On Friday, Houston agreed to a five-year, $95 million deal with left-handed pitcher Josh Hader, the top reliever on the market, bolstering a staff that lost a bullpen arm to injury and is still in talks with bringing back another.
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ESPN's Jeff Passan reported that Hader's deal contains no deferrals and is the largest present-day value contract for a relief pitcher in baseball history.
Hader, who turns 30 in April, was a 19th-round selection of the Baltimore Orioles out of high school in the 2012 MLB Amateur Draft.
He was actually part of the Astros farm system from 2013 to 2015 after the O's traded him to the Astros, reaching no higher than Double-A Corpus Christi. The Astros traded him to the Milwaukee Brewers system in July 2015 in a transaction that landed Carlos Gomez and Mike Fiers in Houston.
The Brewers called him up in 2017 as a 23-year-old.
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His breakthrough season came in 2018 when he appeared in 55 games and struck out a career-high 143 batters. Not only did he earn his first of five All-Star nods that year, he also finished in the top seven for the National League Cy Young Award vote.
Hader played in Milwaukee into the 2022 season when his performance declined, and he was traded to the San Diego Padres midseason. However, he was instrumental in the Padres' run to the National League Championship Series. For that, the Padres signed him to a one-year, $14.1 million deal in his final arbitration-eligible year.
The Astros were reportedly linked to Hader in recent weeks while simultaneously negotiating to retain free-agent setup reliever Hector Neris and dealing with Kendall Graveman's season-ending injury.
Hader has been utilized as a closer in recent years, and the signing could be seen as a shift to the eighth inning for current Astros closer Ryan Pressly, who can become a free agent after this coming season.
Hader's deal comes with full no-trade protection and doesn't include any opt-outs or options, a source familiar with the contract told Passan. He will be paid $19 million annually and can collect an extra $1 million for winning the Reliever of the Year Award, which he previously claimed in 2018, 2019 and 2021.
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ESPN contributed to this story.