WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Nobody outside of Houston paid much attention when the Astros signed Ryan Weiss in December.
A $2.6 million deal for a 29 year old who had never thrown a pitch in the major leagues, coming off two seasons in Korea, barely registered as an offseason footnote.
Weiss has spent all of spring training making that oversight look worse.
A Spring That Demands Attention
Through three Grapefruit League appearances, the 6-foot-4 right-hander from South Elgin, Illinois has been one of the most consistent arms in camp. He opened with 2⅓ scoreless innings against the Mets, followed with two more scoreless frames against Venezuela’s World Baseball Classic squad, striking out three and generating a 47% whiff rate against a lineup that included Ronald Acuña Jr. On Monday against the Cardinals, Weiss added a clean inning with two more strikeouts.
The cumulative line: six innings, one earned run, eleven strikeouts.
Pitching coach Joshua Miller has been direct about what the Astros see.
“We believe Weiss’s stuff will work,” Miller told Space City Home Network recently. “He can be a starting option or pitch in the bullpen. We’ll see how it goes this spring.”
The Stuff Is Real
The stuff is real. Weiss works with a fastball that can touch 97 mph, complemented by a sweeper, changeup, and curveball—the same mix that produced a 16–5 record and a 2.87 ERA across 178⅔ innings for the Hanwha Eagles last season.
Command remains the one variable. Against Venezuela he walked two hitters while posting a 44% zone rate, something that could inflate pitch counts over a longer outing. His appearance against St. Louis was cleaner.
A Complicated Roster Picture
The roster math is complicated.
With Houston considering a six-man rotation and pitchers such as Lance McCullers Jr., Cristian Javier, Spencer Arrighetti, Hunter Brown, Tatsuya Imai, and Mike Burrows competing for innings, Weiss has often been projected as a long reliever, a multi-inning option capable of absorbing innings and protecting the bullpen.
He also has two minor league options remaining, giving the front office flexibility.
But the numbers he’s posted this spring have made the conversation more interesting.
The Long Road Back
Weiss’s path to this moment was anything but direct. Drafted by Arizona out of Wright State in 2018, he spent years grinding through the minors without breaking through before eventually taking his career overseas. Stints in the Atlantic League and Taiwan preceded his move to Korea, where he remade himself into one of the KBO’s top starters.
Along the way he even became something of a celebrity. Weiss and his wife Hayley, a Houston native, appeared on a Korean television show and developed a following there. The couple is expecting their first child in 2026, and they brought a Korean barbecue grill back with them when they returned to the United States.
He is not, by any measure, satisfied simply reaching this point.
“It’s more of a ready-to-go mindset,” Weiss said in February. “I am happy to be here, but that only goes so far. My goal is to go deep into games and provide length.”
Whether that opportunity comes in the rotation or out of the bullpen, the Astros appear to have found something in the pitcher the rest of baseball largely ignored.
Spring training is nearing its end.
Weiss has made sure he isn’t being ignored anymore.
