I'd be shocked if they traded Paredes. One of the reasons he was targeted is they thought his profile would fit perfectly at Daiken park...and it did With the addition of Correa at 3B it just makes too much sense for them to not trade Walker, both to free up some salary and to open up 1B for Paredes. His bat is just way more valuable, especially at home where so many of our other guys struggle I do think Paredes "could" play 2B, but i'd be real surprised if they go that route. Not only because we would be exchanging a really bad defensive 2B for what would likely be a better, but still bad, one. And the reality is, Altuve is going to play. He may get more days off, but he is going to be a regular. With Yordan healthy (please please) the options for Altuve being in the lineup are really limited.
Walker is not worth $40M/2yrs, which is what remains on his contract. My guess was that if he were a free agent, he’d be looking at something like $24M/2yrs, but nook mentioned the front office expected that his contract is only underwater by ~$10M total. Houston could undoubtedly shed his whole contract, but they’d very likely have to attach a prospect to him.
Anthony Santander and Andrew Benintendi come to mind but neither of their teams are likely to want Walker. Arizona would probably be interested in swapping Walker for Lourdes Gurriel Jr., but I don’t know why Houston would do that.
Jake Cronenworth and Jeff McNeil aren’t necessarily overpaid, but they are 2B on significant contracts on teams that might be willing to talk about taking on Walker. Marcus Semien is overpaid but Texas and Houston would never match up on that kind of trade.
An offense needy team might trade for both Walker/Sanchez and a prospect. I would give up a good prospect like Fluery if that was required to get a deal done.
