For anyone in baseball, it would have been difficult to see what was coming for Ryne Stanek when he signed to play for the Astros. At the end of the day, it was a low-profile, one-year deal for a reliever that registered an ugly 7.20 ERA over 10 innings in 2020 for the Marlins. But for both Houston and Stanek, it has been a pleasant and even surprising link.
Stanek’s first deal with the Astros wasn’t a headline. He profiled as a reliever that could pile up lots of strikeouts, but he had struggled with control (a career 4.