Astros rival's offseason off to rough start after key target taken off market

The Houston Astros' offseason is shaping up to be truly fascinating. After most sane people assumed that Alex Bregman was as good as gone due to his perceived asking price and Houston's tight payroll, it now seems like the front office is pushing hard to bring Bregman back. While the ramifications of that pursuit will dominate the Astros-related headlines until his free agency is settled, there are other moving parts this offseason that will impact Houston's 2025 outlook, and a lot of them are completely outside of their control.

For a few years now, it has become clear that one of the biggest dangers to the Astros' AL West dominance has been the Mariners. Seattle has built a legitimately scary pitching staff that would present serious problems for any team in a playoff series.

The only question is whether or not they will ever assemble an offense that can back them up ... at least, before they're forced to trade a starter or two. Tick, tick.

The Mariners' hopes of getting their offense back on track took a hit earlier this month when one of their more popular free agent targets, Brandon Lowe, got his option picked up by the Rays.

Mariners losing out on Brandon Lowe is great news for the Astros in 2025

It is noteworthy on its own that the Rays actually picked up Lowe's option. Not only are the Rays notoriously cheap, but they sold off multiple key pieces of their roster at the trade deadline and didn't exactly look like a team on the cusp of actually contending last year.

Whatever the Rays' rationale may be, this is a real blow to the Mariners' offseason plans. Seattle is currently facing the real possibility of yet another very constrained payroll situation, and they're in need of multiple upgrades on the offensive side of the ball. Lowe had already been connected to the Mariners as a relatively cost effective option to give their offense a boost. While not the biggest name on the market, Lowe does have some power, draws walks, and just put up a more than reasonable .783 OPS in 2024.

For the Astros, they will happily take any setbacks for Seattle this offseason. Houston has their own offseason checklist to work through, and that will determine their fortunes more than anything, but having a key rival with real flaws on their roster suffering a setback already is a stroke of luck they will happily take.

That said, there is still a lot of offseason left. If the Astros come up short in terms of their offseason priorities, or if Seattle exec Jerry Dipoto unexpectedly gets the opportunity to swing a couple big moves (especially at positions where the Mariners and Astros share a need), things could go off the rails for Houston in a hurry.

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