3 free agents not named Carlos Correa that Astros should sign

Jorge Soler

Power hitting is what most teams want. Consistent power hitting is a commodity, and a consistent power hitter with recent championship experience? That’s a guy everyone wants. Jorge Soler is that guy.

Soler might be one of the most powerful bats out there Astros fans know all to well, as he crushed a mammoth home run at Minute Maid Park in Game 6 of the World Series that ripped the hearts out of every Astros fan. I’m still eating a carton of ice cream every night just thinking about it.

It might help Houston fans like myself to mend from last year if we can see Soler hit those mammoth homers at Minute Maid Park in an Astros uniform.

The Cuban native is a career .246 hitter with a .800 OPS who routinely hits a lot of big bombs. Soler hit 48 homers and led the league with 117 RBIs in 2019 with Kansas City.  However, he’s certainly a feast-or-famine type hitter — he also led the league in strikeouts in 2019 with 179. Welp.

Offensively, Soler would take the Astros already amazing lineup to another level. Imagine having Soler hit 8th after Yordan Alvarez and Yuli Gurriel? If Soler were to hit 7th or 8th in this lineup, pitchers all over the AL would have nervous breakdowns thinking about how they’ll must navigate through that Astro batting order.

There’s likely a lot of teams still interested in Soler and he likely will be out of Houston’s price range. But if Soler is truly interested in reuniting with his fellow Cuban teammates and the asking price is reasonable, I think Houston has to go for it.

Chris Archer

The Astros rotation is still somewhat of a question mark. Sure – the return of Justin Verlander is exciting, but the rest of the rotation is somewhat of a mystery. We have no idea when Lance McCullers Jr. will be back on the mound.

We have no idea if Jake Odorizzi will be able to bounce back from a poor season. We have no idea if Jose Urquidy can be healthy for an entire season. And there’s reason to believe we might see some sophomore season regression from Luis Garcia.

Signing an uber-talented starting pitcher like Chris Archer would help quell any concerns.

Archer is a two-time All Star with certain flaws, but when he is sharp he’s a dominant pitcher. He’s 61-81 in his career, but a lot of his time has been spent on bad teams – early 2010s Tampa Bay Rays and the mostly forgettable late 2010s Pittsburgh Pirates.

In fact, the only team Archer has been on with real championship aspirations was last year’s Tampa Bay Rays – a season shortened for Archer by some bad-luck injury.

Archer seems like a prime candidate – if he signs with a winning team with a winning culture and can remain healthy – to have somewhat of a renaissance in his early 30s.

He’s already been linked to the Miami Marlins, the Braves and the Chicago Cubs, but Archer has shown interest in the Astros before. And if McCullers isn’t gonna be back anytime soon, Archer might be a worthwhile risk in the short term.

Trevor Rosenthal

Speaking of guys who’ve been injured, Trevor Rosenthal really has not played any meaningful baseball since 2019. He only pitched 23 innings in 2020 season and then had a season-ending injury with the Oakland A’s before the start of the season last year.

But prior to those injury-riddled seasons, Rosenthal was arguably one of the best under-the-radar relief pitchers in the league. Since 2015, Rosenthal is in the 98th percentile in fastball velocity that maxes out at 99 mph.

Rosenthal uses that fastball pace to mix in a solid slider combination to generate his high whiff rates. And if you like lots of strikeouts, Rosenthal might make you blush. Rosenthal is among the league leaders from 2015 to 2019 in K rates with a 13.8 strikeout per nine rate.

He comes with serious injury concerns as he’s had multiple surgeries over the past three years, and there are questions as to whether or not he can ever get back to his old form.

But if he’s still on the market at this point, perhaps he’d be willing to take a short-term deal to regain his form and improve his market value for free agency in 2023 or 2024. If that’s the case the Astros should pounce.

Houston’s bullpen situation may not be too shabby at the moment, but it’s never a bad thing to have too many good relievers.

And with the way AL contenders are adding to their roster, this may turn into an arms race of signing talent. And Houston ought to sign a player like Rosenthal on the roster rather than facing him in the playoffs.