HOUSTON (SportsRadio 610) - Lance McCullers Jr. was already in the big leagues when the Astros traded Josh Hader before the 2015 trade deadline as part of the deal that netted Carlos Gomez and Mike Fiers, but the two were teammates at three different minor league stops.
"I know we've been trying to get him back for a long time," McCullers said. "I think we've had seller's regret for a while."
McCullers spoke to reporters at Astros Fan Fest on Saturday morning, less than 24 hours after the team agreed to bring Hader back on a five-year, $95 million deal, the largest free agent deal ever handed out during the Jim Crane era.
"This came together fast," Astros general manager Dana Brown said. "We were talking about improving the club, and we were talking about the prices of the relievers, and it came together almost near 72 hours."
Hader has been one of baseball premier bullpen arms since making his Major League debut in 2017. In seven seasons with Milwaukee and San Diego, the 29-year old has a 2.50 ERA to go with a 42.2 percent strikeout rate, almost double the Major League average, and he's made five National League All-Star teams.
"I like power arms late in the game," Brown said. "That's the crunch time, and the make-up is pretty special. Our data and information was really good, so he checked all three of those boxes, so we're really excited about him."
The addition of Hader doesn't come without a complication. You don't give a reliever $19 million a year if he's not going to close games for you, but the Astros bullpen has been anchored by Ryan Pressly for the last four seasons. He has a 2.99 ERA since taking over the Astros' closer role in 2020, and he's 14-for-14 in postseason save opportunities.
"Our back end (of the bullpen) just got that much stronger," Astros manager Joe Espada said.
Brown said Pressly was made aware of the Astros pursuit of Hader early in the process and the two-time All-Star was on board with the addition.
"He said, 'Look, if we can improve this team, we want to get back to the World Series. We need to do whatever we need to do to get better,' and so I thought he was a true professional, and it speaks volumes."
With Hader, Pressly, and Bryan Abreu, the Astros have the ability to come at opponents from both sides at the end of games. That gives the team the option to mix and match, but while Espada says all three guys will get an opportunity to close, he wants to have set roles in the bullpen.
"We have an elite bullpen, elite three guys that can close any game at any time. I will sit down and I will like to assign roles for these guys so they know exactly how they're going to be deployed in the game."
