In the lab: Another look at Bryan Abreu

Looking at player performance is a lot more complicated than it otherwise might seem. Let’s consider the curious case of Bryan Abreu. It could be said that you are what you produce. Yet, that’s not as simple as it sounds. You could look at the whole and that would be a correct way to look at it. You could also look at Abreu in various parts to see who he currently is.

This is one area where I have to admit to my own culpability. I have to admit that Abreu’s early season results have colored my perception of him. I still cringe every time Espada calls his number. Certainly, the results haven’t always been pretty since May 1st. That is true of every reliever. No reliever goes through a season with a 0.00 ERA. We often expect pitchers to throw zeroes every time out and that is simply not sustainable as an expectation.

The simple fact is that Abreu is both guys. He will the guy at the end of the season with the numbers he has. However, every manager has to consider the player that a guy is in that moment. For now, Abreu is that second guy. Make no mistake, there are still too many walks and the K rate is below career norms. Abreu is not the same pitcher that he was from 2022 to 2025, but he is also not the guy he was in March and April.

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In many ways, looking at standard pitching stats when looking at relief pitchers is a misnomer. One bad outing can torpedo a pitcher’s ERA. Abreu still has only 35.2 innings on the season, so those early bad outings are driving the overall totals up. A relief pitcher’s job is to come in and throw zeroes. So, we can look at the various members of the bullpen to see how often they do that.

Those are overall numbers. If we do the same breakdown we did with the other numbers we will see that of Abreu’s 13 outings with runs, eight of them came in March and April. Those crack math skills show that he has pitched 23 of 28 games scoreless. Certainly, they weren’t all pretty, but that comes to a .821 percentage. In other words, there is Steven Okert and Abreu.

This is where those of us in the commentary game need to take our lumps. We (with a heavy emphasis on me) have criticized Joe Espada when using Abreu in pressure situations because of the horrible start. Make no mistake, Abreu still is not a ninth inning guy and the numbers over the last two seasons bare that out. Yet, when you are looking for a setup guy from the right side, you could obviously do worse than Abreu. When Espada taps de los Santos he obviously is doing worse.

Of course, the other problem is our collective expectations. Abreu has been the best setup guy in baseball for the last four seasons coming into 2026. The Astros bullpen was one of the best in history in 2022 when Ryan Pressly was on top of his game with Abreu and others in the pen. The 2026 bullpen is just not quite as good as those other pens, but even when you allow for the mess that was March and Aprile, it is still one of the better bullpens in baseball.

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Dana Brown has said that he wants to add to the pen and it is easy to see why. This version of Abreu is not the same as the old version of Abreu even if you ignore the March and April. So, who is he as a pitcher and who can we compare him to? I found a recent historical comp and that might be a clue to the role he probably could perform very well down the stretch. Here comes the Player A and B test.

These aren’t exactly analogous because that doesn’t exist. Player B did this over multiple seasons, so the ERA more closely matches the other underlying numbers. However, this is a pretty close comparison. Abreu is obviously Pitcher A and Pitcher B is Hector Neris as an Astro. Neris could have been a setup guy on a bad baseball team. As it turned out, he was a really good 6th or 7th inning guy on a good baseball team.

Those 2022 Astros had an embarrassment of riches in the bullpen. They had Pressly, Rafael Montero, and Abreu before Neris even needed to be handed the ball. This current iteration of the Astros does not have that kind of arsenal available. So, what Espada can do is maximize what he currently has. The first thing he should do is stop his incessant need to pitch relievers multiple innings. No other manager does this and you could say it is because the starters aren’t good enough, but ultimately they have continued to do it even after the starting staff has approached league average.

Many of Blubaugh’s outings that have included runs have included them in the second inning of his outings. We’ve covered that territory here before. We also should not be using de los Santos in nearly as many pressure situations as they are using him. Those outings should be going to Abreu. It likely won’t be pretty. He still struggles to throw strikes, but in the absence of good you go with what you got. Abreu is the best of what you got from the right side and has been since May 1st.