Astros pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training tomorrow. The team\u2019s roster remains jumbled as camp is soon to get underway. They\u2019re still heavily right-handed and have an arguable surplus of infielders with an unimposing outfield mix.<\/p>\n
Trading an infielder, especially Isaac Paredes<\/a>, has been the most speculated avenue to balancing the roster. General manager Dana Brown has repeatedly said the Astros aren\u2019t motivated<\/a> to do so. Brown has pointed to the impact that Paredes had on Houston\u2019s lineup before he suffered a significant hamstring strain midway through his first season with the club. The Astros are only a year removed from acquiring him as an instrumental piece in their return for Kyle Tucker<\/a>, feeling that his pull-heavy approach from the right side would play well with the short left field at Houston\u2019s Daikin Park. That proved to be the case, as Paredes hit 20 homers with a .254\/.352\/.458 slash in 102 games.<\/p>\n Even as team personnel have struck a public tone that they\u2019re happy with their infield depth, it seems they\u2019ve been more on board with the trade route behind the scenes. Chandler Rome of The Athletic reported last week that the Astros were discussing Paredes with upwards of five teams, including the Pirates and Red Sox. Rome wrote in a column at The Athletic<\/a> this morning that they\u2019ve intensified efforts to find a match on the trade front. Houston continues to pursue a left-handed hitting outfielder as part of any potential return, Rome adds.<\/p>\n A handful of recent moves could make that less likely. They reportedly kicked around a three-team framework that would have involved acquiring\u00a0Brendan Donovan<\/a> from St. Louis. That didn\u2019t come to fruition and he\u2019s now a Mariner. The Red Sox have signed Isiah Kiner-Falefa<\/a> and traded for\u00a0Caleb Durbin<\/a> from the Brewers, which seemingly fills out their infield. Pittsburgh signed Marcell Ozuna<\/a> to a $12MM free agent contract to add a right-handed power bat. They\u2019re still looking to upgrade over\u00a0Jared Triolo<\/a> at third base, but it\u2019s unclear<\/a> if they\u2019re interested in accommodating Paredes\u2019 $9.35MM salary.<\/p>\n Speculatively, the Brewers may be the best on-paper fit after the Durbin trade. Milwaukee isn\u2019t likely to part with\u00a0Sal Frelick<\/a>, but center fielder Garrett Mitchell<\/a> or corner bat\u00a0Tyler Black<\/a> are left-handed hitters who could play the outfield in Houston. The Twins have an uncertain corner infield mix and some expendable lefty outfield bats (e.g.\u00a0Matt Wallner<\/a>,\u00a0Trevor Larnach<\/a>). The Guardians have a heavily left-handed first base and outfield mix and desperately need a right-handed power bat. They could offer someone like\u00a0George Valera<\/a> if they\u2019re willing to reinvest any of the money they saved by restructuring\u00a0Jos\u00e9 Ram\u00edrez\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0contract into the 2026 payroll.<\/p>\n The Padres are looking for another corner infielder and could certainly use Paredes at first base, though they don\u2019t have any lefty-hitting outfielders of significance to offer. (Jackson Merrill<\/a> obviously isn\u2019t getting traded.) That\u2019d also be a drawback in talks with Pittsburgh even if they\u2019re willing to take on the money. The Astros aren\u2019t taking the\u00a0Bryan Reynolds<\/a> contract. Pittsburgh probably wouldn\u2019t view Paredes as enough of an upgrade over\u00a0Spencer Horwitz<\/a> to relinquish five years of control on Horwitz even if the Astros felt he could play a reasonable left field. There\u2019s always the possibility of looping in a third team to try to balance value, but the direct trade scenarios involving Paredes are tougher to align than they were a week or two ago.<\/p>\n Trading Paredes would create some payroll flexibility for a Houston team that is right up against a $244MM luxury tax line that ownership seemingly doesn\u2019t want to cross. If they don\u2019t find a trade partner (or anyone willing to pick up a notable portion of the\u00a0Christian Walker<\/a> contract in a salary dump), he\u2019d project as a multi-positional infielder behind Walker,\u00a0Jose Altuve<\/a> and\u00a0Carlos Correa<\/a>.\u00a0Yordan Alvarez<\/a> will get the majority of the at-bats at designated hitter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Astros pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training tomorrow. The team\u2019s roster remains jumbled as camp is soon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":466842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,3971,462,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-466841","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-isaac-paredes","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466841","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=466841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}