{"id":87825,"date":"2025-08-22T04:04:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T04:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/87825\/"},"modified":"2025-08-22T04:04:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T04:04:13","slug":"astros-sign-craig-kimbrel-to-major-league-contract-will-join-club-on-friday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/87825\/","title":{"rendered":"Astros sign Craig Kimbrel to major-league contract, will join club on Friday"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"082125-craigkimbrel.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Getty Images<\/p>\n

The Houston Astros<\/a> have signed veteran right-handed reliever Craig Kimbrel<\/a> to a major-league contract, ESPN reports<\/a>. MLB.com<\/a> adds that Kimbrel will be joining the club on Friday during their four-game road series against the Orioles<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kimbrel, 37, signed a minor-league deal with the Braves<\/a> back in March but was released in early June after making only one appearance for the big-league club. Since, Kimbrel has pitched in the minors for the Rangers<\/a>, but they released him earlier on Thursday. In a combined 39 innings in the Braves’ and Rangers’ systems this season, Kimbrel has a 3.69 ERA and 51 strikeouts against 21 walks. Kimbrel in 2024 was primarily in the majors with Baltimore, and with them he put up a 5.33 ERA in 52 1\/3 innings while struggling badly with his control.<\/p>\n

\"player<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"team
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Kimbrel, who has 440 saves and will one day be a strong candidate for the Baseball Hall of Fame, was earlier in his career one of the most dominant relievers of the modern era. However, the nine-time All-Star hasn’t been in peak form on a sustained basis in several years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For the Astros, the signing of Kimbrel is in response to the news that lockdown closer Josh Hader<\/a> will likely miss the remainder of the regular season<\/a> because of a shoulder injury. Being that the trade deadline has long passed, Houston’s external options to replace Hader were quite limited. Whether Kimbrel assumes a high-leverage role right away or works lower in the hierarchy is yet to be determined.<\/p>\n

Kimbrel joins a first-place team in Houston, but their lead over the second-place Mariners<\/a> is a slim one at 1 1\/2 games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty Images The Houston Astros have signed veteran right-handed reliever Craig Kimbrel to a major-league contract, ESPN reports.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,51997,1506,462,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-87825","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-craig-kimbrel","11":"tag-houston-astros","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}