Astros considering long-rumored pivot to cover for pitching staff’s collapse

Things haven’t been going particularly well for the Houston Astros to start 2026, and we all know it’s not hard to find the main culprit. The pitching staff has been a house of horrors, with blame split between the starting staff and the bullpen. The starting rotation has been plagued with injuries to ace Hunter Brown, free agent acquisition Tatsuya Imai, and Cristian Javier, which are leading them to at least consider a move they’ve discussed before, according to Dana Brown on SportsTalk 790. 

While Kai-Wei Teng has been one of the few standout performers in the bullpen, the Astros are considering moving him to the rotation to provide effective innings where there have been far too few recently. Teng was (mostly) a starter from the time he entered professional baseball, starting in 99 of his 102 games in the minors from 2019 to 2023. While he worked both in the bullpen and rotation in each of the last two years, he did make seven starts in eight games for the Giants last season…with uneven results. 

But he’s come out of the gates strong in the bullpen for the Astros with a strong 1.65 ERA to go along with an above-average strikeout rate of 26.2 percent and a solid walk rate of 9.8 percent. While relievers have often opted for more pitches than they once did, Teng’s five pitches should translate well to the rotation to give him weapons against both left-handed bats and right-handed bats. He uses his sweeper heavily against both sides, and it’s his best pitch. While you might expect that usage to change a bit as a starter, he did lead with that pitch in a limited stretch starting for the Giants last season, and with good reason. 

The 95 MPH fastball velocity from this season would likely dip to levels closer to last year’s 93.2 MPH, but if he can regain the 25% whiff rate on the pitch from last year, some of his gains season-over-season should translate to the rotation to help give the Astros some much-needed innings. The change would have some ripple effects. The first being who goes from the current rotation? The easy answer is Peter Lambert, who has made just one start, but all of the current starters have their black marks.

Who would Kai-Wei Teng push out of the Astros' rotation?

Still, Mike Burrows, Spencer Arrighetti, and Lance McCullers Jr. seem unlikely to move, so the choices are down to Lambert and Weiss. Weiss has had a bit more of an opportunity and hasn’t exactly excelled, so he could be the answer as well. Additionally, he has options, so he could be sent to AAA, though given the options, it would seem more likely that Teng and Weiss would simply flip spots or even piggyback off each other.

Is improving the rotation worth taking away one of the few reliable bullpen arms? The innings math says yes. If Teng can build up to a starter’s workload within two or three outings, and he has thrown 30+ pitches in three of his last four relief appearances, then giving five or six solid innings every fifth day would likely be a bigger help to the bullpen and entire pitching staff than anything Teng can provide out of the bullpen. Ultimately, the pitching staff needs its big guns to get going for any of it to matter, but Teng gives upside to a rotation that needs it in the worst way.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow