The Pirates have a few clear offensive boxes to check this winter: they need right-handed pop, help at third base, and more depth for the bench. On paper, Houston Astros third baseman Isaac Paredes looks like the kind of player who could knock out all three needs in one swing.
That’s why his name keeps coming up. Pittsburgh was tied to Paredes last offseason and again at the 2026 trade deadline, and there’s a case that he could be available once more.
Houston’s infield congestion is expected to return when Carlos Correa comes back from injury in 2027, and the Astros still need pitching badly. Paredes is also entering his final year of team control, which should make him cheaper to pry away than he was a year ago.
The Pirates could try to build a package around a young arm who doesn’t appear likely to crack their rotation, with Hunter Barco or Wilber Dotel as examples. Houston and Pittsburgh already matched up in a deal last year, when the Astros were the third team in the trade that brought Brandon Lowe, Mason Montgomery, and Jake Mangum to the Pirates.
But this isn’t the same setup as before. Houston has a new regime, and there may be some lingering caution after the Mike Burrows experience.
At first glance, Paredes checks a lot of boxes. He bats right-handed.
He hit .262/.360/.447 with 25 homers while playing 138 games at third base in 2026. And if he landed in Pittsburgh, Nick Gonzales could slide into a utility role, where some of his defensive issues would be easier to manage.
But the deeper the fit gets examined, the shakier it looks.
The money is the first problem. Houston holds a $13.35 million option for 2027 on Paredes, and with a projected arbitration salary of $15 million, the Astros would have every reason to pick it up. For Pittsburgh, that creates an awkward question: if the club is trying to re-sign Brandon Lowe, can it really afford to trade for Paredes, give up assets to get him, and then only have him for one season?
That’s not the kind of move that usually pays off. The Pirates would also be surrendering young talent, and ideally they should be using prospects and fringe pieces to land cost-controlled big leaguers who can stick around for more than a year. Paredes doesn’t fit that mold.
There’s also the matter of what kind of hitter he actually is. Paredes has excellent strike-zone control and almost never chases or whiffs.
That has helped him produce strong walk numbers, including a 10.8% walk rate in 2026 and 11% for his career. His on-base skills are real.
The power production is real too, at least on the surface. His 25 homers make him look like a legitimate slugger, and he does one thing elite power hitters tend to do: he pulls the ball in the air.
The league-average pulled air rate was 16.9%. Paredes was nearly double that at 33.5% in 2026.
But the contact quality underneath the home run total tells a different story. His 29.3% hard-hit rate was a 10th-percentile mark.
His 86 miles per hour average exit velocity ranked in the eighth percentile. His 4.8% barrel rate was in the 21st percentile.
That all added up to an expected slugging percentage of just .373.
A big reason the raw power numbers look better than the underlying contact suggests is Houston’s ballpark. The Crawford Boxes gave Paredes a friendly target for the kind of lazy fly balls he can turn into homers.
PNC Park would not be nearly as forgiving. According to Baseball Savant’s Statcast data, Paredes would have hit only 16 home runs in Pittsburgh in 2026.
His 2025 total of 20 would have dropped to 11. Over his career, he has 117 home runs; in a Pirates uniform for all those years, that number would have been 73.
Then there’s the glove. Paredes was a poor defender at third base in 2026, finishing with -7 defensive runs saved and -3 outs above average. For a Pirates team already dealing with defensive issues, adding another shaky glove would be a tough sell.
So while Paredes might look like an easy answer at first, the fit falls apart fast. The Pirates would have to give up talent, take on meaningful salary, and accept a player whose production could shrink in Pittsburgh. That’s a lot to pay for a return that looks far smaller once the details are stripped away.
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