Why Astros should act as sellers to ‘take advantage’ of trade deadline market originally appeared on The Sporting News.
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The Houston Astros are trending towards being sellers this season, though there is a lot of time left between now and the August 3 deadline for the team to turn things around.
While selling would mean admitting the 2026 season is a failure, it might not actually be a bad idea for the Astros to sell some of their players this summer.
Why should the Astros sell? Robert Murray of Fansided.com highlighted why teams, like the Astros, can “take advantage” of the trade deadline market this season that strongly favors selling clubs.
Astros can ‘take advantage’ of trade market at deadline
“The potential sellers – Astros, Red Sox, Tigers, Royals, Angels, Mets, Rockies, and Giants – could take advantage of a limited market,” Murray writes.
For Houston, taking advantage of the trade deadline market favoring selling clubs makes a lot of sense. As Murray writes, “The Astros have desirable trade chips in Christian Walker and Isaac Paredes, though a Yordan Alvarez trade is unimaginable.”
A complete fire sale, parting with Alvarez and Hunter Brown, doesn’t have to be what the Astros do as a franchise. Instead, they can sell some players who are on expiring or close to expiring contracts.
MORE: Tarik Skubal being traded by Tigers would help him in free agency
Paredes and Walker are two obvious trade chips this season, and add in Bryan Abreu and Josh Hader out of the bullpen, and the Astros could fetch some seriously impressive returns this summer in the trade market.
Jeremy Pena, with the Astros and the postseason hero far apart in contract talks, would also make sense to trade this summer for a king’s ransom.
Now, it might not be the most popular decision or the ideal outcome for the Astros to sell this summer. But, if they do, they have the chance to take advantage of this seller’s market and land some strong returns in a few different trades if they choose to sell.
More MLB news:
- 5 reasons to believe in Jordan Walker’s breakout for Cardinals
- Ex-MLB GM projects White Sox to sell at trade deadline despite 2026 success
- Cubs’ cost to trade for Tarik Skubal from Tigers revealed by ex-MLB GM
- Yankees’ Ryan McMahon problem has a $25 million release solution
- Phillies extending Cristopher Sanchez to his $107 million deal was genius
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