The Astros are reportedly in agreement to acquire infielder Ramón Urías from Baltimore. The O’s get minor league pitcher Twine Palmer in return.
Urías has some defensive versatility but figures to play everyday at the hot corner in Houston. The Astros lost Isaac Paredes to a significant hamstring strain a couple weeks ago. USA Today’s Bob Nightengale suggested this morning that season-ending surgery was a possibility. Ari Alexander of KPRC 2 subsequently reported that Paredes is seeking out multiple opinions in hopes of avoiding the knife. In any case, he’s expected to miss at least two months.
Urias, 31, joined the Orioles in a February 2020 waiver claim and found himself getting a decent amount of playing time the following year. In 2022, Urias won the AL Gold Glove at third base despite playing fewer than 800 innings there. He’s led the Orioles in third base innings every year since.
Despite the Gold Glove on his mantle, Urias’ third base defense has been a bit erratic over the years by measure of Statcast Outs Above Average. After subpar marks in 2023 and ’24, he’s back to demonstrating positive defense this year. The defensive runs saved metric backs the fact that Urias has had a resurgence with the leather.
Urias has been a sneaky good hitter at times for Baltimore, showing above average offense 2021, ’22, and ’24. However, after last year’s fine 114 wRC+, Urias has slipped to a 90 mark this year in 290 plate appearances. A right-handed hitter, Urias has a 124 wRC+ against southpaws dating back to 2024.
Given Paredes’ injury, Urias makes for a solid stopgap for the Orioles without the acquisition or financial cost of recently-traded third basemen Eugenio Suarez, Ryan McMahon, and Ke’Bryan Hayes. Urias, who is under the Astros’ control through 2026, will be owed a raise on this year’s $3.15MM salary. The Astros can either move him in the offseason, or work him into the second base picture next year.
Following tonight’s thumping of the Nationals, the Astros sit at 62-47. With 53 games left in the regular season, they’re 4.5 ahead of the Mariners in the AL West. Not long after the Astros picked up Urias, the Mariners landed perhaps the prize of the 2025 trade deadline in Suarez. Suarez had, at the least, been on the Astros’ radar.
The Astros have flirted with big deadline moves as well, having approached the Twins about the possibility of acquiring Carlos Correa and also showing interest in the Padres’ Dylan Cease. Correa was always viewed as unlikely, and perhaps third base is now settled with Urias anyway. But the Astros were known to have been seeking a left-handed bat, with Brandon Lowe said to be one potential target for GM Dana Brown.
Urias is just one of many veterans departing the disappointing Orioles at the trade deadline. They followed the Urias trade by almost immediately shipping Andrew Kittredge to the Cubs, and have also unloaded relievers Seranthony Dominguez, Gregory Soto, and Bryan Baker. The trades of Urias, Kittredge, and Baker suggest Executive Vice President and General Manager Mike Elias is willing to move players under control beyond this year. He’s got plenty of rentals, too. Those still on the trading block include Zach Eflin, Charlie Morton, Tomoyuki Sugano, Cedric Mullins, Ryan O’Hearn, Ramon Laureano, and perhaps Trevor Rogers.
Twine Palmer, a 20-year-old righty, was drafted by the Astros out of Connors State College in Oklahoma in the 19th round last year. Working in A-ball this year, Palmer owns a 2.13 ERA in 13 games, including eight starts. He’s punched out more than a quarter of hitters but has also issued free passes to nearly 13% of them. He boasts a strong groundball rate near 55% and thus has yet to allow a home run.
Palmer was not among the Astros’ top 30 prospects, per Baseball America and MLB.com. FanGraphs ranked him 37th, with James Fegan writing, “A funky reliever is probably all that should be hoped for at this stage, but that’s more than most dare dreaming about in the 19th round.” With all due respect to Palmer, this trade illustrates the point that teams can acquire useful veterans like Urias at the trade deadline without giving up much in the way of prospects.
Jon Heyman of The New York Post first reported that Urías was headed to Houston. Brian McTaggart of MLB.com had Palmer’s inclusion the other way.
