Lance McCullers Jr.’s time in Houston has come to an end. The Astros traded the 32-year-old right-hander, along with left-hander Colton Gordon and cash, to the Milwaukee Brewers on Wednesday in exchange for minor league outfielder Jadyn Fielder, closing the book on a career that spanned McCullers’ entire time in professional baseball.
Houston selected McCullers out of high school with the 41st overall pick in the first round of the 2012 draft, when he was just 18 years old. He grew up in the Astros organization and never pitched professionally for another club until Wednesday’s trade. He debuted in 2015, earned an All-Star selection in 2017, and made five postseason appearances that October as the Astros won their first World Series championship. He was on the mound again in 2022 when the club captured a second title, cementing his place among the pitchers most closely associated with the most successful era in franchise history.
With McCullers’ departure, another chapter of the Astros’ 2017 championship team comes to a close. Only Jose Altuve and Carlos Correa remain from that World Series roster, another reminder that one of the greatest cores in franchise history continues to give way to a new generation. Across parts of eight big league seasons, McCullers finishes his Houston tenure with a career ERA in the high 3.00s and just over 900 strikeouts, numbers built on a curveball that, at its 2017 peak, produced 87 of his 106 strikeouts that season, more than any other AL pitcher recorded on their own curveball that year.
The trade itself carried real emotional weight for a franchise letting go of one of its longest-tenured players. For McCullers, it also meant leaving the only professional organization he’d ever known. Crane asked McCullers to waive the no-trade protection in his contract, and he agreed, telling MLB.com, “It’s a lot to take in, but I’ve been in Houston basically my whole adult life ...” General manager Dana Brown acknowledged the difficulty of the decision, saying the move was about creating roster flexibility rather than any judgment on what McCullers meant to the organization. With Ronel Blanco and Hayden Wesneski both nearing returns from injury, and roster spots for them in short supply, moving McCullers and Gordon gave the front office the flexibility it needed to make room.
Gordon leaves Houston as a lower-profile piece of the deal, but his path through the organization is its own story worth acknowledging. A torn UCL ended his final college season at Central Florida and required Tommy John surgery that spring, and the Astros still used an eighth-round pick on him that summer in the 2021 draft. A month into his rehab in West Palm Beach, with his daily physical therapy typically wrapped up by noon, Gordon got restless and walked into a local pizza shop looking for work, telling The Athletic’s Chandler Rome he wasn’t about to “sit in a hotel room all day and just waste away time.” He also pitched for Team Israel in the 2023 World Baseball Classic. Gordon made his major league debut in 2025 and finishes his Astros tenure with a 6-4 record and 83 strikeouts across parts of two seasons, including a strong recent run at Triple-A Sugar Land, where he’d posted a 3.69 ERA over 13 starts this year before the trade sent him to Milwaukee.
In Jadyn Fielder, Houston adds a different kind of asset entirely: a 21-year-old outfielder with an unmistakable baseball bloodline. Fielder is the son of six-time All-Star Prince Fielder and the grandson of three-time All-Star Cecil Fielder, though he went unselected in the draft and signed with Milwaukee as a free agent in 2024. He’s spent this season in Single-A, where he’s drawn praise for controlling the strike zone well beyond what’s typical for a player his age, and Brown indicated the organization sees him primarily as an outfielder, though he’s logged time at first and second base as well. He’s not the kind of prospect who profiles as an immediate impact bat, but the combination of pedigree and approach at the plate gives Houston a developmental piece worth tracking as it looks to restock a farm system that’s been thin at the upper levels.
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