Houston Astros: Jose Quintana trade puts pressure on Astros

The Houston Astros have been in talks for adding another piece to their starting rotation since the Winter Meetings. No moves have been made since then, which isn’t completely surprising. But now the pressure may be on to make a move sooner rather than later.

The Houston Astros are head and shoulders above the rest of the American League, entering today with a double digit lead over…well everyone. But the Chicago Cubs just swooped in and grabbed arguably the top pitcher off the market, leaving the Astros in a tougher spot heading towards the trade deadline.

Seeing what was sent over in the trade, I could potentially have seen the value of sending over our number one and number two prospects, Francis Martes and Kyle Tucker as well as two low level prospects for Quintana’s years of control and overall great track record.

In return for Quintana’s services the Chicago Cubs gave up their top two prospects according to MLB.com, outfielder Eloy Jimenez and pitcher Dylan Cease (Who is leading the Midwest League in K/9), along with two prospects outside their top 30, first baseman Ryan Flete and Matt Rose.

For me, the two untouchables in any trade for the Astros would be Kyle Tucker and Forrest Whitley in our top 10, so I would have balked at giving up Martes and Tucker as did Jeff Luhnow. But now that Quintana is off the market, a lot of leverage just got given to other clubs and the race is now on to go get the next tier of pitching before someone else does.

If Chris Archer were on the market, this wouldn’t be as devastating a blow to the Astros trade deadline potential. But now the options are limited to Sonny Gray, Julio Teheran and Gerrit Cole. All three of those pitchers are certainly bigger question marks than Quintana who, outside of this year was Mr. Consistency with four straight seasons of over 200 innings pitched and an ERA no lower than 3.20 and no higher than 3.51 during that time frame.

He is struggling this year, but his final three starts of June were encouraging before sliding again in his first two starts of July where he gave up three earned runs in each, pitching only 4.1 innngs and 5.1 innings. That said, with Archer not being discussed as an option, Quintana was the best trade target available.

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This trade causes a problem that is three fold for the Astros. One is that the market is now thinner and they have less (and in my opinion lower quality) options. Two is that the asking price for other teams will now be based on this Quintana deal, which was quite a high asking price. Three is that those other teams will have that leverage knowing that the starting pitching market is sparse.

And with the years of cheap control Teheran, Gray, Cole or even the unlikelihood of a Madison Bumgarner or Jacob DeGrom trade would come with, those teams can wait until next year if they don’t like the package that’s offered to them at the moment, meaning the Astros may have to reach a little deeper into theie farm system than they would like if they want to make something happen this year.

Regardless of who the Astros choose to do business with in a deal for another starter, the Chicago Cubs just took away an option and set the market for the rest of the deadline. The one silver lining is that this move could turn the St. Louis Cardinals, who are in the exact same spot record wise and in terms of division and wild card deficit as the Cubs, into sellers if the Cardinals don’t feel like making a deal to keep up in an arms race that would more than likely be limited to trying to get the division crown considering they are 7.5 out of the wild card as opposed to 5.5 out of the division.

Next: Houston Astros: Second half suggestions

The Astros were cruising and going into the All-Star break seemed like they would be able to wait to make a move at least until July 20th to get a feel for where all the sellers were at and view the trade landscape as a whole due to their commanding lead in the AL. The Cubs just threw a wrench in all that with this early move and now it’s time to reassess as the trade landscape has completely changed and the terrain will be difficult to navigate now that quite possibly the top pitcher on the market is gone.

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