Few, if any present owners, can compete with Jim Crane when it comes to success. Since the day he bought the team, Crane has transformed the Houston Astros. Under him, they went from a perpetually meandering franchise to World beaters. Team that has played consecutive ALCS for years and became the team to beat in the AL. However, even the biggest of masters can make mistakes. So Crane – only his mistakes have cost $100 million. 

As the Astros continue to struggle, their troubles only seem to be increasing. They lost two of their starting pitchers, Cristian Javier and Jose Urquidy to Tommy John surgeries, and now even Justin Verlander is out for the short term. That has added even more pressure to an already crushed pitching staff. However, this issue of injured pitchers isn’t new for the Astronauts. If anything they’ve made a habit of it.

Sean Pendergast of Houston Press recently posted a list of pitchers that the team has paid to essentially rehab on their bills. It’s quite interesting to see just how unlucky the Astros have been when it comes to major pitching signings since 2019. The list includes the likes of Lance McCullers ($4.1 million in 2019 to rehab). But the really interesting part is to see just how much Verlander and Javier’s injuries have cost the Astros.

Between 2020 and 2021 – the Astros essentially paid Verlander almost $44 million to pitch just 6 innings. Luckily for them, Verlander returned with a vengeance in 2022 and led them to a World Series win. Similarly, 2024 is Cristian Javier’s year 2 of his 5-year extension.  If one assumes him to miss at least part of the 2025 season, the team will be paying over $15 million to him just to rehab. 

In total, since 2019, Jim Crane has spent around $100 million on pitchers just to see them rehab. Though the Astros haven’t had to suffer because of it till now – things are starting to take their toll them on the team.

How the pitching injury crisis adds up to the Houston Astros’ troubles

The Houston Astros entered 2024 on the back of an already crumbled financial state. Their TV deal had collapsed due to AT&T SportsNet Southwest’s collapse. That led to them creating their own network. However, most reports indicated that the team will be losing money for a few years due to unavoidable set-up costs. That greatly affected their ability to spend on free agents. However, it was believed that the Astros would sail through due to their squad’s quality.

But then nobody expected the kind of injuries that the team is experiencing. On top of that, their bullpen continues to battle with consistency issues. As a result, despite playing in a weak division – the Astros aren’t able to take full advantage of the situation. With lowering revenue and underperforming pitchers, surely that $100 million of overpay for injured pitchers is looking a little catastrophic.