The Oakland Athletics let infielder Jed Lowrie walk in free agency one year ago, but the team realized its mistake and made amends.
The Astros confirmed they shipped pitcher Brendan McCurry to the Athletics in return for Lowrie on Wednesday. MLB.com’s Jane Lee first reported the deal.
“I’m disappointed to leave Houston,” Lowrie said after the deal, via Brian McTaggart of MLB.com. “I think the Astros are obviously a team headed in right direction.”
The utility man signed a three-year, $23 million deal with the Astros last winter. As a result, he’s slated to make $7.5 million next season before earning $6.5 million in 2017, per Spotrac. Lowrie also has a club option worth $6 million that triggers at the team’s discretion in 2018.
“I signed the three-year deal here thinking I’d be here for those three years,” Lowrie said, via McTaggart.
The move is a logical one on the surface for an Oakland team in need of infield depth, as Lee noted:
Last season, Lowrie batted .222 with a .312 on-base percentage while totaling nine home runs and 30 RBI. According to Baseball-Reference.com, Lowrie played 381.1 innings at third base and 153 innings at shortstop in his return to the Astros.
However, Lowrie dealt with a thumb injury that forced him to miss three months spanning late April to late July. Combined with Carlos Correa’s astounding rookie campaign, Lowrie evidently became an expendable piece of Houston’s title-contending puzzle.
Lowrie was traded from the Astros to the A’s once before in early 2013, so this is hardly uncharted territory for the eighth-year veteran.
Now back in the Bay Area, Lowrie will attempt to stabilize an Oakland defense that committed an MLB-worst 126 errors and posted a .979 fielding percentage—six points below the MLB average.
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