least productive<\/a> in franchise history, conjuring memories of the 2012 and 2013 teams that combined to lose 218 games. Addressing it is general manager Dana Brown\u2019s foremost priority \u2014 and preferably with a left-handed hitter.<\/p>\nThroughout the winter, Brown broadcast the team\u2019s intentions to bolster its outfield, and that desire has not waned. Extracting a .664\u00a0OPS from the position after 85 games has only intensified it. Houston would also like a right-handed reliever to take pressure off Enyel De Los Santos, AJ Blubaugh and Bryan Abreu. It could benefit from adding a durable starter, too, but the team\u2019s lack of prospect capital will make doing all of this difficult.<\/p>\n
Why the AL Wild Card is up for grabs<\/p>\n
Ken Rosenthal and Johnny Sweet<\/p>\n
History says: Jim Crane has cemented himself as one of baseball\u2019s most aggressive owners at the trade deadline, authorizing deals for Carlos Correa, Zack Greinke and Justin Verlander (twice) during the team\u2019s golden era. Expecting anything less feels foolish, but bear in mind that Crane has paid the luxury tax each of the past two seasons. Whether he will want to pay it again is a legitimate question. According to Cot\u2019s Contracts, Houston is $10,126,240 under the first luxury tax threshold, giving Brown some flexibility to find reinforcements.<\/p>\n
What will determine what they do: Both Brown and manager Joe Espada are in the final year of their contracts, making this a make-or-break season for Houston\u2019s baseball braintrust. Barring a total collapse, expect Brown to be aggressive in pursuit of a playoff spot \u2014 and perhaps more job security.<\/p>\n
What should they do: The franchise has been approaching a crossroads for much of the past three years, saddled with an aging core and one of the sport\u2019s worst-rated farm systems. Navigating that requires some nuance, but Brown\u2019s contract status renders most logic moot. He is trying to save his job, so going all-in may be the only path for him to travel. Realistically, though, it may benefit Houston\u2019s future to protect what little prospect capital the club has while making marginal upgrades on a team with too many deficiencies to address at one deadline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"According to their owner, the Houston Astros\u2019 championship window will never close on his watch. The claim creates…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":768003,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,5163,591,85],"class_list":["post-768002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-houston-astros","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=768002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/768003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=768002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=768002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=768002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}