Astros, Rockies Bet on Different Kinds of Potential
When you’re a bad team, you might want to sign good free agents to try to get better. A tricky part is getting those good free agents to want to play for your bad team. Teams don’t get much worse than the current Houston Astros, and according to recent reports, they’ve tried with no success to lure quality players from the market. Thankfully for bad teams, free agency isn’t the only way to improve by addition. Players have to play for you if you trade for them, and later on Tuesday, the Astros picked up Dexter Fowler from the Rockies, at the cost of Jordan Lyles and Brandon Barnes. The Rockies will also send a player to be named later, but I doubt that that will be the interesting part.
Immediately, it seems a bit backwards. Some things we know: at present, the Astros are dreadful, far more dreadful than the Rockies are. Fowler is already getting expensive, and he has two remaining years of team control. Lyles is 23, and he has four. Barnes is 27, and he has five. You’d think it would be the Astros trying to acquire longer-term security, but I think this actually makes more sense for Houston than it does for Colorado. Even if the Astros still aren’t close to contending, it’s never a bad idea to add what you think might be undervalued.