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The Brewers and Astros are Shaping Up to be Perfect Trade Partners
It’s been a while since the Brewers and Astros have connected on a major-league trade, having only made a couple minor deals since 2015. Of course, the big swap they made that year was a doozy.
At that year’s trade deadline, Houston acquired Carlos Gomez and Mike Fiers in exchange for Josh Hader, Adrian Houser, Domingo Santana, and Brett Phillips. Some big parts of baseball history for both teams happened as a result of that deal.
It’s hard to imagine that any current trade between the two sides would have an impact of that magnitude. Regardless, even a lesser trade could help both teams out immensely.
For the Brewers, it appears that if they address any position, it will indeed be third base. While the team’s positional flexibility really could lead them to acquire a player to insert at any of the second base, third base, or shortstop positions and shift the rest of the infield roster around that move, that apparently won’t be the case.
According to Brewers manager Pat Murphy via Todd Rosiak of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the team plans to run back Joey Ortiz at shortstop and Brice Turang at second this spring, leaving the third base equation to be figured out as they go. They did sign Luis Rengifo on Friday, but that’s not the kind of move that will keep them from making another.
And the Astros might be happy to oblige. After making an outfielder swap of Jesus Sanchez for Joey Loperfido on Friday morning, GM Dana Brown says the team is “not done yet” with trades per Chandler Rome, Houston’s beat writer for The Athletic.
Even though Houston hasn’t specifically stated that they continue to target starting pitching, if anyone knows the value of having depth at the position, it’s them. The team used 15 starting pitchers in 2025 and start the year with Ronel Blanco and Hayden Wesneski recovering from Tommy John.
The Brewers understand that pain as well, which is exactly why they stockpiled starters for 2026. They used even more starting pitchers last year, having 17 pitchers toe the mound to kick off a game.