Got to love the perseverance of this guy, spent 6 seasons in the Mexican league!
Is that you Tolbert
Nice AI
Well played sir 😂 under the radar major league 1 quote
Bonus one for you guys
Perhaps you don’t want to see the second largest ball of twine on the face of the earth?
Is it only three short hours away?
I’m hungover, you could have at least said you were from the Yankees!
Not a bad player. Astros did well here.
You said the same thing on every post today, just changed the team name. Lol
Mathews Smith a bit much no?
Right handed (they need LEFT handed hitters).
Basically a Dubon clone that doesn’t play OF.
WHY?
Maybe they need some prospects blocked. He’s got a lot of experience doing that.
yes- but really a cheap just good enough big leaguer that has position flexibility to have value off the bench.
Cross off another Suarez destination?
Not so fast
Suarez to the Ms
Urias is a solid role player, hate to see him go but we have so many young position players vying for a chance at the big league level its got to be hard to give everyone consistent reps.
Urias was the best of the scrap heap guys we found during the last rebuild (maybe Ohearn)- so no issue moving him. He is a useful utility guy who plays great defense and takes big league at bats.
Great now go get Luis too
What a great story he is.
Solid pickup by the Astros.
This was unexpected, he’s controlled to 2027 I believe. Moving impending free agents was the main goal I believe, will be interesting to see the return.
Very good defensively and can get fairly warm streaks with the bat from time to time. Overall a solid pick up for Houston.
Wonder why they made this move if he’s controllable. He’s a gold glove infielder in the utility role. Exactly what a team needs. It’s not like Mayo was stealing his time at first. It’s Holiday, Gunnar and Westburg. That’s it
. There are no young guys on the farm for the infield. All the prospects are outfield and catcher.
Hopefully the pitcher in return turns into something
I’m trying to work through the scenarios myself actually. There are no infielders close in the system that would fill a utility role off the bench unless they like Jackson or Vasquez for that spot, which is very possible.
I think it’s way too early to consider T. Palmer a bust or this a bad trade. It’s clearly one for the future but let’s see how the player development and analytics teams work with him. I am sure he’ll develop physically and gain an additional pitch and/or better improvement and movement on his current pitches.
Thats the other thing though in my opinion. Mayo is 1st/3rd, Westy is 2b/3rd. For the time being you also have O’Hearn at DH/1st/OF. Not to mention you have Mountcastle eventually coming back in the near future. It is a lot of time to split between all of those guys. So if you see a good offer for a guy (talented as he is with the glove and solid with the bat as well) that piques your interest, its not a bad idea to make a move. Especially when your pitching staff is all up in the air.
I agree and I’ve never been in the group that opposed trading/packaging Mayo, Heston, Mountcastle etc for pitching.
O’Hearn and Mullins are likely going by the time the dust settles, so hopefully some more pitching comes back.
An idea I had was approaching Athletics about Severino, as he was rumored to be available. He has similar numbers as Eflin, who you are losing via trade or free agency, so why not find his replacement for next season right now. Getting Luis should not be viewed as me saying that should be it. Not close, they need a frontline starter as well. Greyson has serious questions about his availability and health. I think Bradish bounces back fine though. So in this scenario, your rotation for next season is:
1. Frontline acquisition
2. Bradish
3. Greyson, with BIG question marks
4. Rogers
5. Severino
You then have Kremer/Povich/Wells/etc to fill in for injuries (Greyson) and/or competition for rotation and bullpen spots.
That would be a much better rotation than we’ve had all season this year and would be competitive and possibly elite depending on who they acquire and how the others pitch.
Bumping Kremer is disrespectful at this point. That guy is the most dependable pitcher we have. Perfect back of the rotation starter.
I’d rather spend $20MM per on another guy not named Luis Severino.
I mentioned competition for a rotation spot. There is no such thing as disrespect if you get beat out in a competition. It is what it is and in such a situation he would still likely get starts because of injuries anyway, IF he was beaten out of a rotation slot. This is a hypothetical situation anyway but if a team acquired a better pitcher and it bumps someone else from the rotation, that’s part of the game unfortunately.
