{"id":10566,"date":"2017-12-13T19:11:17","date_gmt":"2017-12-14T00:11:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/\/?p=10566"},"modified":"2024-12-28T10:45:48","modified_gmt":"2024-12-28T15:45:48","slug":"joe-smith-signs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2017\/12\/13\/joe-smith-signs\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Smith signs with the Houston Astros"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>According to reports, the <a href=\"lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/\/mlb-teams\/houston-astros\/\" target=\"_self\">Houston Astros<\/a> have bolstered their bullpen after\u00a0agreeing with reliever\u00a0<b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=smithjo05,smithjo03&amp;search=Joe+Smith&amp;utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Joe Smith<\/a><\/b> on a two-year contract. The 33-year-old will enter his thirteenth MLB season and will look to eat up innings and maintain leads late in games for his new club. While full financial details have not yet been released, it is expected to be close to a $12 million deal.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Source: Astros in agreement with free agent RHP Joe Smith, pending physical.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/brianmctaggart\/status\/941083140365455360?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">December 13, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Astros offered two years, $12 million to another reliever who&#8217;s since off the board, and I expect Smith deal to be in that range.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/brianmctaggart\/status\/941086039279587328?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">December 13, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h1>Joe Smith signs with the Houston Astros<\/h1>\n<p>Smith split the 2017 season between the <a href=\"lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/\/mlb-teams\/toronto-blue-jays\/\" target=\"_self\">Toronto Blue Jays<\/a> and <a href=\"lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/\/mlb-teams\/cleveland-indians\/\" target=\"_self\">Cleveland Indians<\/a>, where he threw 54.0 innings with 71 strikeouts in 59 games. He did miss a month due to right shoulder inflammation. The Astros will need to approach with caution and not overwork him at the beginning stages of the 2018 season.<\/p>\n<p>He was drafted 94th overall by the <a href=\"lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/\/mlb-teams\/new-york-mets\/\" target=\"_self\">New York Mets<\/a> in 2006. Smith quickly made his MLB debut in April of 2007. Smith has never been a starter in his career\u00a0but does have 30 saves. His best season is also not far removed, coming in 2014. That year he converted on 15 of 19 save opportunities and over 74.2 innings maintained a 1.81 ERA.<\/p>\n<p>Smith has 195 holds over his career and the Astros will likely use him in the seventh or eighth inning, with a potential spot save now and again. His 624.2 innings, 547 K&#8217;s, and 2.97 ERA\u00a0will be a welcomed addition to his new team for the 2018 season as they look to\u00a0defend their World Series Championship.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<br \/>\n<a id=\"5Q7pc9rsTnZ1jsAHo07A1A\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.ca\/detail\/858463408\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'5Q7pc9rsTnZ1jsAHo07A1A',sig:'KPDAXCQqHQeIdDb7u5bcWblPGxA1eUMa3RMeyv_wlxs=',w:'594px',h:'378px',items:'858463408',caption: true ,tld:'ca',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Joe Smith celebrates during game two of the American League Division Series at Progressive Field on October 6, 2017 in Cleveland, Ohio. (photo by Getty Images).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to reports, the Houston Astros have bolstered their bullpen after\u00a0agreeing with reliever\u00a0Joe Smith on a two-year contract. The 33-year-old will enter his thirteenth MLB season and will look to eat up innings and maintain leads late in games for his new club. While full financial details have not yet been released, it is expected [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":534,"featured_media":10610,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14,35],"tags":[68,246,1018,69,2262],"class_list":["post-10566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-astros","category-news","tag-baseball","tag-houston-astros","tag-joe-smith","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-free-agency"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/534"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}