Other players the Astros could grab before the trade deadline

The Astros already have had an impressive week heading into Friday afternoon’s trade deadline, bolstering their bullpen by plucking closers from both the Mariners and Marlins.

Even with the additions of Kendall Graveman and Yimi Garcia to the back end of the bullpen, it doesn’t sound like the Astros are necessarily done.

TWO DAYS, TWO TRADES: Astros bullpen gets better after these deals

“We’ve got 44 more hours to go and we’re going to use all of those hours to continue to try to improve the roster,” general manager James Click said Wednesday. “I’m happy with the options that we’ve been able to provide for (manager Dusty Baker) so far, but our job is not done until 3:01 on Friday. We’re going to continue to look for more ways to improve the team.”

The question is: Are the Astros willing to go past the $210 million competitive balance tax for a second year in a row? The penalty for doing so would be a 30 percent tax on all overages, plus the compensation picks you’d get for potentially losing Justin Verlander and Carlos Correa would come after the fourth round instead of after the second round.

So far, only the Yankees and Dodgers are over the luxury tax threshold this season.

If the Astros aren’t worried about those penalties, that really opens things up with the possibilities of adding an ace like Max Scherzer to the front...

source https://www.chron.com/sports/astros/article/Houston-Astros-MLB-baseball-trade-deadline-Kimbrel-16348506.php