It’s July 8th, and the trade talk that’s simmered for much of the season will soon be at a boil. Others no doubt will talk more about specific players. This post means only to lay out a few principles.
- WHEN POSSIBLE, TRADE FROM STRENGTH (EXCESS DEPTH)
For much of the Luhnow years, the Astros’ strength was the farm system. You could trade Daz Cameron and Jake Rogers to get JV because you had so many other guys. The Astros cannot, to be blunt, trade Hunter Brown. They do have some 40-man crowding, and I could see them trading from their stable of bat-first catchers (Y Diaz, L Berryhill) or from their excess relief corps in Sugar Land (Paredes, Blanco, etc.