The Brewers and Astros have announced the first trade of the season’s unofficial second half, with Houston sending righty Lance McCullers Jr., left-hander Colton Gordon and cash to Milwaukee in exchange for minor league outfielder Jadyn Fielder. The Brewers are reportedly absorbing a bit more than $2MM of the remaining money on McCullers’ underwater contract.
It’s a surprising and out-of-the-blue deal. McCullers hasn’t pitched since May 13 due to a shoulder injury and hasn’t been effective when healthy. He went on a minor league rehab stint on June 25 and has made three solid appearances thus far.
This is surely a salary-motivated move for Houston. McCullers is being paid $17MM in the final season of a five-year, $85MM contract extension, but he hasn’t pitched well since the 2022 season. That contract included a full no-trade clause, but McCullers has already agreed to waive that protection.
McCullers, 32, missed all of 2023-24 due to a flexor tear that required surgery, and he’s posted a 6.65 ERA in 94 2/3 innings dating back to last season. He’s still owed approximately $6.672MM of this year’s $17MM salary. The Brewers, it seems, are taking on around one-third of that sum, which will give the ‘Stros some more financial wiggle room as they gear up to make additions ahead of the Aug. 3 trade deadline.
Prior to a brutal run of injuries that has limited him to 142 1/3 big league innings from 2022-26, McCullers was a vital member of Houston’s pitching staff. From 2015-21, the 2012 No. 41 overall draft pick gave the Astros 671 innings with a 3.57 ERA, a 26.6% strikeout rate, a 9.7% walk rate and a huge 55.5% ground-ball rate. Even in that injury-shortened 2022 season, McCullers posted a 2.27 ERA in 47 2/3 frames (eight starts). He’s been an important postseason contributor, too, as evidenced by the 3.47 ERA he’s compiled in 72 2/3 career playoff innings.
Injuries have been a recurring theme throughout McCullers’ career. He missed the 2019 season due to Tommy John surgery. He didn’t make his 2022 debut until Aug. 13 due to flexor troubles. Renewed flexor issues in 2023 resulted in him opening the season on the injured list end eventually undergoing surgery to repair his right flexor tendon and remove bone spurs from his elbow. Since returning in 2025, he’s sat just 91.4 mph on his sinker — way south of the 94 mph he averaged prior to the onset of his flexor and shoulder woes.
As one would expect, McCullers’ swinging-strike rate and strikeout rate have plummeted. His opponents’ contact rate has improved, as has the quality of said contact. Opposing batters have averaged a gaudy 90.9 mph off the bat with a 50% hard-hit rate dating back to last season. From 2015-22, those numbers sat at a combined 88.8 mph and 35.2%, respectively.
The Brewers, of course, have a reputation as one of the better pitching development organizations in the industry. Milwaukee’s “pitch lab” has helped engineer turnarounds and/or breakouts for hurlers like Quinn Priester, Kyle Harrison, Tobias Myers, Trevor Megill, Joel Payamps, Bryan Hudson and Bryse Wilson upon acquiring them in recent years. They’ll hope to add McCullers to that list of success stories, though the six years of control over Gordon they’re picking up is the more appealing end of the deal for them.
Gordon has only 95 1/3 big league innings to his name — just 9 1/3 of them coming this season. He’s been tagged for an ugly 5.95 ERA in that small sample, fanning a below-average 19.3% of his opponents with an outstanding 5.1% walk rate along the way. Gordon has been far too homer-prone — the short left-field porch at Houston’s Daikin Park isn’t helping him in that regard — despite doing a decent job of avoiding hard contact.
While Gordon’s major league track record is lacking, he’s been quite effective in Triple-A. He’s pitched in parts of four seasons at the top minor league level, turning in a sub-4.00 ERA in each of the past three. Overall, in 285 innings with Houston’s Triple-A affiliate in Sugar Land, Gordon touts a 3.85 ERA, a 21.8% strikeout rate and a 7.5% walk rate. He’s in the second of three minor league option years and can thus be freely shuttled between Milwaukee and Nashville both this year and next.
The 6’4″, 225-pound Gordon was Houston’s eighth-round pick back in 2021. He’s a five-pitch lefty who sits 91.1 mph on his four-seamer, complementing that primary offering with a sinker (averaging 91.4 mph), slider (81.1 mph), changeup (83.8 mph) and curveball (75.5 mph). He’s been hit hard by righties and lefties alike in the majors but has a stronger track record against southpaws in the minors. Back in 2024, he held both righties and lefties to a sub-.700 OPS in 123 1/3 Triple-A frames.
