Houston Astros had deal nixed by opposition’s owner at trade deadline
The Houston Astros have received heaps of crap from the baseball media since the close of Monday’s trade deadline, but perhaps it’s not entirely their fault.
Following the conclusion of the non-waiver trade deadline, I wrote about the Houston Astros inactivity at the deadline and was about as negative as this optimist gets. The main point in that article was that the Astros have loads of talent in their system and at some point they aren’t going to have room on their 25-man roster for all of those guys, so they could be lost in one of the annual Rule 5 Drafts. With that being the case, they could either trade some of their highly rated farm players for a big piece that could help, or trade fewer of them, in this case Teoscar Hernandez, in exchange for someone like Francisco Liriano.
Better to make the big move and go for it in a season like the one they’re having now, right?
Well, it turns out that Jeff Luhnow and company were making attempts to make a big deal that would have presumably helped their club but the opposing owner nixed the deal.
#Astros owner Jim Crane just said on @espn975, team had a deal agreed to in principle, physicals were exchanged, then it got vetoed at top.
— Adam Wexler (@AdamJWexler) August 1, 2017
The common understanding from this tweet is that the owner in question is Peter Angelos of the Baltimore Orioles, and the only player that was likely a target that would have a deal nay-ed by said owner would be Zach Britton. While Britton has been injured for much of 2017, missing the last two weeks of April, most of May and all of June, he still could have been a huge addition for a contending club if he returns to his 2016 form over the final two months.
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That said, he has made 20 appearances, totaling 20 innings pitched, and holds a 3.15 ERA with eight saves and a 1.65 WHIP. None of that is nearly as good as what he put up last year (0.54 ERA, 47 saves, 0.84 WHIP), which means that he was likely more affordable than he should have been. With another year until he hits free agency along with Manny Machado, the O’s thinking is likely that they can give this one more run before both presumably depart via free agency.
Then again, Baltimore could end up trading Britton this winter after he rebuilds some value and proves that he’s healthy once more. Who the hell knows with these guys.
All of that said, maybe I was a little harsh on the Astros on Monday. They tried, and with Sonny Gray and Yu Darvish likely the only two other players that could have had a big impact for them this season, and both players residing in the AL West before they were moved, which comes with its own bag of worms, the fact that the Astros didn’t make a deal is more understandable.
To get Darvish or Gray they would have had to trade away a bigger piece of their future than they were comfortable with (Francis Martes?) along with a couple of other top 30 prospects, then potentially face each of them 19 times a year for many years to come.
It should also be noted that the Rangers didn’t necessarily want to make a deal with an in-state and AL West rival, so they contacted the Dodgers and hammered out a deal in 12 minutes.
Brad Hand of San Diego would have been the next logical step after Britton, but it’s not completely outside the realm of possibility–heck it’s more likely–that Padres general manager A.J. Preller had an astronomical asking price and was probably going to try and send over Colin Rea and pass him off as Brad Hand anyway.
Next: Orioles double down on mediocrity
If George Springer, Carlos Correa and Lance McCullers come back from the disabled list and perform like they had been prior to their DL stints, the Astros will still be a force to be reckoned with as they have been all season. But at the same time, the Red Sox, Yankees and Indians have all closed the gap enough to add plenty of intrigue to what was becoming a foregone conclusion.