The Major League Baseball trade deadline has come and gone. This past Monday, August 3, at 5 p.m. Houston time, the sand ran out of the hourglass, and aside via a team’s minor league system, as of that time, there is no help coming through that door.
Despite rampant efforts to fortify their pitching staff at the eleventh hour, Astros general manager Dana Brown was unable to pull off any deals bringing an incoming pitcher. Quite the contrary actually, as they sent a starting pitcher, Spencer Arrighetti, to the Blue Jays to finally get that left handed outfield bat they’ve been seeking in Daulton Varsho.
Varsho was immediately inserted into the clean up spot in the starting lineup on Monday against his former team. He will be their regular center fielder. Meanwhile, Arrighetti is in the midst of one of the more bizarre seasons we’ve seen an Astro have, as he was literally named the best pitcher in the league for the month of May, and now finds himself discarded for a rental outfielder.
This continues the trend under Jim Crane’s ownership in which the Astros make at least one trade every deadline week, since 2015. Unless Varsho goes on a heater that leads to a World Series run, I doubt this season’s deadline will be viewed as one of the more impactful in team history. With that in mind, here is that exact list — the most historically significant deadline deals made since 2015:
5. (tie) RYAN PRESSLY (MIN) for Jorge Alcala, Gilberto Celestino, 2018
5. (tie) ROBERTO OSUNA (TOR) for Ken Giles, David Paulino, Hector Perez, 2018
These two trades were made within three days of each other, and I feel it’s appropriate to cite them in the same bullet point, because of how interconnected they are. Pressly and Osuna were acquired to handle the eighth and ninth innings, respectively. Osuna was a controversial pickup, because he was coming off a 75-game suspension for domestic violence. The fan base was split on this acquisition, to put it lightly. The irony is that Pressly ended up being the team’s best closer in postseason history over the next five seasons.
4. ZACH GRIENKE (ARZ) for Seth Beer, J.B. Bukauskas, Corbin Martin, Josh Rojas, 2019
This move was the “chef’s kiss” finishing touch on the best roster assembled in Astros history, and was reportedly pushed heavily for by owner Jim Crane. This move gave the Astros two undoubted Hall of Famers, to go along with Gerrit Cole, at the top of a rotation that should have been the linchpin of a World Series title team. Alas, despite winning 107 games in the regular season, the 2019 Astros couldn’t win one freaking home game against the Washington Nationals in the World Series. Ugh. Let’s move on.
3. CARLOS GOMEZ and MIKE FIERS (MIL) for Josh Hader, Domingo Santana, Brett Phillips, Adrian Houser, 2015
This was what I call the “Donnie Brasco” trade, where the mob family unwittingly welcomed in a mole. In the Brasco movie, Johnny Depp is an FBI agent that manages to infiltrate the New York mob and get a bunch of them sent to prison. This trade brought in Mike Fiers, who would eventually, four years later, rat out the entire 2017 Astros organization for illegally stealing signs. If there is no Fiers trade, then there is no Fiers as an Astro, and who knows how long the Golden Era keeps going, since the scandal necessitated the dismissals of A.J. Hinch and Jeff Luhnow. I say UGH again! Let’s move on!
2. YORDAN ALVAREZ (LAD) for Josh Fields, 2016
Ah, this trade is a nice safe place. The only “seller” trade made by the Astros during that entire era, and this one worked out pretty well. In what was practically an homage to the 1990 trade of reliever Larry Andersen for Jeff Bagwell, the Astros fleeced the Dodgers of the greatest hitter in 2026 baseball. This trade is made even more lopsided when you factor in that Fields allowed two home runs in extra innings to the Astros in Game 2 of the 2017 World Series.
1. JUSTIN VERLANDER (DET) for Franklin Perez, Daz Cameron, Jake Roger, 2017
This deal got done at the eleventh hour back in 2017, and to me, is the most historically significant trade in franchise history, considering the acquisition of Verlander led to two World Series title, including one just weeks after he arrived. Two important things about this trade — first, it took place right after Hurricane Harvey had ravaged our city. We needed this. Second, Verlander’s waiving his “no trade” clause to essentially rubber stamp Houston as a title destination was validation of everything Crane and Luhnow had done to rebuild the organization from the ashes of 2011 through 2013.
