4 Astros players that won't be back in 2024

Hector Neris

Quality bullpen arms are tough to come by especially with all of the competition for their services which makes Hector Neris hitting the free agent market particularly tough. During the course of his time with Houston, Neris morphed from a decent seventh inning type of guy to start with into one of the Astros' best relievers in 2023 where he posted a 1.71 ERA in 71 appearances.

Neris signed a two year deal with the Astros that did include a perfectly reasonable $8.5 million team contract option for 2024. However, his contract included a clause that allowed that option to be changed into a player option if Neris reached 110 appearances across 2022 and 2023. Unfortunately for the Astros, Neris did reach that appearance threshold and now it is up to him as to whether or not he will come back next season.

Despite Hector having a challenging postseason performance this year, Houston would love to have Neris back especially if they could have kept him for the bargain rate in his original contract. The problem is that Neris would be silly to exercise that player option at this point. He is coming off a career season and as soon as he hits the free agent market, he will be one of the better relievers available and likely will be in line for a very significant raise on a multi-year deal over what he would make on his current deal.

The Astros certainly will try to convince Neris to stay and are probably willing to pony up a little bit in an offer to him, but with a significant chunk of their payroll tied up in their bullpen in Ryan Pressley, Rafael Montero, and Kendall Graveman already, it sure seems like Neris has priced himself out of Houston.

Ryne Stanek

On the flip side of the bullpen debate, consistency is king when teams look at relief arms. Bullpen arms are already the most volatile asset in all of baseball on a year-to-year basis, so teams want to at least see peripherals that show consistency when guys are on the mound and unfortunately, Ryne Stanek falls short in that regard.

Stanek does have some things going for him. That fastball of his is a legit high octane offering and his splitter is better than he is given credit for. However, his command issues are fairly well documented and he also has the unfortunate problem of giving up a good bit of hard contact AND not being able to keep the ball on the ground. Bad things happen when balls are hit hard and are elevated with runners on base.

For the 2023 season, Stanek made a relatively modest $3.6 million in his last year of arbitration. If he were willing to take a relatively cheap multi-year deal, Houston would likely go for that as he has real upside when he is on.

However, other teams are likely to be more willing to take on the risk associated with him given that he put up a very strong 2022 season (1.15 ERA in 59 appearances) before coming back to earth this past season. As his price point goes up, the less attractive Stanek becomes as a bullpen option and Houston may just be better served to move on altogether here.

Martin Maldonado

The Martin Maldonado discussion has been beaten to death at this point. After forging a career in Houston as a strong defender and elite game caller behind the plate despite the fact that he couldn't hit, Father Time finally came for those tools and he turned into the one of the worst players in baseball in 2023.

The fundamental problem with having Maldy on the roster at all is that Houston simply loves him too much. Some of that is on seemingly outgoing manager Dusty Baker wanting to run Maldonado out there as much as possible, but Houston has a strictly better catcher on their roster right now in Yainer Diaz that kept losing playing time because Houston (over)valued Maldonado's game management skills in 2023.

For Dana Brown and co. in the front office, the decision needs to be made to move on. Maldy is 37 years old and just posted a season where he put up a 66 wRC+ at the plate, saw his defensive metrics crater, and posted the third lowest fWAR (-1.2) among all hitters in MLB that that made at least 400 plate appearances this season.

In an ideal world, keeping Maldonado around as Diaz's backup catcher would be fine so that the elder catcher could mentor Yainer before calling it a career. However, Houston cannot be trusted with such an arrangement given how the playing time situation played out this year, so letting him walk this offseason is the strictly better option.

Michael Brantley

Finally, we come to Michael Brantley who had to overcome a lot in 2023 to even make it back on the field at all. Since 2019, Brantley has proven himself to be one of Houston's more savvy pickups. In his five seasons with the Astros, he has averaged a .305/.365/.463 line and made a pair of All-Star Games along the way.

The problem the last couple of years, of course, has been his health. During the 2022 season, he suffered a torn labrum in his shoulder which forced him to have surgery. After suffering a setback during his rehab from the injury, Brantley only played 15 games in the regular season in 2023 although he did make the postseason roster where he was poor to mediocre at best.

If there was some assurance that Brantley could approach being the hitter he was before he got hurt, then bringing him back on another short-term deal would make plenty of sense. However, with his recent injury history and the simple fact that he is 36 years old, it is hard to come up with a deal that would make both sides happy to bring him back. The Astros would need to protect themselves in the event that his body continues to break down, but Brantley may want more financial security that he could likely find elsewhere.

Maybe an incentive laden one-year deal is the answer and that remains a possibility as Brantley has been a big part of the Astros' clubhouse over the last few years. However, the smarter bet is probably that Brantley's time with Houston has come to an end.

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