Houston Astros: Five most important players to the 2018 season
By T.A. Mock
Collin McHugh, RHP
You may be extremely surprised to see Collin McHugh on this list. You may, in fact, be ready to jump off of this list in pursuit of other reading material but stay with me, hear me out. McHugh has in fact been extremely important to the team this year.
McHugh was the backbone and anchor for the Houston Astros bullpen all year long. He was the lone consistent piece to the bullpen while other guys had a roller coaster season with high highs and low lows.
The only player to reside on the Astros roster in the bullpen that had a lower ERA than McHugh was Tony Sipp. However, Sipp pitched in 20+ fewer games and less than half of the innings than McHugh. That’s a lot fewer opportunities to screw up than McHugh had.
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Prior to this year, McHugh had only made two relief appearances in his career and both of those were back in 2013. This year, as a reliever, he completely elevated his game to a level that no one knew McHugh had.
McHugh’s pitches were pretty much untouchable this season he set a career high in strikeouts per nine innings with 11.7, which is over two more than his previous high set back in 2014. McHugh also had a very low 0.91 WHIP this season.
McHugh solidified this bullpen and provided a constant threat AJ Hinch could turn to in any situation. With the fluctuation in the rest of the bullpen arms, this was an extreme necessity. Without him, who knows where the bullpen would have been.