The extent to which Milwaukee can control Gordon will depend on how much time he spends on the big league roster through season’s end. He entered the 2026 campaign with 112 days of major league service and has since tacked on another 14. If he spends 46 more days on the major league roster/injured list, he’d reach one full year of service time and be controllable five more years, through 2031. If Gordon spends 45 days or fewer on the active roster/injured list — there are 74 calendar days left in the regular season — he’d fall shy of one full year and be controlled six full seasons, all the way through 2032.
The acquisitions of McCullers and Gordon come at a time when the Brewers’ rotation has taken some notable hits. The aforementioned Priester recently underwent thoracic outlet surgery and won’t pitch this season. Harrison, whose 2026 breakout mirrored Priester’s 2025 season, was placed on the injured list a week ago and revealed that he’s been experiencing some elbow pain for a few starts beforehand. Brandon Woodruff has been terrific this season but lasted only three starts in his recent return from the injured list before landing on the 60-day IL due to recurring symptoms. He’s made just nine starts overall (albeit with an excellent 2.98 ERA).
That trio of injuries has compromised the Brewers’ major league rotation and minor league depth. Today’s trade figures to help both. At the moment, Milwaukee’s rotation is headlined by NL Cy Young front-runner Jacob Misiorowski, but there’s little certainty thereafter.
Logan Henderson is a top-100 prospect who’s pitched quite well to begin his young career, but he has only 53 2/3 MLB frames under his belt to date. Brandon Sproat is another recent top-100 arm who’s begun to solidify himself after a rocky start to the season. Robert Gasser is yet another formerly touted arm who’s been good more often than not this season. (His 5.24 ERA is skewed by a seven-run hiccup in a July 12 start.) However, he’s also in his first full season back from Tommy John surgery. Fellow lefty Shane Drohan has stepped up in a big way, but the longtime Red Sox farmhand (acquired alongside Harrison in February’s Caleb Durbin trade) is a 27-year-old making his MLB debut this season.
Either Gordon or McCullers — once his rehab is complete — could step into the rotation. It’s also feasible that the Brewers view McCullers as a bullpen option or that they could even cut him entirely, simply using a portion of his contract as a vehicle to facilitate the acquisition of Gordon.
For the Astros, shedding any portion of the McCullers deal is a small victory. As shown in MLBTR’s new Payroll Tracker, Houston’s competitive balance tax obligations sat at $238,329,588 prior to this trade. That placed them just $5.67MM from the luxury tax threshold — a barrier that owner Jim Crane typically prefers to avoid. The Astros have crossed that line under Crane twice in the past, but it’s also frequently been a driving factor behind several notable trades (e.g. the trade of Kyle Tucker) and has unequivocally limited the front office at times while they’ve pursued various needs. Moving McCullers creates a bit more breathing room and also proactively addresses the question of how they’ll address his roster spot when his rehab assignment concludes next week.
They’ll also add the 21-year-old Fielder — the son of Brewers legend Prince Fielder and grandson of three-time All-Star Cecil Fielder. The youngest Fielder went undrafted in 2024 and signed with the Brew Crew as a free agent. He’s spent the 2026 season playing in Low-A, where he’s slashed .233/.415/.398 in 176 plate appearances. Fielder has just three homers in that time, but he’s swiped 10 bags and drawn a walk in a massive 18.8% of his plate appearances. He’s not considered one of the top 30 or so prospects within Milwaukee’s system but brings a long baseball lineage and a (clearly) keen eye at the plate to the lower levels of Houston’s system.
The trade figures to be the first of several for both teams. Houston is looking for a left-handed-hitting outfielder and some help in the bullpen. Milwaukee has been on the hunt for more pitching depth as well as a right-handed bat and potentially some help on the left side of the infield. Both parties have just under three weeks to check those boxes, and today’s unexpected swap serves as a starting point for each.
Brian McTaggart of MLB.com first reported that the two sides were finalizing a trade involving McCullers. The Athletic’s Chandler Rome added that McCullers had formally waived his no-trade clause. Bob Nightengale of USA Today reported that Milwaukee would cover a portion of McCullers’ remaining contract, and Jon Heyman of the New York Post first reported Gordon’s inclusion in the deal. Rome later reported Fielder’s inclusion and ballparked the amount of cash changing hands.