As the Astros approach the August 1 trade deadline, speculation about the team’s trading intentions will become more pervasive. Presumably the main motivation will be improving the team’s playoff odds. Sure, issues like future team control—i.e., whether the player is a rental—are important, but that issue enters into the quantifying the trading cost that the team is willing to pay.
Dan Symborski’s recent Fangraphs article discussing the Red Sox’s trading intentions uses an interesting approach to the trade deadline questions. Since this is an Astros’ column, and not a Red Sox site, I’m more interested in how his methodology applies to the Astros.