No no. If wells ever comes back, I hope it’s as the 8th inning guy. We forget he rocked his bullpen roll last time we saw him in the majors. He was a shut down guy. Wells in the 8th, Cano byebye
Offseason needs major signings for the starting rotation and bullpen. Simple. Same needs as last offseason. Grayson is totally unreliable. Kremer is ok. He pitches one good followed by 2 bad. That’s what he is. Need a number 1 or 2 guy.
Bullpen needs another 2 solid guys. Kitterage was solid and had another year with the club option. Don’t know who they got for him. That’s not a trade we were looking forward to.
You need to look at Jeremiah Jackson. 2nd rounder in 2018 as a high schooler, pretty decent everywhere in Angels and Mets system. OPS nearly .900 this year in AA and AAA. Complete backfill for Urias at MLB minimum. Needs to be on the 40 man.
I don’t know if they got enough in return, but has to be scouting. But Jackson slips into the Urias role perfectly.
You’re right.
Jeremiah Jackson was a great Robert Redford film.
Useful player that wont excite anyone. Always wondered what he would do if given more at bats.
Be worse
Very very solid pick up for HOU. Ramon is very underrated — glove is super solid, bat can carry a team for a month. Very solid player. (Plus he got a deep ‘most interesting man’ voice, like a Latin Sam Elliot)
Good luck Ramon, hoping you’d have stayed an Oriole. Thanks for the great play!
His bat isn’t carrying a team anywhere.
His bat can carry a team for a month?? Are you being facetious?
Ramon was actually carrying them for a few weeks before his (leg?) injury last year. Westburg was out with the hand injury and Ramon was the hottest hitter on the team. I recall him having a clutch homer in Dodger stadium. I’m not happy with this trade unless Os potentially get him back next year. Fairly weak return imo. Astros may not need him in 2026?
The good Uriás
Astros are great at adding these underrated, useful utility types that fit their roster construction: Marwin Gonzalez, Luis Valbuena, Tony Kemp, Aledmys Diaz, Mauricio Dubon, now Urias.
Logan Davidson loading…another under the radar UTIL type who they just picked up, switch hitter & former 1st rd pick!
That is not good. We needed a guy that can kill RHP. We already have guys that can play 3rd that don’t hit much. He better be free.
Yeah it’s odd. Houston needs a lefty, and he isn’t a rental so the Orioles woulda been hesitant to move him. My guess is the Orioles had a higher price on him than the soon-to-be Free agents, and Ramon has done a lot for the Orioles over the years. Solid glove and bat, but odd destination in Houston.
Then again, I’ve seldom understood the Astros moves. I guess Mike Elias still knows some folks over there and owes them a favor??~
Oh what the heck, here’s another RH bat – that doesn’t move the needle in the positive direction at all. Yawn.
Sad. Urias was a solid contributor…
Didn’t give up much of anything for him sounds like – Twine Palmer. He’s just here to fill the Isaac void for this year then slides in to a utility role next year. Dubon has been great in that role since coming over from SF and has one more year of control before being a FA. Urias the next Dubon.
Perhaps you don’t want to see the second largest ball of twine on the face of the earth?
Only 4 short hours away
That return is almost zero
Does Twine Palmer crochet on the side with twine and yarn?
Great clubhouse guy. Can really spin a yarn.
I mean we need damn near any potential starting pitching we can get so I can’t hate this lol
Sad we’re having to do this so early considering this should be the golden years but picking up good young hard throwing PITCHERS.
Twine doesn’t throw hard.
