The Next Man Up: Bryan Abreu’s Time to Shine Is Now

For years now, Bryan Abreu has admirably filled the role of Houston Astros setup man. The team has All-Star closer Josh Hader on hand as their primary ninth-inning option, so there’s been very few chances for Abreu to get a crack at saves himself.

As we inch closer and closer to Opening Day, word on the street is that Hader is slowed by a biceps issue and will begin the regular season on the injured list. It seems that Abreu, who’s turned himself into arguably baseball’s best non-closing reliever, will get his shot at this coveted role.

There are only 30 pitchers in the game that can call themselves closers. For however long Hader takes to recover on the IL, Abreu gets to call himself one of them. Let’s break down what this move means for the right-hander, as well as the Astros.

Big Shoes to Fill

Make no mistake about it, just because the Astros have an outstanding backup plan in place doesn’t mean Hader’s not going to be missed. The 31-year-old is one of the best left-handed relief pitchers the game has ever seen, a notion that’s underscored even more by how strongly he rebounded from what was an awful 2022 campaign.

Since breaking into the big leagues in 2017, Hader’s been as close to a “relief ace” as you can get. Starting from the year he debuted to now, here’s where he ranks amongst other relievers.

• Games: 468 (14th)
• Saves: 227 (4th)
• Innings Pitched: 512.1 (3rd)
• ERA: 2.64 (17th)
• Strikeouts: 829 (1st)
• WHIP: 0.94 (5th)
• K/9: 14.56 (2nd)
• AVG: .157 (3rd)

That, my friends, is what every team wishes they could have at the back-end of their ‘pen.

Hader, a six-time All-Star and three-time Reliever of the Year Award winner, has been on the Astros for two years now and has been solid as a rock from day one. He struck out over 100 batters in 2024 (fourth time in his career) and was an All-Star last year in what ultimately wound up being an injury-shortened one.

For the most part, Hader’s been able to avoid any durability questions throughout his career. He’s made 50 or more appearances six times in his career and came two shy of making that a seventh in 2025. The southpaw didn’t debut until June of 2017 and there’s also the COVID-shortened 2020 campaign in there as well, so those two barely count towards the nine years he’s been in the majors.

You get the point, right? Hader’s a huge presence in the Astros’ bullpen, and he’s going to be sorely missed. Losing him and pushing Abreu to the closer’s role is going to make the rest of the ‘pen that much weaker, as now they don’t have a shutdown setup option to replace him.

Bryan Abreu’s Big Shot

Since he made his big league debut in 2019, Abreu has consistently been a fixture in the Astros bullpen. He’s one of their top high-leverage arms, and the fact that he hasn’t been their full-time closer at any point means that he’s been able to jump around and function as a “stopper” in other stressful spots in games.

Before getting his first full season of big league games under his belt in 2021, Abreu had made just 11 appearances between 2019 and ’20. The ’21 campaign left a lot to be desired, but he fully broke out in 2022 and hasn’t looked back.

That year, he made 55 appearances, posted a 1.94 ERA and 2.12 FIP, struck out 88 batters and allowed just two home runs across 60.1 innings. Ever since that season, he’s been electric.

Dating back to 2022, Abreu ranks as one of the best relief pitchers in the game in most metrics.

• Games: 306 (13th)
• Innings Pitched: 317.2 (9th)
• ERA: 2.69 (23rd)
• Strikeouts: 432 (2nd)
• K/9: 12.24 (16th)
• Strand Rate: 80.7% (14th)
• fWAR: 6.0 (5th)

To date, the right-hander has just 16 saves across 317 games and just under 330 career innings. Since the Astros are still in their latest contention window that never seems to be ready to end, Abreu’s going to get a ton of save opportunities early on in the year.

It remains to be seen just how long Hader’s going to be out, but Abreu’s got a chance to put himself in an even nicer position in what’s shaping up to be his walk year. The 28-year-old is going to play the 2026 season on an expiring contract, and showing that he can hold his own as a team’s primary ninth-inning option would certainly add to what’s already going to be a significant payday.

Saves are always any free agent reliever’s best shot at earning big bucks on the open market. As it stands, Abreu is sitting pretty as far as his future earnings go. No relievers can say they’ve struck out 100 or more batters in each of the past three years except for him; but if he can show he’s capable of reliably closing out games, that check’s going to get a whole lot bigger.

Why Abreu’s Stuff Works in the 9th Inning

To be a good closer, you need at least two above-average pitches to be able to keep the opposition off-balance (unless you’re Mariano Rivera, of course). Every closer you’ll find in the league sports at least two dominant offerings.

That only makes sense, though. If any pitcher has just one pitch, it’s easy for hitters to sit on it and time it up well. Even if the one pitch is a triple-digit fastball, batters will be able to adjust quickly once they know what’s coming every single time.

Abreu has a two-pitch mix consisting of a shutdown four-seam fastball and one of the best sliders in baseball. The slider had a Run Value of 10 last year, which was behind only Mason Miller, Andrés Muñoz, Steven Okert, Tyler Kinley, Ryan Helsley, Andrew Kittredge, and Yariel Rodríguez.

That’s some good company.

Last year, Abreu’s most oft-used pitch was the heater, which averaged 97.3 mph. He used it exactly 50% of the time and batters only were able to hit .196 against it. All year long, only one batter (Marcus Semien) was able to send it over the fence. The four-seamer also induced a 36.4% Whiff (fifth in the league) and was a put-away pitch 26.7% of the time, which ranked eighth amongst all pitchers’ four-seam fastballs.

Then there’s his slider, thrown 48.4% of the time last year to the tune of a .193 batting average against. The 46.1% Whiff was seventh amongst all qualifying sliders in baseball, while it was used as a put-away pitch 34.1% of the time, good for third in the league.

While a right-hander was the only one to send Abreu’s four-seamer over the fence last year, none of them were able to do the same with his slider. Only three left-handed bats were able to accomplish that, and there aren’t any surprises there, as Nick Kurtz, Cody Bellinger, and Cal Raleigh pulled it off.

Strictly speaking from a leverage standpoint, Abreu only allowed batters to hit .182 with a .521 OPS in 48 high-leverage opportunities in 2025. Funnily enough, his numbers only got worse the lower the leverage situations he pitched in were. Regardless his FIP in low-, medium-, and high-leverage situations (2.81, 2.01, 2.39, respectively) was outstanding. He should be able to handle the consistent high-leverage innings just fine.

Closing Thoughts

Ahead of what was already going to be an extremely important year for Bryan Abreu and his future earnings, he’s going to get his shot to close games for the Astros. While it would’ve been nice to have him do so without Houston losing Josh Hader for a few weeks, these are the cards they were dealt.

With the Astros still being a contending team, Abreu should get a lot of opportunities to slam the door in opponent’s faces early. Being a setup man is such a thankless job, but it sounds like the right-hander is going to get a shot that he’s more than earned to be more than just an eighth-inning option.

If Abreu can prove he’s capable, the paycheck he’ll have earned by this time next year will be so much larger than it’s projected to be right now. We’ll see how this experiment goes, but there’s very little reason to believe he won’t be able to thrive.

The post The Next Man Up: Bryan Abreu’s Time to Shine Is Now appeared first on Just Baseball.