With the Houston Astros planning on making some more moves, the name of George Springer comes up in trade scenarios, particularly when it comes to the Cleveland Indians and Tampa Bay Rays, who have a lot of young pitching talent the Astros might be interested in.
Not that Springer isn’t a good player. The 26 year old hit 16 home runs last season and 36 over the last two seasons, batting .271 in 2015 with an impressive .826 OPS. He plays right field as part of a pretty good corner duo along with Colby Rasmus, with the both of them capable of playing center field. But Spring isn’t the issue is; the disappointing Carlos Gomez is.
With the Astros trying to find a way to bring over Ender Inciarte from the Atlanta Braves, one thing they’re probably going to have to do is move Carlos Gomez, who didn’t play very well in the short time he was with the team, despite the big haul they used to get him. Selling him on a low isn’t a very prudent move, but maybe it won’t be such a big issue if the Astros can add Springer to the deal, a player, as we already said, both the Indians and Rays are looking into. Both the Rays and Indians have fended off a lot of interest from teams regarding their pitchers this offseason.
Gomez was an All-Star in 2013 and 2014, including a couple of Gold Glove awards. But his bat got colder for the Milwaukee Brewers in 2015 and even colder for the Astros. He his .242 with four home runs in his short time with Houston. He has one more year on his deal remaining worth $9 million, which isn’t too bad, but it depends on whether teams feel his time with Houston thus far was just transitional struggles or the beginning of the decline for Gomez.