Astros Trade Nate Pearson To Royals

The Royals announced Wednesday that they’ve acquired right-hander Nate Pearson from the Astros in exchange for minor league righty Max Martin. Houston had designated Pearson for assignment over the weekend. Kansas City designated outfielder Kameron Misner for assignment in order to get Pearson onto the roster (more on that DFA here).

Pearson, 29, was once considered one of the best pitching prospects in the sport — if not the single best. Baseball America and MLB.com both ranked him within the game’s top 10 overall prospects in the 2019-20 offseason. Injuries have waylaid the 2017 first-rounder’s promising career and pushed him into a bullpen role, however.

Originally selected 28th overall by the Blue Jays, Pearson has now pitched in Toronto, Chicago (Cubs) and Houston. Kansas City will be his fourth team. He’s never topped 66 1/3 innings in a big league season and has only 176 2/3 major league frames overall, dating back to his 2020 debut. Pearson owns a career 4.99 ERA, 22.6% strikeout rate, 11.1% walk rate and 36.3% ground-ball rate. He’s playing the current season on a $1.35MM salary and is controllable through the 2027 season via arbitration.

The Astros signed Pearson to that one-year deal early last offseason, with the idea of giving him an opportunity to stretch back out as a starter. Subsequent offseason additions (Tatsuya Imai, Mike Burrows, Ryan Weiss, Kai-Wei Teng, Peter Lambert) and an offseason elbow procedure have led to Pearson being used exclusively in relief, however. He’s pitched 20 innings out of the Houston ‘pen and turned in a 3.60 ERA with a 19% strikeout rate and bloated 14.3% walk rate. He’s still averaging a blazing 97.7 mph on his four-seamer, but Pearson’s strikeout rate and his 9.8% swinging-strike rate are both south of the major league averages (22.1% and 10.8%, respectively).

Pearson gives Kansas City a power arm they can work with for the remainder of the season and possibly into next season. It’s sensible that a club with the third-slowest average fastball out of its bullpen this year would have interest in bringing Pearson into the fold.

In exchange for a low-cost flier on a talented but oft-injured former top prospect, the Royals will part ways with Martin, their 10th-round pick in last year’s draft. The UC Irvine product is a pure bullpen prospect who’s split the season between Low-A and High-A, pitching well at both stops. The 22-year-old has excelled against relatively inexperienced competition, as one would expect from a college arm. He’s tossed 40 1/3 innings and worked to a 2.01 ERA with roughly average strikeout and walk rates (22.6% and 8.2%, respectively) as well as a huge 57% ground-ball rate.

Strong results notwithstanding, Martin didn’t crack Kansas City’s top 30 prospects on the midseason updates at either Baseball America or MLB.com. It’s still a nice bit of business for the Astros to add a 22-year-old bullpen prospect who’s had strong results up through High-A in exchange for a righty they’d already designated for assignment.

For the Astros, they’ll not only add a minor leaguer who’s a bit more promising than most lottery tickets exchanged in DFA trades — they’ll also trim a bit of money from their CBT payroll. It’s not a sizable amount, but Pearson was still owed $479K of this year’s $1.35MM salary. That sum is deducted both from Houston’s actual cash payroll and their luxury tax bill.

As shown in MLBTR’s new Payroll Tracker — available exclusively to Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers — Houston entered Wednesday with an estimated luxury tax payroll of $236,161,196. That places them $7,838,804 away from the $244MM luxury threshold — a barrier that owner Jim Crane typically prefers to avoid. Moving Pearson gives Houston GM Dana Brown a bit more breathing room. It’s not a substantial amount, but any front office leader will take whatever additional wiggle room they can get this time of year.

The Athletic’s Chandler Rome first reported that Pearson was being traded to Kansas City. Anne Rogers of MLB.com broke the news that Martin was headed the other direction.