Four Under The Radar Bullpen Targets the Astros Could Acquire Before The Deadline

The Astros need pitching help. Their top four relievers are incredibly overworked, and they've lost three starters due to injury. The soon to return Jose Urquidy should help, but a team can never have too many arms.

Houston has to find a way to keep innings off of Pressly, Abreu, Maton and Neris.

They've recently been linked to Dylan Cease, and while he would be a deadline splash they've not made since landing Zack Greinke, it may be a few smaller moves like the landing of Phil Maton (and Yainer Diaz) in 2021 or Cristian Vázquez in 2022 that push them over the top.

Let's look at four under the radar bullpen targets the Astros may look to acquire.

The Astros should trade for Brent Suter.

Brent Suter is an unrestricted free agent at year's end, so he'd be a rental, but he likely wouldn't be expensive and would be a tremendous help for Houston's bullpen. Across 42.2 innings this year, Suter is 4-0 with a 2.74 ERA.

His Statcast page is a thing of beauty: 100th percentile in average exit velocity, 99th percentile in hard hit rate, 98th percentile in barrel percentages, 97th percentile in xSLG and xWOBA and 88th percentile in xBA.

He's a soft-contact king that has pitched to great success in the cavernous Coors Field. He's a masive upgrade as a lefty over the revolving door of lefties Houston has rolled out the last few seasons. And while he has many suiters, as a reliever on an expiring contract, the cost wouldn't be that high.

Phil Maton, Bryan Abreu, Hector Neris and Ryan Pressly can't continue to be tasked with getting every meaningful out in the bullpen. If the Astros can land Suter, they would immediately be able to keep the workloads of the aforementioned four down.

Contenders are always in the market for relievers and bullpen upgrades. Landing Suter would be a massive win for Houston's bullpen depth the rest of the way.