The Crawfish Boxes · Jan 28, 2019
Wanted: Relief Pitcher for Houston Astros, Experience Preferred.
The Houston Astros won 103 games last year, mostly on the strength of historically good pitching, both starting and relief. But although the mainstays of the staff, Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole, will be back for 2019, in the next echelon there has been a mass exodus. All Star Charlie Morton signed with Tampa Bay, Dallas Keuchel and Tony Sipp remain on the free agent market, and Lance McCullers and Joe Smith will be injured next year, McCullers out for the entire season. Although there is still time to add pitchers, many of the candidates thought to be available through trade or free agency have already been moved, so some of us impatient Astros fans are starting to ask, “is this it?”