What started as a half-joking thought before a podcast segment has turned into a conversation worth taking seriously.
Former MLB infielder Trevor Plouffe was on Talkin’ Baseball with co-host Jake Storiale, floating the idea that the Houston Astros should consider trading Yordan Alvarez. Plouffe admitted that the thought even caught him off guard.
“I started to really think about it,” Plouffe said. “He’s got two more years left after this at $26 million per. You would fetch some prospects or whatever you want.”
It is easy to see why the idea sounds absurd on the surface. Alvarez is posting a .326/.459/.756 slash line with a 1.215 OPS. He leads the league in home runs with 10, RBIs with 25 and total bases with 65 in 24 games this season.
According to Baseball Savant, Alvarez ranks in the 100th percentile in expected weighted on-base average (.553), expected batting average (.370), expected slugging (.866) and batting run value (16).
“This guy is essentially a top-three hitter in all of baseball,” Plouffe said.
That is what makes a hypothetical trade complicated. A player hitting at that level would draw enormous interest at the deadline, and with two years and roughly $52 million remaining on his contract, Alvarez is affordable enough for teams to start getting offers put together to send the Astros way.
The Houston Astros are in last place in the American League West at a 9-15 record. Their 5.93 team ERA ranks last in the majors. Houston missed out on the postseason in 2025 for the first time since 2016, and the roster’s age is not trending in the right direction. Plouffe noted that the reality of the situation is that Houston has not retained top players, letting them go to other teams like Gerrit Cole and George Springer, as well as not developing any young talent ready to make the jump in recent years.
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“They are an older team on the field right now,” he said. “They don’t care about keeping people, they never have.”
Fortunately for Houston, it is still early. The AL West has no clear frontrunner, with just 3 ½ games separating first from last. Houston is not out of the race, and a rebound before the All-Star break is still possible.
However, if Houston is still hovering around .500 in July, the question Plouffe was joking about before a podcast might become the most serious one the front office faces at the deadline.
