Houston Astros: Five value free agents who can elevate the team in 2019

Gio Gonzalez, LHP, Brewers

Gio Gonzalez has had a very interesting career. He’s had years where he looked like a bonafide ace that could headline a pitching staff and carry a team to the playoffs. Then he’s also had years where he barely looked like a back of the rotation arm.

He’s had both of those types of seasons throughout his career as they’ve come in waves. In 2016, he struggled mightily and almost had a 5.00 ERA. However, he bounced back in a big way for the Nationals in 2017 with a 2.96 ERA.

In 2018, he seemed to be trending back the wrong direction for the struggling Nationals. So, in a contract year, they capitalized on his value and traded him to the Brewers. He rewarded the Brewers in a major way by posting a 2.13 ERA in five regular-season starts for them, almost two full points higher than what he had with the Nationals.

The Brewers staff had Gonzalez make some shifts to his pitching repertoire in order to become more effective, much like the Houston Astros did for Morton two years ago. Gonzalez has always utilized and leaned on his sinker as a go-to pitch but recently, hitters have been teeing off on it and it’s rendered him ineffective.

He was only getting swinging strikes on his sinker 5% of the time. His fastball, which he used at a lower rate (28% to 26%) than his sinker, produced swinging strikes 11% of the time. With the Brewers, his usage rate for his fastball jumped to 40% while his sinker dropped to 18%.

The Astros would likely continue in this trend, potentially getting him to drop his sinker and keep his fastball rate high while also upping his good changeup and cutter. The Brewers began the process so the Astros would just need to continue that and tweak a little bit.

Gonzalez would be a great get and would add a lefty arm to a pitching staff that currently doesn’t have any lefties. He could like be had on a three-year deal for $30-36 million total.