Houston Astros infielder Mauricio Dubon, a two-time Gold Glove Award winner, has been traded to the Atlanta Braves for Nick Allen.
Brian McTaggart of MLB.com was the first to report the trade.
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The trade immediately firms up the Braves’ shortstop picture, as the team was set to lose Ha-Seong Kim to free agency. Dubon won the AL Gold Glove Award for utility players in 2023 and 2025, after helping the Astros win the 2022 World Series.
Dubon, 31, made only 33 appearances at shortstop in 2025 among 133 games total. Yet the veteran ranked seventh in MLB in Outs Above Average at the position, and led all MLB shortstops with at least 50 attempts at the position in success rate added.
For the Astros, swapping Allen for Dubon helps the team free up space beneath MLB’s competitive balance tax threshold after the team ran a $232.1 payroll in 2025, per Spotrac.
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Dubon, 31, is in his final year of arbitration eligibility this offseason; Allen is in his first.
As noted by Chandler Rome of The Athletic, Allen is projected to make $1.5 million in 2026, while Dubon is projected to make $5.8 million.
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Astros shortstop Carlos Correa, a three-time All-Star, has three years left on the guaranteed contract he signed with the Minnesota Twins in January 2023. His lengthy injury history — Correa has played more than 140 games in a season only twice in nine non-pandemic seasons — made Dubon a luxury as a backup. The trade suggests he became a luxury the Astros were unwilling or unable to afford.
Allen, 27, is a career .213/.265/.272 hitter in 382 major league games with the Oakland A’s (2022-24) and Braves (2025).
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As a hitter, Dubon lacks pop (39 home runs in 664 career games) but offers a penchant for making contact. His 11.7 percent strikeout rate since the start of the 2024 season is the seventh-lowest among all hitters with at least 800 plate appearances the last two seasons.
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