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Astros Sign Relief Pitcher Peter Moylan

We take a recess from the Astros current legal issues to bring you a free agent signing.

By Timothy De Block
Mike Ehrmann

The Astros made their first move of the offseason, signing right-handed relief pitcher Peter Moylan of Atlanta Braves fame, according to Ben Nicholson-Smith of USA Today Sports Weekly:

Moyland pitched for the Los Angeles Dodgers last year and posted a 6.46 ERA in 15 1/3 innings. The year before he pitched only five innings and the year before that he pitched eight innings of relief for the Braves. The last time he pitched more than 60 innings was 2010 when he had a 2.97 ERA in 63 2/3 innings. Yay.

The Astros first reclamation project of the season. To be fair this is a move to improve the bullpen and Moylan has had tremendous success in his eight league major league career. The question is can he regain 2006-2010 form.

Small sample size ALERT!

The last three year, in 28 2/3 innings Moylan has a 5.7 strikeouts per nine (SO/9) and a 3.8 walks per nine (BB/9). Ew! I'll leave the medical stuff to Brooks, but Moylan is trying to return from arthroscopic surgery on his right rotator cuff, which sounds fairly serious.

Over his career, however, he has 6.95 SO/9 and a 3.9 BB/9, a 2.84 ERA with a 3.84 FIP, a 3.92 xFIP and a 3.67 SIERA. Much better.  This is a good sign by the Astros and, everyone's favorite buzz phrase, a low risk, high reward type of player that the Astros have been signing the last couple of years. It's not sexy and it might not work out but this move could help improve the bullpen significantly.

You can follow Peter Moylan on Twitter at, @PeterMoylan

He's also got a website that I have yet to get into but it looks like it hasn't been updated in a while.

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