MLB Trade Rumors: The Milwaukee Brewers are acquiring pitcher Lance McCullers, Jr., from the Houston Astros, according to Astros beat writer Brian McTaggert.
The 32 year old McCullers has spent his entire career up to now with the Astros, having been drafted with the 41st pick of the 2012 MLB Draft (two picks after the Rangers selected Joey Gallo) and signed to a well-above-slot deal out of Jesuit High School in Tampa, Florida. A consensus top 100 prospect for most of his minor league career, McCullers, the son of former major league pitcher Lance McCullers, was seen as an amateur and early in his professional career as someone with terrific stuff but major questions about his ability to start in the major leagues.
McCullers ended up mostly being a starter in the majors while he was healthy — he has only six major league relief appearances — but he has had huge problems actually staying healthy. He missed all of the 2019, 2023 and 2024 seasons due to injury, and since making it to the majors in 2015, he has made just 148 starts and 6 relief appearances, totaling 813.1 innings pitched.
Just to put McCullers’ durability issues into context, since the start of the 2019 season, McCullers has thrown 359.2 innings over 68 starts and three relief appearances. Jacob deGrom, often pointed to as someone who can’t stay healthy and on the mound, has more than twice as many innings during that time — 742.2 — in 127 starts.
McCullers, who is in the final year of a 5 year, $85 million deal, made 13 starts and three relief appearances in 2025, putting up a 6.51 ERA in 55.1 IP. This year, in eight starts, he has logged 39.1 innings with a 6.86 ERA. He has been on the injured list since mid-May, and is currently on a rehab assignment with AAA Sugar Land, for whom he has made three appearances, the most recent being on July 7.
McCullers has, per McTaggert, a no-trade clause, which he has apparently waived. The Astros would not appear to be sellers — they are just three games back in the American League West and 1.5 games back of the Wild Card. They also just placed Mike Burrows, who has the most starts for the team in 2026, on the injured list — they had initially optioned Burrows to AAA, but had to rescind the option and put him on the major league i.l.
There is no word yet on what Milwaukee is giving up in this deal, but I’m guessing it is minimal. The Astros are just a few million dollars below the Competitive Balance Tax threshold, however, and moving McCullers and his $17 million salary is presumably being done to give them additional flexibility to try to add salary over the next couple of weeks leading up to the trade deadline.
UPDATE — Chandler Rome writes for the Athletic that the Astros have been trying to trade McCullers “for most of the past year,” and that McCullers was part of the package that the Astros were going to send to the Cardinals prior to the 2025 season in a deal for Nolan Arenado that Arenado ended up vetoing.
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