{"id":14096,"date":"2018-07-26T13:22:43","date_gmt":"2018-07-26T17:22:43","guid":{"rendered":"lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/\/?p=14096"},"modified":"2019-08-14T15:15:39","modified_gmt":"2019-08-14T19:15:39","slug":"martin-maldonado-houston-astros","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2018\/07\/26\/martin-maldonado-houston-astros\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston Astros Receive C Martin Maldonado from Los Angeles Angels"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Houston Astros, searching for catching depth as they make another postseason run, receive catcher <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/maldoma01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Martin Maldonado<\/a> from the Los Angeles Angels for a young prospect, according to Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register.<\/p>\n<p>The 31-year old Maldonado\u00a0is hitting .223\/.284\/.332 with five home runs and 32 RBI&#8217;s for the Angels this season. While it is higher than his career average of .219, Maldonado did win a Gold Glove last year. He has also spent parts of six seasons with the Milwaukee Brewers and the Los Angeles Angels.<\/p>\n<p>The Houston Astros have been one of the worst teams at throwing out runners stealing bases. Currently, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/fantasy\/baseball\/news\/astros-martin-maldonado-shipped-to-houston\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Astros rank 22nd in the MLB with a caught-stealing percentage of 24.6. <\/a>For the season, Maldonando&#8217;s caught-stealing percentage is approximately 37, demonstrating that he will add quality defense behind the plate. His pitch-framing and pitch calling have also been above average.<\/p>\n<p>In return, the Angels are receiving a pitching prospect in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=sandov000pat&amp;utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Patrick Sandoval<\/a>. He was pitching for Houston&#8217;s Single-A club the Quad Cities River Bandits, where he tallied 71 strikeouts, with a 2.49 ERA, 1.06 WHIP, and a 7-1 record. Having a pitcher like Sandoval in the Angels system will be critical as Los Angeles continues to build for the future.<\/p>\n<p>With <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/mccanbr01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Brian McCann<\/a> still on the 10-day DL with a knee injury, the Astros will have an immediate short-term impact at the catching position, with Maldonado splitting the duties with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/stassma01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Max Stassi<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Main Credit Image: <a id=\"Y-6VdOksSo1fZdPzPhZOGw\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1006891636\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'Y-6VdOksSo1fZdPzPhZOGw',sig:'jIgTxvYtj-u2b0N9pHaMqH9G9IEzStuxeHggetVOhTM=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1006891636',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Houston Astros, searching for catching depth as they make another postseason run, receive catcher Martin Maldonado from the Los Angeles Angels for a young prospect, according to Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2640,"featured_media":14100,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"206","footnotes":""},"categories":[14,2886,1071],"tags":[68,246,156,2134,69,49],"class_list":["post-14096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-astros","category-fantasy-baseball","category-mlb","tag-baseball","tag-houston-astros","tag-los-angeles-angels","tag-martin-maldonado","tag-mlb","tag-trade-deadline"],"modified_by":"John Lepore","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2640"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}