With Framber Valdez now a free agent and the rotation still smarting from an injury-plagued season, the Astros are known to exploring the market for young, controllable starting pitching. As per The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal, pitchers on Houston’s radar includes the Pirates’ Mike Burrows, and Red Sox left-handers Payton Tolle and Connelly Early.
Adding to the intrigue is Boston’s interest in Astros infielder Isaac Paredes, as Rosenthal writes that the Red Sox view Paredes as a candidate to play third base, or to cover first base if Alex Bregman re-signs with the team. “Bregman still appears to be the Red Sox’s No. 1 target,” according to Rosenthal, but the Sox are casting a wide berth for other infield candidates in the event that Bregman signs elsewhere.
Paredes is projected for a $9.3MM salary via the arbitration process this winter, and he has one further year of arb control remaining as a Super Two player. Between these two years of affordable control, Paredes’ ability to handle either corner infield slot as well as second base, and his potent bat makes him a valuable asset, though he has already been traded four times in his career, including twice within the last 18 months. The Rays dealt Paredes to the Cubs at the 2024 deadline, and Chicago then included Paredes as part of the Kyle Tucker blockbuster last winter.
In his first season in Houston, Paredes spent two months on the injured list due to a severe hamstring strain, but mostly lived up to expectations by hitting .254/.352/.458 with 20 home runs over 438 plate appearances. As such, Astros GM Dana Brown said last month that moving Paredes “would be weakening our lineup. So right now, we have no interest in trading him.”
Of course, the “right now” left the door open, and the lure of one of Boston’s young southpaws could make the Astros more amendable to a trade. Moving Paredes would have the side benefit of clearing some space within the crowded Houston infield, which has Paredes, Christian Walker, Jose Altuve, Jeremy Pena, and Carlos Correa all lined up for four infield positions since the Astros are planning to primarily use Yordan Alvarez as the DH. Dealing Paredes also shaves $9.3MM off of the payroll, freeing up more money for the Astros to address other needs.
Early and Tolle each made their MLB debuts in 2025. A second-round pick in the 2024 draft, Tolle made it to the Show just 13 months after his draft date, thanks to some standout numbers at three different levels of Boston’s farm system. It might have been a bit too much too soon for Tolle, as he posted a 6.06 ERA across his first 16 1/3 innings in the bigs, and the Sox soon transitioned him into a bullpen role both in September and for the Wild Card Series against the Yankees.
Early, a fifth-round pick from the 2023 draft, made the better first impression, delivering a 2.33 ERA, 46.7% grounder rate, 5.1% walk rate, and 36.1% strikeout rate across four starts and 19 1/3 innings. Due in part to a lack of healthy rotation depth, the Red Sox even entrusted Early with the start in the pivotal Game 3 of the Wild Card Series, and the young southpaw was tagged for four runs (three earned) over 3 2/3 innings in a 4-0 New York victory that ended Boston’s season.
The Sox wouldn’t normally have much interest in moving either of these highly-touted young hurlers, and it might still be unlikely that either Tolle or Early are actually dealt. However, the additions of Sonny Gray and Johan Oviedo have added to Boston’s rotation depth, and those two pitchers now look set to join Garrett Crochet and Brayan Bello as the top four in the projected rotation. This leaves Tolle and Early as two of several pitchers (i.e. Kutter Crawford, Patrick Sandoval, Kyle Harrison and more) competing for perhaps just one rotation job.
Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow told the Boston Globe’s Alex Speier and other reporters that the club had indeed received calls about their starters, as “I think teams have recognized that there’s appeal to controllable starting pitching. If there are opportunities to use some of that depth in order to address other areas of the roster, we’d be willing to do it.”
The Red Sox and Pirates lined up on a notable pitching-for-hitting trade earlier this week, as Oviedo was the primary return heading to Boston while the Bucs picked up a promising young outfielder in Jhostynxon Garcia. In the wake of that trade, Rosenthal wrote that Pittsburgh was still willing to discuss trading other starters besides Paul Skenes, and Pirates GM Ben Cherington said the same Monday at the Winter Meetings.
“We’ll have a high bar” for such trades, Cherington told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Colin Beazley and other reporters. “Will more likely consider that if [the return is] something that’s coming back immediately into our lineup. [We’re] also open to adding pitching. We’re not only engaged on position players; we’re talking about adding pitching, too. If we did trade a starter, [it] probably increases the motivation to add back to the pitching also.”
Moving Burrows could therefore be the first step in a chain reaction of moves for the Pirates, who are intent on upgrading their lineup this offseason. This has manifested itself in a surprising pursuit of Kyle Schwarber and interest in other notable free agents and trade targets like Kazuma Okamoto, Ketel Marte, Brendan Donovan, Jorge Polanco, Ryan O’Hearn, and more.
Entering his age-26 season, Burrows still has less than a full year of MLB service time under his belt. The right-hander made his big league debut in the form a single-game cup of coffee in 2024, and then posted a 3.94 ERA over 96 innings with Pittsburgh this year, starting 19 of his 23 appearances. Burrows backed up his ERA with a solid 24.1% strikeout rate and 7.7% walk rate.
Over 291 1/3 innings in the Pirates’ farm system, Burrows had a 3.58 ERA, 27.2% strikeout rate, and 9.18 BB%. He missed big chunks of the 2023-24 seasons while recovering from Tommy John surgery, which is probably why the righty hasn’t gotten as much attention as some of the other top-100 hurlers in the Pirates’ farm system. This could conceivably make Burrows a little more available than the likes of Braxton Ashcraft or Thomas Harrington, though only the Bucs know how they’re internally ranking their various rotation candidates.