Why the Astros should have these priority trade targets in their sights
Jul 5, 2024, 10:39 am
The Astros need another starting pitcher. Composite Getty Image.
With three and a half weeks to Major League Baseball’s July 30 trade deadline, the Astros’ stampede from 10 games back to within two games of impotent and staggering Seattle in the American League West obviously changes their approach. The Astros were a couple of bad weeks from needing to enter sell mode but that is delightfully completely off the table. As in, gone is any notion of getting what you can for Alex Bregman before losing him for nothing but a compensatory draft pick. General Manager Dana Brown will have failed if he does not add a starting pitcher. Just remember, Brown could fail at the deadline but still have his team win the West or nab a Wild Card spot. Meanwhile, if Mariners’ cheapo ownership doesn’t authorize taking on significant salary for some hitting and/or GM Jerry Dipoto doesn’t acquire same, they should be run out of the Emerald City.
The Astros should be in hard for a decent starter such as Colorado’s Cal Quantrill. Counting on Luis Garcia to come back and pitch very well is hope, not smart expectation. Counting on Lance McCullers to come back at all should probably be regarded as hope, not expectation. Justin Verlander’s status is very up in the air. Unless Spencer Arrighetti’s command makes a sudden leap in quality, he is not a quality starter. Ronel Blanco and Hunter Brown are carrying the rotation. Imagine uttering that sentence in March! Both guys are on course to blow past previous professional highs in innings pitched. Does their excellence hold up? Framber Valdez is yielding too many big innings, but overall remains a critical contributor.
A bunch of other playoff hopefuls have much better farm systems than the Astros and can dangle more highly regarded prospects as trade bait, but we’re not talking about Justin Verlander or Zack Greinke level acquisitions. If the White Sox are to deal Garrett Crochet, who is under team control through 2026, the Astros don’t have the goods to make a winning offer. For the ChiSox’ Erik Fedde? Make an offer and see what happens. Fedde is signed for next year at seven and a half million dollars. I mentioned Quantrill earlier. He makes just over six and a half mil this year and is arbitration eligible for 2025.
Yordan is on fire!
It seemed impossible at the time that Yordan Alvarez mustered just two home runs and four runs batted in for the entire month of May. In June he exceeded those totals on the third, and basically hasn’t stopped pounding away since. In his last 27 games the Cuban Missile Launcher is batting .367, has mashed 10 homers, and driven in 27 runs. That’s easy math to extrapolate over 162 games: 60 homers and 162 runs batted in. Not coincidentally the Astros’ offense has taken off with him. After what he did in Toronto this week it would be understandable if the Blue Jays tried to have Yordan’s passport temporarily voided next season to keep him out of Canada. Having just turned 27 last week, Alvarez is on an early Hall of Fame track. Yet amazingly, in this his fourth full season in the Major Leagues, Aaron Judge has been better than Alvarez in all of them. Of course, Astros fans can giddily taunt Yankees fans by asking “Would you like to compare their postseason performances?”
Speaking of amazing, that fairly summarizes Jose Altuve’s career, which has another banner season in progress and a ninth All-Star selection to show for it. Altuve is within three of the record for most All-Star teams made as a second baseman. Hall of Famers Nellie Fox and Roberto Alomar were each picked 12 times, Joe Morgan and Ryne Sandberg 10. It should be noted that the All-Star game didn’t come into being until 1933, so all-time greats like Rogers Hornsby and Eddie Collins couldn’t rack up selections. Back to Altuve. He last reached 170 hits in a season in his 2017 Most Valuable Player Award campaign. He is on pace for 203 hits this season. Still, Joe Espada needs to be mindful of giving Altuve some days off through the dog days of summer. Somewhat bizarrely, after two strikeouts to go with two hits Thursday, Altuve is on pace to strike out a whopping 137 times this season. Altuve’s career high in strikeouts is 91. I say somewhat bizarrely in that it is explainable. Altuve swings harder much more frequently than he did in his younger days. That brings more swing and miss. Also, at 34 years old while still fabulous, Altuve is more vulnerable to whiffing on breaking balls. Jeff Bagwell’s career-worst strikeout season was 135, Lance Berkman’s 125, Carlos Lee’s 94. It’s a different era.
No Tucker, no problem
Kyle Tucker has now missed more than a month since not suffering “major damage” when he fouled a ball off his right shin. I wouldn’t call the best player on the team being out more than a month “minor damage.” Anyway, it makes the Astros’ offensive surge much more impressive that it has occurred with Tucker not a part of it. The time lost probably cost Tucker a first time selection as an All-Star Game starter. Judge and Juan Soto were two obvious American League outfielder choices. Tucker had been the obvious third, but missing what is now 30 percent of the Astros’ schedule played to date ended that. His overall numbers are still stout enough that Tucker should be named a reserve for a third year in a row, though there is zero chance of him playing in the game. Cleveland’s Steven Kwan has been outstanding and won the vote for the third slot, though he has actually played only 59 games vs. Tucker’s 60. Boston’s Jarren Duran clearly should be the third AL outfield starter.
