2106 was not the greatest of seasons for Houston Astros starter Dallas Keuchel. Just a year earlier he was one of the most dominat pitchers in the game and was rewarded with the A.L. Cy Young, but in 2016 Keuchel had an up and down year and was ultimately shut down at the end of the season.
At times Keuchel showed he was that Cy Young level pitcher, but he wasn't able to sustain that same level throughout the year and with weeks left in the regular season, the Astros shut him down in order to give his arm a break.
Now with pitchers and catcher just days away, the question is can Keuchel return back to the ace level starter fans had grown accustomed to seeing the past few seasons?
"He's a good pitcher there is no question about that and even last year he showed it at times," Jeff Luhnow said. "He was dealing with some health issues last year and that's why he got shut down at the end (of the season), he's feeling good, he's feeling confident."
The Astros are hoping that last season was more of a regression to the mean after the unbelievable 2015 had when he posted career numbers everywhere including pitching an extra 32 more innings than he had been used too.
"We saw it with Corey Kluber," Luhnow said drawing a parallel between the Cleveland Indians ace and Keuchel.
What Luhnow is referring to is Kluber's poor 2015 which was sandwiched in between a 2014 Cy Young and a third place finish for the award in 2016.
Kluber, however, wasn't shut down in 2015, like Keuchel was this past season, but the theory by Luhnow is pretty solid.
All signs from 2016 do point towards Keuchel's arm being over taxed, so with the added rest, it's not crazy to think that the breaded lefty can't regain his form.
The Astros don't plan on using Keuchel very much during Spring Training so the guy that will show up opening day should hopefully look a lot closer to the guy he was in 2014-2015 than the guy he was last year.
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