The orioles are a team that likes to give up QUALITY for dice roll QUANTITY that never amount to anything. Other teams are paying an arm and a leg for releavers, the orioles are good with accepting anything that walks. Ramon has another year of control and the orioles get themselves 1 dice roll.. good job Baltimore, nice to see you sticking with your strengths
Not going to lie to you, 1 dice roll is probably worth the gamble at this point. The entire state of our pitching staff ( I also refer to them as the injured list) is pretty much in shambles. God bless Urias hes a solid player on both sides of the ball but this team is continuing to draft loads of position players at the top of the drafts. So Ramon was going to get squeezed out eventually. Now whether you could’ve held out for more than Twine is a good point. I probably would’ve taken it closer to the deadline but you don’t know how many teams were in on him either. All in all, its a move that eventually had to be made, its just did you get a good enough return for him?
Maybe trading Jorge Lopez at his peak and getting Canó as a throw in on the deal got them a little big in their britches
Yeah Cano had one amazing year, though hes not looking good nowadays. Jury is still out on Povich. Lopez ain’t looking to great either lol. Trade may in fact end up being a wash for all involved.
I’m not so sold on your argument about quantity over quality with Baltimore. From a position player standpoint they have done extremely well with drafting and developing across all rounds, not simply the round one top ten type picks either. The list of players is pretty good – Adley, Henderson, Cowser, Westburg, Ortiz, Norby, Heston, Stowers, Holiday, etc, with even more coming like Basallo, Bradfield Jr, Honeycutt, etc.
The position players that have come out of Baltimore the past couple of seasons is undoubtedly impressive.
In terms of pitching, that is obviously an area of big concern for the Orioles. When dealing with pitching, quantity over quality is fairly common. You can never have enough pitching and there are only so many elite pitchers out there. Arms are much more volatile than the position players are and teams obviously need to have quality in their system but the more the better so to speak, and when you have limited pitching, as Baltimore does, the best way to fill the void and close the gap is to have numbers, as many pitchers with qualities you covet as possible. I think the Orioles have improved recently (last half season) in general with getting pitching into their system. Just look at their top 30 prospect list now – more pitching than in recent memory. So in terms of arms, yes the quantity over quality seems to apply.
A for Houston. Don’t know anything about Twine but I know you can find them easily.If he becomes something it’s just luck of the draw.
Urias has been an underrated guy the last few years with a great glove who hits league average or better when he gets steady playing time. When his playing time gets spotty he tends to slump.
But a nineteenth round draft choice in single-A in return? That’s it? I didn’t even know they still did 19 rounds.
19th round is almost entirely signability slides. He was a Juco guy who undoubtedly had college offers and got a round 8 or 9 bonus. Given that he’s college junior age and has a 2 ERA, he’s a low floor mid ceiling prospect. A 10 year career as a useful middle reliever is quite reasonable, maybe even beginning in a year.
I hoped for more for Ramon, but Jackson may be better for the money (Jeremiah).
Underrated vintage baseball names in Houston. They had Cy Sneed a while back too.
What type of sociopathy is required to name a child Twine?
True, but they turned down naming him Yarn, Cord, Webbing, or Ball of String
Just in time for a series at Fenway where Urias has raked in his career.
Who knew you could get a 3B for Twine…
Why a right-handed bat?
We just needed another bat to be honest. Don’t care which side of the plate he stands on.
Os are not trading Laureano or Rogers. This is a team that won 192 the last 2 years and but for an unprecedented level of injuries is a playoff contender this year so they are not trading guys that can be impactful next year.
Houston is gonna love Razor Ramon. Just when u think he cant hit he will carry the offense for a week. He is very good at 3rd, smooth handles and accurate throws
Twine Palmer thinks coffee and cherry pie are damn fine.
I’m pretty bummed to see Ramon go, he was a bright spot during the rebuild and has done nothing but steadily produce since he arrived in Baltimore on a waiver claim. Very underrated guy, even by a lot of Orioles fans.
I can’t say I’m thrilled with the return since he could have provided value to next year’s team, but I guess the FO really likes this Palmer kid. He has a good Orioles name at least!
Now we will finally get to see what Ramon can bring in a full time role. Guy has decent power, but hard to get a full time gig in the Os infield
Yeah, that Oriole team is full of all-stars this year….
“Too” should not have a comma before it.