{"id":31513,"date":"2025-07-29T09:30:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T09:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/31513\/"},"modified":"2025-07-29T09:30:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T09:30:10","slug":"astros-mets-among-teams-in-the-mix-for-brandon-lowe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/31513\/","title":{"rendered":"Astros, Mets Among Teams In The Mix For Brandon Lowe"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rays are a game above .500 and sit 2.5 back of the AL\u2019s final Wild Card spot. A terrible 6-15 showing in July has dropped them from expected buyers to a bubble team that looks likely to walk the line between adding and trading away veterans. They began that process on Monday, shipping out impending free agent catcher\u00a0Danny Jansen<\/a> in one deal while acquiring a slightly worse but controllable backstop (Nick Fortes<\/a>) in a second trade. They downgraded a bit in the short term to add a superior prospect than the one they surrendered without giving up on the season.<\/p>\n

Trading Jansen is an easier call than it\u2019d be to move either\u00a0Brandon Lowe<\/a> or\u00a0Yandy D\u00edaz<\/a>. They\u2019re longer-tenured members of the organization and more impactful players. The Rays had been reluctant to move D\u00edaz or Lowe for most of this month. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic<\/a> reported over the weekend that the team\u2019s recent play has led the front office to be more open to hearing other teams out on the pair of veteran hitters.<\/p>\n

Joel Sherman of The New York Post<\/a> wrote on Monday that the Rays still prefer to add. That preceded a win over the Yankees in the first of a four-game set in the Bronx that\u2019ll run up to the deadline. The Red Sox are known to be monitoring D\u00edaz in case the Rays sell. Meanwhile, Sherman reports that the Mets and Astros are among the teams that have contacted the Rays about Lowe. He suggests that Houston, in particular, has strong interest in the left-handed hitting second baseman. Astros GM Dana Brown has made no secret about his goal of acquiring a lefty bat to provide a semblance of balance to the game\u2019s most right-handed lineup.<\/p>\n

Lowe is currently on the 10-day injured list with ankle tendinitis. The Rays seem to anticipate he\u2019ll be back when first eligible on Wednesday. Lowe already had a minimal IL stay this month because of oblique tightness. The two-time All-Star has had an impressive year around the recent injuries. He\u2019s batting .269\/.320\/.480 across 350 trips to the plate \u2014 including a massive .296\/.352\/.556 line following a dismal April. His 19 home runs rank second at the position behind\u00a0Ketel Marte\u2019s<\/a>\u00a020.<\/p>\n

Houston could plug Lowe in at the keystone and use\u00a0Jose Altuve<\/a> as a primary designated hitter until\u00a0Yordan Alvarez<\/a> returns from a hand fracture. At that point, Altuve could return to left field and push\u00a0Taylor Trammell<\/a>, who is hitting well in 25 games but has a limited MLB track record, to a fourth outfield role.<\/p>\n

The Mets don\u2019t have a huge need on the dirt, but they\u2019ve reportedly considered moving one of their controllable infielders (Mark Vientos<\/a>,\u00a0Brett Baty<\/a>, Ronny Mauricio<\/a>,\u00a0Luisangel Acu\u00f1a<\/a>) for help elsewhere on the roster. Lowe would be a significant offensive upgrade over Baty, who is playing regularly at second base. It makes sense that the Mets at least gauged the Rays\u2019 asking price, but there\u2019s no indication they\u2019ve made a huge push. President of baseball operations David Stearns has cast the bullpen as his top priority, with secondary interests ranging from the rotation to center field.<\/p>\n

Lowe is playing on a $10.5MM salary, around $3.35MM of which will be owed after the deadline. The Rays can keep him around for another season on an $11.5MM club option. That comes with a $500K buyout.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rays are a game above .500 and sit 2.5 back of the AL\u2019s final Wild Card spot.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31514,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[14098,49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-31513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-brandon-lowe","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}