The Astros Ideal Lineup Post Trade Deadline

José Abreu, Jeremy Peña and Martín Maldonado should bat 7-8-9.

As deep as 1-6 can be in the Astros lineup, they're holding on for dear life in spots 7-9.

The José Abreu mini resurgence in June was fun while it lasted. Over the last 28 days, he's hitting .238 with a .685 OPS. Over the last two weeks, he's hitting .195 with a .608 OPS. He simply has to move down in the order. He cannot continue to hit above some combination of Yainer Diaz and Chas McCormick, or in some cases, both of them.

For as much as we've heard about the back of his baseball card, he's produced like a bottom of the order player for the overwhelming majority of the season. There's an incredibly compelling case to be made for a timeshare with Yainer Diaz, and maybe even Jon Singleton if he produces with the big league club.

But again, that just won't happen. So for now, he moves down the 7th.

Jeremy Peña should hit 8th. The only reason he wouldn't hit 9th is Maldy. Peña is hitting .239 with a .668 OPS. Over the last 28 days, those numbers fall to .210 and .544.

And while a very small sample size (19 at-bats), he does have a .316 average and .855 OPS when batting 8th. He just can't continue getting more at-bats than Yordan, Tucker, Bregman, Diaz and Chas.

The Cinderella story from the 2-hole last year was great, but he simply has to move down.

And Martín Maldonado bats 9th. In an ideal world, he only starts twice a week (Framber and JV) and Jake Meyers is the 9-hitter, but seeing as that isn't even a remote possibility, we'll slot him here 9th.