Roster Construction

The case for Brandon Bielak and someone other than Jon Singleton

The Astros have some spots to fill on the roster, most of them in the bullpen, but perhaps a couple on their bench, depending on how the team chooses to deploy their 26 spots and who’s healthy.

Brian McTaggart of MLB.com, who would certainly be in a position to know, or at least have an idea, gave us his latest thoughts Wednesday.

There’s not much to quibble with, outside of the habit of telling us someone is likely to make the team and they are “out of options”, as is the case with Jon Singleton and Brandon Bielak.

At first, I read this as when there was a decision to be made the Astros were “automatically” opting to carry the players out of options out of fear of losing the player.

I’ve come to realize, hopefully, that this is just McTaggart’s way of providing information, not an indication that a player is out of options is the deciding factor for keeping Singleton instead of Joey Loperfido or Corey Julks, for example.

Being out of options is important, but it should only be as important as a player’s value.

For Singleton, I don’t see being out of options as something that a team that’s made 7 straight American League Championship Series should concern themselves with.

They should worry about putting the best team on the field, not potentially losing a .170 career hitter.

I see this decision much the same as the decision to keep Cesar Salazar at the beginning of last season - a wasted roster spot.

Abreu is dealing with a sore knee, so that could be driving the decision and that I understand, to a point.

But if Abreu is healthy, how often does Singleton play?

Singleton can play one position and perhaps DH, whereas another option like Corey Julks could play left field, DH, pinch-hit, pinch-run and steal a base.

2023 Quality Start Details

Julks started well last season and then cratered, but I would lean toward giving him another shot before I relied on the 32-year-old Singleton.

Of course, keeping Julks would mean no clear backup for Abreu at first and one less left-handed bat off the bench, which seems to be important for some reason.

Singleton, who is out of options, provides left-handed power off the bench and has likely won a spot, but he can play only first base.

In a normal world that may mean something, but last season against right-handers Singleton slashed .130/.228/.174 and both of his home runs came against LHPs.

Lest we think that was an outlier, Singleton’s career slash line against RHPs is .141/.265/.265 in 400 plate appearances.

What good is “left-handed power off the bench” with those numbers?

There could be some metric that the Astros use that favors Singleton, as Dusty alluded to last September when he pinch-hit Singleton for Chas McCormick against Clay Holmes of the Yankees despite Singleton’s numbers against RHPs.

Whatever that metric is, it is a mystery, at least to me.

But, back to a backup for Abreu. Yainer Diaz played 63 first base innings in 2023, Grae Kessinger 23 and Mauricio Dubon 17.

Victor Caratini has 290 career first-base innings, but only 9 last season.

The Astros have options, no pun intended.

That said, if the Astros have to go any length of time with Jon Singleton or any of the other options listed as their first baseman, that will be a problem.

As bad as Abreu was for the majority of 2023 he did end the season with 90 RBI.

Bielak is in a different category. While he’s a replacement-level starting pitcher (0.2 fWAR in 13 starts in 2023), Bielak can be a valuable piece out of the bullpen and can give the Astros multiple innings, something that was sorely missing last season, be it by design (Dusty) or necessity (the pitchers).

Length out of the pen, spot starter. That’s where Bielak’s value resides with the Astros and given the losses from the 2023 pen, I think he’s got a place on this year’s team.

Remember this is an Astros bullpen with a bunch of innings to fill with the loss of Kendall Graveman to injury and Hector Neris, Ryan Stanek and Phil Maton to free agency.

There aren’t many question marks about the roster's makeup, but how they’re decided may provide insight into what to expect moving forward.