Houston Astros Boss Once Again Says They Won't be Sellers at Trade Deadline

It sounds like the Houston Astros are taking a hard stance on what they are going to do at the trade deadline this year.

Houston Astros general manager Dana Brown speaks to reporters / Erik Williams-USA TODAY Sports

The Houston Astros have not had the season that everyone expected after they went out and handed Josh Hader a megadeal that pushed them into the luxury tax threshold for only the second time since Jim Crane became the owner.

For the majority of the winter, they weren't expected to do much despite coming one game short of back-to-back World Series appearances.

At the time, it was seen as strange considering there were areas they could have upgraded to assist them in their pursuit of another championship, and ultimately, Crane agreed and gave his front office the green light to add players.

But, sitting 7.5 games back from first place in the AL West and 7.5 from the third Wild Card spot entering play Monday, there is now speculation they might become sellers around the trade deadline, something completely unthinkable during Spring Training.

General manager Dana Brown previously said he didn't envision a scenario where that would happen, and expected the Astros to have a hot stretch of play where they would find themselves in the playoff mix, but that largely hasn't happened.

Even in their current bleak-looking situation, Houston's boss is adamant they're not going to sell off assets ahead of the July deadline.

"I don't see any scenario where we're sellers. I think we're going to be buyers," he said according to Chandler Rome of The Athletic.

In fairness, it's hard to think this championship-winning group won't figure things out at some point and go on a run because they have so much talent across their roster. If they aren't going to sell off someone like Alex Bregman for future assets ahead of him hitting free agency, then it makes sense that they would buy to go all in to try and win their third World Series title.

"I've seen teams blow leads from five games up to seven games up in September. In Atlanta when we won the World Series, we didn't get to .500 until game 100. I don't foresee us being sellers at all. We're going to grind it out. I think we're going to get back to .500 before people know it and we'll be back in the race," Brown added.

That seemingly puts to bed the speculation that they're going to sell, but the fact remains that if they aren't able to get themselves into position for the playoffs, then it seems unwise not to get back much-needed assets at this juncture.

So, with Brown doubling down on his previous statement they're not trading away players, it's up to this team to put themselves in a position to make the playoffs so this decision doesn't harm the franchise for future years.