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Cam Smith’s reaction to making the Astros Opening Day roster is priceless
Mar 25, 2025, 4:16 pm
It’s go time! While the Astros are not the juggernaut they were over the more than half-decade stretch from 2017 through 2022 that yielded regular seasons with 101, 103, 106, and 107 wins, four American League pennants, and two World Series Champions, as the saying goes, they ain’t dead yet. There is no superpower in the American League West the Astros need to overcome. In fact, the American League as a whole is grossly inferior to the National League. As a result, a fifth Astros’ AL title in this era is not some absurd fantasy, though it is certainly unlikely. But winning the pennant is unlikely for every AL team, so if you’re a fan of the Astros there is nothing wrong with a “Why not us?” mentality. On the other hand, the floor for the 2025 Astros is lower going into a season than it has been in almost a decade. The lineup has numerous question marks, and if the terrific trio atop the Astros’ starting rotation (Framber Valdez, Hunter Brown, and Ronel Bronco) runs into injury or performance issues the Astros would have serious problems. That the Texas Rangers and Seattle Mariners both finish ahead of the Astros is clearly plausible. Play ball!
Astros history lives in these moments
It is simple fact that time marches on, but it is still amazing that the Astros are beginning their second quarter-century of play at what for its first two seasons was called Enron Field, then for the past 23 seasons Minute Maid Park, and now Daikin Park. That’s 25 seasons in the books, at least 26 more to come, with the Astros a few years ago having extended their lease through 2050. In non-specific order, I have twenty easily come-to-mind most spine-tingling moments at the ballpark. If you want 25 for 25 years, I leave five more to you.
Not all spine-tinglers on the home field are generated by the home team. Here are three produced by visiting players. In 2001, Barry Bonds smashed his 70th home run of the season to tie Mark McGwire’s single season Major League record. We know what went into the home run numbers of that era, but it was still jaw-dropping stuff. Bonds would finish the season with 73 homers. Game five of the 2005 National League Championship Series, with the Astros one out from winning their first ever pennant, Albert Pujols launched a Brad Lidge hanging slider that might still be airborne if not for the glass wall above the train tracks. It may be the most instantaneous crowd delirium to utter silence moment ever. It turned a 4-2 Astros’ lead into a crushing 5-4 loss. But, the next game Roy Oswalt pitched the Astros to that pennant in St. Louis. Lastly, the second game of the 2013 season, Rangers’ pitcher Yu Darvish retired the first 26 Astro batters before Marwin Gonzalez smacked a ball through Darvish’s legs up the middle for a base hit. Soooooo close to a perfect game. Only 22 perfect games have been thrown in MLB’s modern era (1900-today).
Now to Astro achievements. Fudging a bit by including Roger Clemens since it’s not for one specific moment. But the Rocket’s starts with the Astros were events. Speaking of Hall of Famers, Craig Biggio’s 3000th hit is an obvious list-maker. Jeff Kent is not a Hall of Famer but he was better in the batter’s box than any second baseman elected after Joe Morgan. Kent won game five of the 2004 NLCS with a bottom of the ninth three-run bomb to end what had been a scoreless game. Alas, the Astros would lose the next two games and the series in St. Louis. The crowd went much wilder over Kent’s homer than over Chris Burke’s series-winning homer over the Atlanta Braves in a 2005 NL Division Series. Burke’s homer came in the 18th inning, so sheer exhaustion held down the decibel level a little. A sleeper for the list occurred earlier in that same game, when Brad Ausmus of all people hit a two-out game-tying homer to get the game into extra innings.
Four no-hitters have been thrown by Union Station. Working backwards: Ronel Blanco last season, Framber Valdez in 2023, a combined job started by Aaron Sanchez in 2019, and the first in 2015 by Mike....yes, Fiers.
And now to the grandest home park moments of this Platinum Era in Astros’ history. Carlos Correa authored two of them, each in a game two of the American League Championship Series. In 2017 he doubled home Jose Altuve with the winning run in the bottom of the ninth. That came off of Aroldis Chapman who shall appear once more in this column. In 2019 Correa tied the series at one win apiece with a walk-off homer. Yordan Alvarez also gets a pair of entries. You know, Yordan hit just .192 in the 2022 postseason. But talk about making your hits count. In game one of those playoffs, ALDS vs. Seattle, it was a two-out three-run walk-off blast off of Robbie Ray to give the Astros an 8-7 win. Then in the final game of those playoffs, it was a sixth inning gargantuan three-run launch to dead center turning a 1-0 deficit into a 3-1 lead.
That leaves four moments that are 100 percent non-negotiable entries. While not dramatic (4-0 final score), the payoff warrants inclusion of the Astros winning Game seven of the 2017 ALCS over the Yankees. Similarly, while the moment of victory lacked drama (4-1 final), how could one exclude the Astros winning the World Series on home turf in 2022. Finally, for my money the two most pulsating, goosebump-inducing, viscerally exciting moments at 501 Crawford Street. In one of the most scintillating games ever played in any sport, Alex Bregman’s bottom of the 10th inning single gave the Astros’ their epic 13-12 win over the Dodgers in game five of the 2017 World Series. Then in 2019, Jose Altuve’s game six homer ended the ALCS (I warned you Aroldis).
Here’s to the new season! Join Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and me for the Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast which drops each Monday afternoon, with an additional episode now on Thursday. Click here to catch!
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