Houston Astros Rumors: Team still interested in Jacob deGrom

The Houston Astros have their sights set on a ton of arms before the trade deadline but there’s one that will take some convincing in order to pry him away.

The Houston Astros have about two and half weeks before the MLB’s ballyhooed trade deadline and don’t expect any fireworks until toward the end. For the 2017 season, the deadline is Monday, July 31 at 3 p.m. CDT. Now that we have that those parameters set, the team must remain patient on any moves as teams now will try to rob our farm in order to ship away a guy that we may want.

I know sometimes we all get impatient, especially with the injuries that occurred with our staff; but amazingly, our guys on the bump remained resilient and A.J. Hinch was able to manage skillfully with the limited resources that were to be had. That is why the team needs to be patient as time goes by and then go for the big swing the day of the deadline.

The Astros are mentioned in just about every rumor dealing with a hot arm as it’s no secret that adding a quality starter to the pitching rotation would be exactly what the team needs to continue their leadership of the AL and to have continued success thereafter, hopefully in competition for a World Series.

An interesting name has repeatedly come up in regard to a possible marriage with the Astros and Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci alluded to that late last month. So who is it? The latest is that the team is still interested in righty Jacob deGrom of the New York Mets. He’s currently the most electrifying pitcher on their roster at this moment but because the Mets aren’t expected to make any hay — they’re 39-47 and 10.5 games back from the NL Wild Card — they could be looking to be sellers at the deadline.

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According to Brooks Baseball, deGrom has some strong stuff and you don’t have to take my word for it. He has fastball that sits at 96 mph, a slider at 90 mph, including a sinker and change-up that’s around the high 80s. He also has a 82-mph curveball. All of his pitches among his repertoire are incredibly deceiving, forcing batters to swing, eventually leading up to strikeouts. He’s had at least 140 strikeouts each season he has been in the majors.

As far as his current deal, deGrom settled with the Mets to avoid arbitration and is currently on a one-year, $4.1 million deal. He still has three years or arb remaining before becoming a free agent in 2021. It’s because of this that the Mets would want to keep him around but if the Astros are able to make an offer their potential trade partner could not refuse, it may be what we’d need to land him.

They’re going to want Francis Martes, Kyle Tucker and Derek Fisher. Certainly if David Paulino did not get his 80-game suspension for violating the league’s policy on performance-enhancing drugs, he’d be dangled too. But if they could take Teoscar Hernandez or Ramon Laureano in place of Tucker and Fisher, I’d do this deal. But we all now the world — especially in the war room of general manager’s offices — doesn’t work that way. I don’t want to give up any of our prospects but I think parting with Martes may not hurt as much as we think rather our other talented outfielders out on the farm. We’ll have to see.

Next: Let's make a run for Sonny Gray

deGrom, 29, holds a 9-3 record, a 3.65 ERA, 130 strikeouts, a 10.5 K/9 and a solid 3.97 FIP/1.22 WHIP through 111.0 innings pitched in 17 starts.

Go Astros.

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