Houston Astros: Team has serious interest in targeting Trevor Bauer

The Houston Astros reportedly have interest in the services of Cleveland Indians pitcher Trevor Bauer before the trade deadline. Can they get a deal done?

Houston Astros fans — we have about three weeks to go before the MLB trade deadline and there’s no question that there will be a plethora of rumors for us to sink our teeth into in regard to guys that will be able to help this team in their second-half push to the finish line.

The team finished the first of the half of the season strong, taking two out of three games in their last series against the Los Angeles Angels. They’ve won seven out of their last eight games, which goes to show that they’re on track to make sure they stay out of the slight funk that they were in within mid-June where they lost seven games in a row, something we haven’t seen in a while.

But as I’ve always said, it’s a long, arduous, 162-game season and crazy things happen that are beyond predictable. It’s baseball folks! Nonetheless, with the Houston Astros instilling a culture of winning, we have become spoiled over the years so a losing streak similar to the one that occurred a few weeks back is strange to us onlookers.

But anyway, it’s no secret that the Houston Astros want to bolster their starting rotation as well as their bullpen. They still don’t have a lefty in their bullpen but they’ve been able to get things done with lefty “specialists” like Will Harris.

The latest word on the street is that the Houston Astros are interested in the services of Trevor Bauer.

How about those apples?

Although he’s an odds-on favorite to end up with the New York Yankees if a deal were done, Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports that the Houston Astros have the most interest among a group of teams that are intrigued with the idea of bringing him into the fold.

The Cleveland Indians are facing the possibility of losing Bauer because his value keeps going up and they fear that they won’t be able to keep him as his salary escalates. He still does have one more round of arbitration left going into 2020. Bauer will make $13 million this season so if the Houston Astros were to land his services, the prorated amount that they’d owe him would be closer to $6.5 million.

Jim Crane has opened his wallet out as of late on the payroll so the team could potentially absorb a future lucrative contract for Bauer if all the right pieces were to fall into place.

That’s a bargain for a talented pitcher such as Bauer.

I’d be damned if this man was actually a member of the Houston Astros. For a guy that continuously went on the record accusing the Houston Astros of cheating with him and Alex Bregman getting into a personal beef, it’s tough to fathom that he’d even want to be here.

But time heals a lot and even though it’s not of the same magnitude, I’d compare it to when the Houston Rockets signed guard Austin Rivers toward the middle of last season, who had a long, drawn-out competitive beef with Chris Paul and James Harden when he was with the Los Angeles Clippers.

They worked their differences out and he’s now on a spanking, brand-new, two-year deal with the Rockets.

The same could happen with Bauer, especially with as much as he could help bolster this starting rotation into the stratosphere.

Would the Houston Astros be willing to flip Kyle Tucker for Bauer? We’re about to find out but J.B.

More from House of Houston

Bukauskas, Freudis Nova and Ronnie Dawson should all be on the table in a potential deal for Bauer.

It has not been as good of a season for Bauer as it was in the last, where he was an All-Star, he has posted an 8-6 record, a 3.61 ERA, while tossing 149 strikeouts and allowing 53 earned runs through 132.0 innings pitched in 20 starts.

His 4.10 FIP and 1.17 WHIP reek of mediocrity but who knows if he were to join the Houston Astros? He may be able to turn those numbers around.

Justin Verlander wasn’t necessarily pitching as hot when the Houston Astros traded for him back in 2017 and you know how that turned out. I think it’s worth trying to bring him in but a Matthew Boyd would likely be less expensive over time than Bauer.

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We’ll have to keep an eye out but I would actually consider this notion of the latest rumor of the Houston Astros pitching pursuits.

Let’s hope for the best — go Houston Astros!

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