Astros insider just put blame for collapse on team's ‘unproductive’ trade deadline

Whenever any team collapses like the Houston Astros have in the second half of 2025, everyone is quick to try to assign blame. Christian Walker is a popular target for his lackluster season, as is the front office for signing him. Yordan Alvarez's injuries have certainly played a role, and it certainly hasn't helped matters that Houston's pitching staff has been ravaged by injuries. However, at least one Astros beat writer has a slightly different take as to the cause of this nightmarish stretch of baseball.

The trade deadline is supposed to be the time when contenders go out and make the moves that will propel them into the postseason. At the time, the Astros were highly lauded for the moves they made to acquire Jesus Sanchez, Ramon Urias, and especially their reunion with Carlos Correa. For a team that needed to give its lineup a boost, Houston seemingly overachieved in fulfilling that goal.

Unfortunately, that is not how things have turned out, and The Athletic's Astros beat writer Chandler Rome just made a compelling case for the trade deadline's failures being a primary cause for Houston's misfortune lately.

Chandler Rome just made the case that the Astros' screwing up at the trade deadline explains some of their collapse

In all honesty, Rome does have a really good point. No one, including Rome, is arguing that Correa has been a letdown. In 210 plate appearances after the trade as of September 25, Correa has slashed .286/.348/.427 with six homers. Perhaps not overwhelming power numbers like some fans hoped for, but Correa has still been one of the Astros' better hitters since he returned.

As for the other moves, the results have been significantly worse. Urias has been next to useless since the deadline, and with Mauricio Dubon around filling a very similar role, Urias hasn't even been on the field at all over the last couple of weeks. As for Sanchez, he has been so bad that there is a very real chance that the Astros cut their losses completely with Sanchez at the start of the offseason.

Given what has transpired since the trade deadline, Rome calling their trade deadline "unproductive" was spot on and may be putting things nicely. Instead of defending their lead in the division, the offense performed far worse after the deadline, and Houston's lack of pitching depth got exploited by more injuries and a lack of deadline reinforcements. There is no one single cause for stretches like the one the Astros are experiencing right now, but the Astros' trade deadline moves mostly falling flat is a big one.

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