Braves Rumors: 3 trade targets from other buyers, 1 team to avoid

Braves Rumors: Astros aren’t a trade deadline buyer who matches with Atlanta

The Houston Astros figure to be one of the biggest players at the trade deadline and, with the club’s reluctance to move away from Martin Maldonado and/or call up Korey Lee to the bigs, there is at least an idea that the Braves could look to the reigning World Series champs to see what they could get in return for Travis d’Arnaud.

Having said that, if the Braves are going to trade away their depth behind Sean Murphy and at the DH with d’Arnaud, they have to be getting something substantial to fill their biggest needs. And therein lies the biggest reason why the Astros just don’t make sense as a trade deadline dance partner for Atlanta.

Houston is perhaps the only team in baseball who has exprienced worse pitching injuries than the Braves this season. Luis Garcia is out for the year after undergoing Tommy John, Luis Urquidy has missed substantial time, and it was recently announced that Lance McCullers Jr. is out for the rest of the 2023 season as well.

Admittedly, the Astros deserve credit for getting it done still with guys like Hunter Brown, J.P. France and others. At the same time, though, these injuries put Houston in position where they don’t have pitching depth that they can really afford to be bargaining with at the trade deadline this year. In fact, they are far more likely to go after a pitcher in a trade than to trade one away.

Subsequently, it’s more likely that Houston actually ends up shopping in the same pools as the Braves are wading in at the deadline than for the two franchises to make a deal with one another. Based on the assets and needs for each club, though, that makes all the sense in the world.