{"id":836626,"date":"2026-07-31T23:17:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T23:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/836626\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T23:17:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T23:17:08","slug":"astros-showing-interest-in-lars-nootbaar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/836626\/","title":{"rendered":"Astros Showing Interest In Lars Nootbaar"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Astros have interest in Cardinals left fielder\u00a0Lars Nootbaar<\/a>, reports Chandler Rome of The Athletic<\/a>. That\u2019s about as unsurprising a link as there\u2019ll be this summer, as Houston has been searching for a reliable lefty-hitting outfielder for more than a year. GM Dana Brown walked back<\/a> the handedness aspect a little over the weekend but reiterated that they\u2019re looking for an offensive boost from their outfield. There\u2019s a greater supply of lefty bats and many other teams prioritizing<\/a> righty-swinging outfielders, so it\u2019d make more sense for Houston to come away with a left-handed hitter.<\/p>\n

Nootbaar is hitting .241\/.347\/.366 in 45 games since returning from last year\u2019s surgery to address Haglund\u2019s deformities on both heels. He hit very well upon initially being reinstated from the injured list in early June. Nootbaar has had a tough July, including a .195 batting average without a home run in 13 games since the All-Star Break, but his overall slash line is right around league average. He\u2019s typically a solid but not elite hitter whose game is built mostly around a high walk rate and good on-base marks.<\/p>\n

St. Louis is still in a retool and could move Nootbaar to take a late-season look at power-hitting outfield prospect\u00a0Joshua Baez<\/a>. Rome reports that the Cardinals have placed a high asking price that might deter the Astros, but it\u2019s possible that\u2019ll come down in the next few days. Houston doesn\u2019t have a deep farm system but has a couple Top 100 adjacent prospects (Xavier Neyens<\/a> and\u00a0Kevin Alvarez<\/a>) and could market controllable swingman\u00a0AJ Blubaugh<\/a> for help in another area.<\/p>\n

Astros left fielders have been middle of the pack this season offensively, but that\u2019s thanks mostly to\u00a0Yordan Alvarez<\/a> killing the ball in his handful of starts there. They\u2019ve been playing\u00a0Taylor Trammell<\/a>,\u00a0Zach Dezenzo<\/a> and\u00a0LaMonte Wade Jr.<\/a> at the position when Alvarez has been at designated hitter. It\u2019s a clear area for upgrade. Houston also could use a center fielder and should be involved on other outfield trade candidates like\u00a0Jake McCarthy<\/a>,\u00a0Mickey Moniak<\/a> and\u00a0Trevor Larnach <\/a>as well.<\/p>\n

Nootbaar is controllable through next season and playing on a $5.25MM arbitration salary. He\u2019s due around $1.6MM for the rest of the year. As shown on MLBTR\u2019s Payroll Tracker<\/a>, Houston is about $8MM shy of the $244MM luxury tax line. They\u2019re likely to have limited financial flexibility but could certainly fit Nootbaar\u2019s salary into the short-term budget.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Astros have interest in Cardinals left fielder\u00a0Lars Nootbaar, reports Chandler Rome of The Athletic. That\u2019s about as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":836627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,95953,591,85],"class_list":["post-836626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-lars-nootbaar","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836626","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=836626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/836627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=836626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=836626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=836626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}