Winter Meeting Wishlist: What We'd Love to See out of the Houston Astros this Week

Trade for Bryan Reynolds

In a hardly shocking, but still shockwave inducing move, Bryan Reynolds has requested a trade from the Pittsburgh Pirates.

In case you're unfamiliar with Reynolds' game, here are the numbers he put up last season:

This coming in a "down" year. Switch-hitting center fielders with a career .842 OPS don't grow on trees. Ones with three-years of team control are even more rare.

Do the Astros have the farm system to pull off such a move? Who can say. But their last trade with Pittsburgh worked out quite well...

Pittsburgh likely has no interest in moving Reynolds, but they also have a propensity for not paying their stars. With the right offer, he's likely on the move. With the rest of baseball desperate to catch Houston, it would hardly be stunning to see the Mets, Padres, Dodgers or Yankees go all-in to try and land Reynolds. Why not push the chasm even wider?

Reynolds hit .262 with an .807 OPS last season in a lineup offering him virtually no protection. Now imagine slotting him between say Tucker, Alvarez and Bregman. Not that Yordan and Tucker have struggled left-on-left anyways, but opposing managers would be incapable of navigating that lineup late in games with their bullpen.

In landing Reynolds, we'd likely see Chas slide to Left Field, a place where he has seen a decent amount of time. If Houston were to trot out this lineup on Opening Day, it would rival the 2019 lineup as one of the best in MLB History:

1) 2B Jose Altuve
2) CF Bryan Reynolds
3) DH Yordan Alvarez
4) 3B Alex Bregman
5) RF Kyle Tucker
6) 1B Jose Abreu
7) SS Jeremy Peña
8) LF Chas McCormick
9) C Martin Maldonado

Paired with the rotation they'll carry into next year, that team could make a legitimate run at the single-season 116 win record and would have a strong shot at becoming the first repeat champions since 2000.

Is it likely? Probably not. Would it be a dream come true? Absolutely. Hopefully the 'Stros find some time to meet with the Pittsburgh front office this week and bring Reynolds to The H.