5 best trade chips the Astros have going into the trade deadline

Chas McCormick

Astros general manager Dana Brown has already said that he is willing to deal from Houston's major league depth in the outfield to fill other roster needs. While there are less valuable outfielders to the Astros' current roster, we decided to go with Chas McCormick as our major league outfield trade chip of choice for the deadline.

McCormick has been great this season with an .892 OPS and 2.7 rWAR of production. In fact, there is a very strong argument that dealing Jake Meyers and/or Corey Julks would be a much easier short-term loss to absorb. However, McCormick is the kind of big league contributor with multiple years of team control that could help get a big trade done. This is another spot where Houston shouldn't force anything and moving a lesser outfielder would be fine, but being open to move McCormick is a hell of a card to be able to play if Houston is looking to swing big.

Colton Gordon

While teams don't typically like to make huge trades with pitching prospects at the center of them, teams are also always looking to add arms if the price is reasonable and they have some upside. Lefty Colton Gordon is one of the few Houston pitching prospects that actually fits the bill here.

The Astros' 8th round pick from the 2021 MLB Draft has missed bats at a high rate in both of his seasons as a pro. After rocketing through the low minors last season, he has posted a 3.28 ERA with 109 strikeouts in 85 innings this season. He "probably" needs another year in the minor leagues before he is ready for show time, but he could be very appealing to teams that need some pitching help in the relatively near term.

Spencer Arrighetti

Finally, we come to another arm in Spencer Arrighetti and he is an interesting option sitting there at Triple-A. Assuming everything goes according to plan, Arrighetti has the stuff to be a middle of the rotation starter with a plus fastball and plus slider. However, it has been pretty telling that for all of the issues that Houston has had in their rotation, they are looking outside the organization for rotation help instead of giving Arrighetti a look.

The answer there is that Arrighetti simply isn't ready yet. He only has a handful of innings in Triple-A and while the pure stuff is good, there are still some real command issues to iron out. He could be appealing to a team looking for bullpen help in the near-term as his stuff could play up in relief or to a team that can afford to work with him and wait beyond this season for him to develop.

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