The hot, crazy rumor this morning is that former Phillies closer (and current Astros starter) Brett Myers will be given the first crack at Houston’s closer role, vacant after the team traded Mark Melancon to the Boston Red Sox this winter.
Myers was the closer for the Phillies in 2007, when he saved 21 games while posting a 4.33 ERA, a career best 10.88 strikeout rate, and 1.3 fWAR. He’s been a starter every year since, with his best season coming in 2010, his first with the Astros. In 2010, Myers threw 223 2/3 innings with a career best 3.14 ERA.
He’s thrown at least 200 innings in each of his two seasons with Houston, and even when everything went bad last season, Myers was still worth 1.5 fWAR. He’s a guy who generally allows a lot of homers, even when he was Philadelphia’s closer. Why would the Astros want to move him to the bullpen, where a good season (2007) still resulted in him having less value than a disaster season (2011)?
Myers is an absolute innings eater, and for a team like Houston that is largely devoid of young pitching, I don’t understand the move at all. The Astros are paying Myers $11 million this year, and they have a $10 million option for 2013 (which will have the vesting options modified now that he’s a reliever), and will essentially be paying eight figures for a closer who has one year of experience on the job which came five seasons ago.
Jeff Luhnow has done a lot right in his tenure in Houston, but this isn’t one of them.
