The Astros have designated right-hander Miguel Díaz for assignment, with Chandler Rome of The Athletic among those to relay the news. This opens up a spot on both the active and 40-man rosters for Blair Henley, who was reported earlier to be getting called up.
Díaz, 29, was just claimed off waivers from the Tigers last week. He made one appearance on Friday, tossing a scoreless inning, and has now been quickly bumped off the roster for Henley. It’s still unclear with Henley is coming up to start for Framber Valdez, but whatever the reason, they need to get Henley on the roster and Díaz is the casualty.
The righty has 127 1/3 innings of big league experience with a 4.81 earned run average. Last year, he spent most of it with the Tigers’ Triple-A club, tossing 57 innings with a 5.05 ERA but better underlying metrics. His 10.2% walk rate was a tad high but he punched out 28.6% of batters faced and got grounders at a 49.3% clip. Were it not for a .340 batting average on balls in play and 59.6% strand rate, far fewer runs would have crossed the plate, which is why his 3.22 FIP was much more pleasant to look at.
He got added to the Tigers’ roster in September and tossed 14 innings at the major league level with an ERA of 0.64. The baseball gods decided to change their treatment of him once he came up to the majors, as his .242 BABIP and 92.3% strand rate were suddenly very fortunate. He obviously wouldn’t be able to sustain that ERA over a large sample but even his 2.04 FIP and 3.46 SIERA suggest he was doing good work on the mound.
The Astros will now have one week to trade Díaz or pass him through waivers. He’s out of options but has been putting up some intriguing numbers of late and could find interest. He came into this year with less than three years of service time and therefore could theoretically be retained through the 2027 season. He has a previous career outright and could reject another such assignment and elect free agency if he were to pass through waivers unclaimed.