The Houston Astros made the decision to trade Kyle Tucker in his final year of club control, knowing that by keeping him, they likely would've lost him for nothing the following offseason. While that line of thinking makes sense, it's tough for any team that trades a player of Tucker's caliber to win the deal. The deal is only aging worse for Houston now that one of the players the team received in exchange for Tucker, Hayden Wesneski, might be on the Injured List for a while.
The Astros placed Wesneski on the 15-day IL on Friday, just hours before Tucker launched his 10th home run of the year, with right elbow discomfort. An update on Saturday from manager Joe Espada is troublesome, to say the least.
Hayden Wesneski’s MRI showed inflammation in his elbow, Joe Espada said. Espada said “we couldn’t get a good read of what’s going on in there,” so the Astros will “give it a few more days” for the elbow to “calm down” before they can formulate what’s next.
— Chandler Rome (@Chandler_Rome) May 10, 2025
An MRI showed inflammation, but the Astros need to give the elbow time to "calm down" before they can even begin to know what's going on. That feels quite alarming for arguably the best-performing player from the Tucker trade from Houston's perspective.
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Kyle Tucker trade is only more frustrating for Astros fans following alarming Hayden Wesneski injury update
While we don't know what the injury Wesneski is dealing with is, it's hard to envision that an elbow that needs days to calm down just to figure out what's going on will be fine anytime soon. All Astros fans can do at this point is hope for the best.
Any injury is an annoying one, but this one in particular stings because Wesneski was pitching well. Sure, his 4.50 ERA might not be extraordinary, but he had allowed three runs or fewer in each of his first five starts. His sixth start was a rough one, but that was the last start he made before landing on the IL.
Again, winning a trade involving a player like Tucker is tough for any team trading away the superstar to do, but there were high hopes involving the players Houston received. Wesneski was the only player of the trio meeting expectations. All Astros fans can do as long as the right-hander is sidelined is hope that Isaac Paredes and Cam Smith start to step up sooner rather than later.