this year.
“I really feel awful for him,” McCullers said Thursday. “He worked so hard and he took that big leap forward last year that we were all hoping he would make when he was able to start throwing his pitches in the zone and for strikes. He became a heckuva starter, a dominant one, man. Some of those performances he had last year, the way he helped carry our team through September and into the postseason, you can’t really replace that. You’ve got to hope that guys who get the opportunity will step up and we hope that Framber is feeling good, he’s in good spirits, and that he gets healthy as soon as possible and is back with the club.”
Valdez, after the significant improvements he made to his control in 2020, is a better pitcher than Odorizzi, so the Astros are still worse off now than they were a week ago. But Odorizzi has been an above-average major-league starter (105 ERA+) in his career. He’s another No. 3-type in a rotation comprised of No. 2 and No. 3-types. He’s got a deep repertoire that includes a four-seam fastball in the 92-94 mph range that he will elevate in the strike zone, a strategy of which Astros pitching coach Brent Strom was an early adopter.
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Bringing in Odorizzi also alleviates some depth concerns, though the Astros still don’t appear to be in great shape in that department. Behind Garcia, who looks to be the most major-league ready of their prospects, they have Brandon Bielak, who struggled in 2020, and Forrest Whitley, who faces both command and durability concerns. Whitley is already dealing with a sore arm, manager Dusty Baker said Saturday.
On top of that, Javier and Garcia are among eight Astros pitchers who are quarantining for a minimum of seven days as part of MLB’s health and safety protocols. Given it’s only early March, it’s possible both will still be ready for the start of the regular season. But their lack of availability at the moment only added more uncertainty to the Opening Day roster calculus.
Here’s the rub: The Astros planned to stay under the $210 million luxury tax threshold, and bringing in Odorizzi will make that more difficult. (Roster Resource has their luxury tax payroll at about $200 million, not including Odorizzi.) Even if the average annual value of Odorizzi’s contract keeps them under the line, his addition leaves them little wiggle room for in-season acquisitions. That is, of course, unless they decide to exceed the threshold, which would diminish the draft-pick compensation they would get next offseason if Carlos Correa leaves in free agency and mean a greater penalty for signing a free agent who rejected a one-year qualifying offer from another team.
The Astros might have multiple qualifying offer candidates among their impending free agents, as Justin Verlander will have a case for one despite the fact he will be coming off Tommy John surgery rehab. Greinke isn’t eligible to receive a qualifying offer because he got one from the Dodgers when he was a free agent following the 2015 season. A great 2021 season could propel McCullers into consideration because of his age (he will be only 28 at free agency) and his upside.
In the shorter term, the luxury tax implications of the Odorizzi agreement don’t bode well for reliever Steve Cishek and outfielder Steven Souza Jr.’s odds of making the Astros’ roster. Both are with the team in spring training as non-roster invitees. If Cishek makes the team, he gets a $2.25 million salary. If Souza makes it, he gets a $1.15 million salary.
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What it means for 2022 and (maybe) beyond
With Verlander, Greinke and McCullers each set to be free agents at the end of the 2021 season, the Odorizzi move gives the Astros another rotation arm for 2022 and, if the player option is more than just a mechanism to lower the contract’s average annual value, maybe for 2023. Valdez, Urquidy, Odorizzi, Javier and Garcia will make for a solid starting point at the beginning of the offseason. That group still doesn’t include an ace, but perhaps they’ll make a run at bringing back Verlander, via a qualifying offer or simply a new contract.
Odorizzi will be 31 this month, so the deal covers his age-31 to age-33 seasons, if he exercises his 2023 option. Valdez, who is 27, Urquidy (26 in May) and Javier (24 this month) aren’t in line to reach free agency until after the 2025 season. The Astros can project out even further for prospects with little or no service time like Garcia (24) and Whitley (23), and they are bullish on the potential of Hunter Brown (22), a 2019 draftee who is entering his first full professional season. All told, they didn’t necessarily need Odorizzi for 2022 or beyond. But they needed someone like him now, and it evidently took a multi-year commitment by the Astros to get a deal done.
(Photo: Hannah Foslien / Getty Images)