Josh Hader, one of the game’s best and most enigmatic relievers, agreed to a five-year deal with the Houston Astros worth $95 million Friday, according to a person familiar with the matter. The deal is the biggest ever given to a reliever — by careful design: Although the New York Mets signed closer Edwin Diaz to a five-year deal worth $102 million guaranteed last winter, that deal includes deferrals that gave it a present-day value of just over $93 million. For the Astros, the move represents an uncharacteristic free agent splurge — and a timely rebuttal to the rival Texas Rangers winning the World Series last year.
If not desperation to avenge their American League Championship Series loss, the move suggests the kind of offseason urgency the Astros have largely avoided during their dominant past decade. Hands-on owner Jim Crane bought the Astros in 2011. Hader’s deal is the biggest free agent signing he has made, an outlay of money Crane had previously reserved for his most treasured homegrown stars. Only Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman have ever been promised more.
In Hader, Crane is giving his rookie manager, Joe Espada, one of the filthiest left-handed relievers of the era and one of the sport’s more puzzling characters. Hader burst onto the scene with late-game stuff and trademark delivery as a rookie in 2017 and earned an all-star nod a year later. During that All-Star Game, Hader’s old tweets emerged and circulated online. They included racist and homophobic language, which he apologized for in the clubhouse after the normally lighthearted All-Star Game.
On the field, Hader gained a reputation as somewhat inflexible. He expressed discomfort throwing any more than one inning in an outing during the last years of his San Diego Padres tenure, seemingly afraid to break routines and risk injury before becoming a free agent. He has not thrown more than one inning in a regular season outing since 2020.
But when he does pitch, Hader is an elite, dominant closer. He owns a 2.50 career ERA and halved that in 2023 when he struck out struck out 36.8 percent of opposing batters, the fifth-highest rate among qualified relievers, in 56⅓ innings. And though one of his more memorable playoff outings included a blown save against the Washington Nationals in the 2019 wild-card game, Hader has been good in somewhat regular October duty, too: He owns a 1.37 ERA and 8.25 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 19-plus postseason innings.
He will add power and experience to an Astros bullpen that, while experiencing substantial turnover this offseason, already included righty Ryan Pressly as a closing option. Pressly saved 31 games in 2023 and owns a 2.22 ERA and 14 saves in the postseason. Since the start of 2018, Hader is second among closers with 165 saves. Pressly is 11th with 107.
Hader’s signing is the first sign of movement near the top of what has been a lifeless free agent market since Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto announced their deals with the Los Angeles Dodgers in December. Another former Padres left-hander, 2023 National League Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell, remains unsigned, as do former all-stars Matt Chapman, Cody Bellinger and many others who projected as top free agent options at their positions when the winter began.