Houston Astros: Francis Martes and Derek Fisher--building blocks or trade bait?
The Houston Astros went into orbit last night during a nine-run sixth inning, a game in which top prospect Francis Martes made his first big-league start and Derek Fisher, Houston's number nine prospect, went 2-for-3 with a homer in his debut. But are both players long for the best team in baseball?
At 45-22, the Houston Astros are the best team in baseball by a full three and a half games over the Los Angeles Dodgers and Colorado Rockies, who sit tied atop the NL West. With Dallas Keuchel, Lance McCullers and Collin McHugh all on the disabled list, Martes got his shot in the rotation and made it count with five innings of one-run ball in which he gave up just three hits and walked two while striking out seven.
The best part for Astros fans? This performance came against their in-state rivals from Arlington, who, after going 15-4 against the 'Stros last season, the Rangers are just 3-6 as Houston seeks revenge for embarrassing them last year and thereby keeping them out of the postseason.
While the Astros have one of, if not the best team built to be a championship contender, they do have some holes. The one that gets talked about quite frequently is their starting rotation, which, outside of Keuchel and McCullers, is lacking star power. Even without their own Chris Sale-type name, the Astros as a group rank fourth in baseball in starter's ERA at 3.58 behind the Diamondbacks, Cardinals and Dodgers.
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Assuming the health of Keuchel and McCullers, the fight for the last two spots in the team's playoff rotation would seemingly be between McHugh (if healthy), Charlie Morton (5-3, 4.06), Brad Peacock (1-1, 4.37) and Martes. It's not the makings of a super team, and if one of the big guns goes down the team could be in trouble, but when healthy, the team has plenty of solid options for a third or fourth game. Martes probably has the highest upside of that bunch, though he has struggled a bit in his brief time in Triple-A.
Through 32 1/3 innings, Martes holds a 5.29 ERA and a 2.103 WHIP due to his 11.1 hits per nine rate and a 7.8 walks per nine rate. To go with that he was also striking out 10.6 per nine. This is the same guy that just shut down the Rangers on Wednesday night.
As for Fisher, his time in the bigs is likely more of the cup of coffee variety with Josh Reddick hitting the seven-day disabled list leading to his call-up. Even though he impressed in his first game in Houston, the Astros are stacked in the outfield with Reddick, George Springer, Jake Marisnick and Norichika Aoki as the main options with Carlos Beltran, Yuli Gurriel and Teoscar Hernandez as backup plans.
If the Astros were to go after that big trade that all the pundits seem to think they need to make, at least one of these two would have to be included. From the Astros' standpoint, it would be much easier to move Fisher than Martes, due to the amount of depth the team has and the seeming lack of openings in the outfield.
With Martes, he could be a big building block of the rotation down the line as some of their other rotation members begin to age or are lost to injury. A team can never have enough pitching depth after all.
Unless the Astros are acquiring someone of a Sonny Gray, Chris Archer or similar caliber with similar contract status (which is honestly the only kind of player they should target anyway), then there is no way that both players should be moved. Of the two, Fisher would be the one to give up from a Houston standpoint, but that's going to be awfully hard to sell that to an opposing GM who is trying to maximize their return.
