Houston Astros 3-Way Deal Hurts the A's in Two Ways
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The Athletics are on the hunt to improve their roster in very specific ways in an effort to move up in the AL West and take down their foes. On Friday morning, both of those goals took a hit with the move that the Houston Astros, Pittsburgh Pirates and Tampa Bay Rays made.
The deal: Brandon Lowe, Jake Magnum, and Mason Montgomery head to the Pirates. Pittsburgh sends righty MIke Burrows to the Astros, and the Rays land top prospects Jacob Melton and Anderson Brito.
The two pieces of this trade that impact the A's are obviously the player that Houston received, Burrows, and the main player in the deal, Lowe.
Lowe had been a rumored target of the A's this winter, and given his relatively inexpensive $11.5 million contract for 2026 before reaching free agency, he seemed like a decent short-term fit for the club. The A's made a four-year, $48 million offer to Ha-Seong Kim before he signed with Atlanta, and that AAV is right in line with what Lowe is set to make.
The one hangup on Lowe is that his defense hasn't been the best, and actually ranked towards, or at the bottom of the league among second basemen. The A's have been seeking to improve their team defense, and that could have been the one stat they couldn't look past in a potential trade.
The two other big options on the trade market for the A's also have their own flaws—just not on the field. Ketel Marte has a five-team no-trade list, and the A's are one of those five teams. That would certainly make acquiring him a bit more difficult.
The other player in Brendan Donovan, a terrific all-around player. The hangup is that the Seattle Mariners and San Francisco Giants are seen as the "frontrunners" in that bidding war.
Astros added a key need
Houston made out well here, adding a solid starter with plenty of team control in Mike Burrows, who is still just 26. He made his MLB debut with the Pirates in 2024, tossing 3 1/3 innings. While he held a 2.70 ERA in that span, his FIP was a ridiculously high 8.57 due to his 3:2 walks to strikeouts ratio.
He bounced back in 2025, racking up 96 innings, holding a 3.94 ERA (4.00 FIP), and his walk rate was a solid 7.7% with a 24.1% strikeout rate to go with it. Burrows is the type of cost-controlled starter that Houston has been after this winter, and he has a good bit of upside.
Burrows certainly makes the team better moving forward, and gives them another solid starter, but at the same time, they're trying to replace the number of terrific innings that Framber Valdez has been providing them since 2021. This past season he went 192 innings and held a 3.66 ERA (3.37 FIP).
Of course, the A's will now have to face Burrows quite often. In his one career outing against the A's at the end of the season, he went a solid four scoreless innings at home against the green and gold, giving up five hits and striking out three.
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Jason has been covering the A’s at various sites for over a decade, and was the original host of the Locked on A’s podcast. He also covers the Stanford Cardinal as they attempt to rebuild numerous programs to prominence.
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