Ranking the best suitors for Jake Arrieta

4. Houston Astros

The Houston Astros would actually be higher on this list if the other three teams didn’t all reside in the same division. That, and the fact that the Astros are an American League, and usually the adjustment period going from NL to AL is a tougher than going from AL to NL.

Another problem with Arrieta going to the Astros is the fact that they don’t really have a good bullpen. Most of the season, and throughout the playoffs A.J. Hinch was on the top step of the dugout trying to figure out who he could trust to get them X-amount of outs on any given day.

Because of that, the Astros have had to rely on their starters going deep in games. With guys like Dallas Kuechel, Justin Verlander, Collin McHugh and Lance McCullers you get a lot of innings out of every single of one of them. Arrieta, unfortunately, is not an innings eater and isn’t conducive to playing in your bullpen.

The only reason the Astros are ranked higher than the Nationals on this list is because of how they use sabermetrics, and how they attack hitters. Dallas Kuechel and Collin McHugh aren’t high-velocity guys but remain very effective because of how often they throw off-speed pitches.

Arrieta could greatly benefit from this because he throws a very good slider, and just like the Astros staff somehow improved an already fantastic breaking ball from Verlander it’s not that far-fetched to think they could do the same with Arrieta. Who knows they might even get his strikeout numbers back up to where they used to be.