Former Milwaukee Brewers closer Josh Hader is currently one of the best relief pitchers in the game. He spent five and a half seasons with the Brew Crew, was traded to the San Diego Padres, and this off-season he signed a five year, $95 million contract with the Houston Astros.
A lot had to go right in order for Josh Hader to sign the largest present day contract for a closer in MLB history. This includes making it through the agitating arbitration years of team control. During that process, with the Brewers, he made a transition to operate as a one inning per outing pitcher. Recently he discussed why.
Josh Hader sheds light on why he transitioned to one inning per outing with the Milwaukee Brewers.
“I was going through the arbitration system, and I was with the Brewers it’s not like the Padres put me through that system, but the system told me that any reliever is valued based on saves. For me, at the time, I was going multiple innings. Maybe from the fourth inning to the seventh (innings), doing two and two thirds save outings and just different things like that. Which I was fine with.
But when I was told to my face that it’s not worth anything and you have to get saves I was like ‘well I’m not gonna blow my arm out if you’re not going to invest in me’. So my response back was ‘well I’ll give you the inning, the saves, we’ll do everything, but you’ve got to put a team and a bullpen around to do that.'”
-Josh Hader
A lost arbitration case entering the 2020 season forced Josh Hader to no longer throw more than one inning at a time.
After winning back-to-back Trevor Hoffman Reliever of the Year awards in 2018 (12 saves) and 2019 (37 saves) Josh Hader lost his arbitration case prior to the 2020 season. He submitted for $6.4 million that year but because he lost his court hearing he was only awarded $4.1 million. Since then he has 193 consecutive games lasting no more than one inning and he went on to collect more than 30 saves each season from 2021 through 2023.
Will Josh Hader continue to only throw one inning at a time with the Houston Astros?
Josh Hader didn’t specifically comment on his role and usage with the Houston Astros, but here is what he said about what would have happened if the Padres made the post season last year.
“I think the biggest thing that a lot of people don’t realize is that once you get to playoffs it’s full game and I was willing to do whatever we needed to do to win.”
-Josh Hader.
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