3 ways the Lucas Giolito trade just complicated the Astros' trade deadline plans

The price the Astros will have to pay for rentals just went up

Normally, pending free agents are among the cheaper types of players to acquire at the trade deadline. They only come with a couple months of team control and unless they are good enough to be considered for a qualifying offer at the end of the year, selling teams have little leverage because they risk getting nothing out of them once they hit free agency.

However, the Angels adding Giolito and Lopez (who are both rentals) at the price they did changes things. While farm system rankings are very subjective and the Angels' system isn't great, they did still trade two very decent prospects in Edgar Quero and Ky Bush in the deal. Quero is a switch-hitting catcher who can hit with some pop and has real defensive upside. Bush has struggled a bit this season, but he is still a lefty with a very solid fastball/slider mix who was a second round pick just a couple years ago.

If one takes a look at the trade market this year ($), the market is made up most of pending free agents from a few sellers with few options for teams looking for guys with some team control. Normally, this would be fine for a team like the Astros who are mostly looking for short-term roster reinforcements.

However, the price for most of those players just went up after last night's deal. The few true sellers at the deadline this year are going to point to what the White Sox received and will want to get comparable value for their better rentals.

While this doesn't mean that Houston is going to trade half their farm system to make moves as sellers aren't likely to be completely insane, a certain amount of trade inflation should be expected and that isn't ideal.