The Astros outrighted right-hander Blair Henley to Triple-A Sugar Land this afternoon, as noted by The Athletic’s Chandler Rome on X. The 27-year-old rookie does not have the requisite service time or previous outright on his resume necessary to reject the assignment, meaning he’ll return to the minor leagues to act as non-roster depth for Houston going forward.
Henley was drafted by the Astros in the seventh-round of the 2019 draft but had his development thrown off course early in his professional tenure. He made just one appearance in an Astros uniform in 2019 before the minor league season was cancelled in 2020, and he returned in 2021 to make just five appearances before undergoing Tommy John surgery. The rehab process after going under the knife caused him to miss not only the remainder of the 2021 campaign but all of 2022, and Henley entered the 2023 season as a 26-year-old in Double-A with just six professional games under his belt.
The righty’s results left something to be desired in that first wire-to-wire professional season, as he surrendered a 5.06 ERA in 106 2/3 innings spread across 25 appearances, including 17 starts. Henley’s 22.3% strikeout rate was decent enough, but an 11.1% walk rate left something to be desired even as he generated groundballs at a strong 51.2% clip. There was some unfortunate luck (including a strand rate of just 64.4%) baked into Henley’s results at Double-A, however, and his 4.48 FIP painted a much more encouraging picture of his performance headed into 2024.
Those solid peripheral numbers were enough to earn Henley a promotion to Triple-A entering this season, and the right-hander showed improvement in terms of results through 13 starts at the level. In 60 innings of work, Henley pitched to a 4.50 ERA that essentially matched his peripherals from the previous season. Unfortunately, a look under the hood at Henley’s performance suggests that he had actually regressed by just about every measure. His groundball rate dipped to 48% and his strikeout rate dropped to just 19.2% while his walk rate ballooned up to an unsightly 13.2%. Perhaps most concerning was his struggles with the long ball, as he allowed nearly a quarter (24.4%) of his fly balls to leave the yard for home runs during his first stay in Sugar Land.
Despite those worrisome peripherals, the Astros were undeterred from calling the right-hander up to the big leagues back in April, both because his Triple-A debut had gone relatively well (he struck out six and allowed three runs in five innings of work) but also because the club was without both Justin Verlander and Framber Valdez in the rotation at the time. Those rotation woes have only gotten worse since then, as the Astros are currently relying on a four-man rotation of Valdez, Ronel Blanco, Hunter Brown, and Spencer Arrighetti with the rest of their rotation depth currently on the shelf.
Even that dire rotation situation wasn’t enough for the Astros to give Henley another spot start in the majors after a brutal debut, however. That spot start in early April saw Henley surrender five runs on four hits, three walks, and a hit batsman while recording just one out and failing to record a strikeout. That leaves Henley with a career 135.00 ERA and 39.16 FIP at the big league level. Both of those figures would surely come down if the rookie were to get another opportunity in the majors, but it appears that Henley will have to right the ship at the Triple-A level before Houston gives him another look at the highest level.