The Astros came into the offseason clearly needing rotation upgrades, due to a variety of injuries and the departure of
Framber Valdez to free agency. Valdez is still unsigned but it always seemed likely that he and the Astros would part ways. That’s seems even more likely now that the Astros have added
Tatsuya Imai,
Mike Burrows and
Ryan Weiss to their starting pitching group. General manager Dana Brown was asked about Valdez in
an appearance on MLB Network and acknowledged that Valdez is still available but also spoke about him as though he’s already gone.
“Well, look, Framber’s still out there,” Brown said. “We don’t know how that’s going to play out. But we know that we had to get some starting pitching. So, we’ve been able to acquire three starters because we know Framber is still on the market. Us getting Mike Burrows is big, and Ryan Weiss, that was also big. So, we added those three guys. When you’re losing Framber — he’s still on the market, he’s out there — but if you don’t get him, of course, you’re losing those innings. So, adding these guys, we feel really good about it. They’re all pretty good competitors as well.”
It’s not especially surprising that things are playing out this way. Valdez is one of the top free agents of this winter’s class. At the beginning of the offseason,
MLBTR predicted him for a $150MM guarantee over five years, $30MM in terms of average annual value. The Astros generally don’t like to spend huge money on pitching. Their franchise record guarantee for a pitcher is the $85MM extension for
Lance McCullers Jr. back in 2021. Back in December, it was
reported that the club had some contact with Valdez’s camp, but that was before the Imai deal.
Beyond their natural aversion to spending on pitchers, the Astros seemingly came into this winter with a tight budget, due to their preference for avoiding the competitive balance tax. They had enough wiggle room to add Imai, but his three-year, $54MM deal comes with an AAV of $18MM. That’s still a decent number but well below the projections for Valdez. Weiss is only guaranteed $2.6MM on a one-year deal. Houston had to give up a couple of notable prospects to get Burrows but he’s still making the league minimum.
RosterResource currently projects the Astros for a CBT number of about $238MM. That puts them about $6MM below next year’s base CBT threshold of $244MM. In recent years, the club’s modus operandi has been to get close to the line without going over, though they ended up surging over the line in each of the past two years.
Going into 2024, they were a bit under the line until
Kendall Graveman required season-ending shoulder surgery in mid-January. Suddenly feeling the bullpen was too weak, Houston signed
Josh Hader and flew over the tax line. In 2025, they were under the tax line for most of the season but then jumped at the chance to pick up
Carlos Correa, going into CBT territory in the process.
Once again, they have positioned themselves just under the tax, though final status isn’t calculated until the end of the season. That means that they could decide to pay the tax once again for the right opportunity.
“Everybody writes that I’m afraid of the luxury tax,” owner Jim Crane said yesterday, as relayed by
Chandler Rome of The Athletic. “I’m not necessarily afraid of it but I run the team like a business and there’s only so much resources you can put into it without going deep in the hole. We don’t operate like a lot of the bigger market teams but you’ve seen over the years we’ll spend the money when we think it’s right and we’ll be aggressive when we have to be.”
Taking the comments of Brown and Crane together, it seems possible that the Astros may have already made their most significant moves of the winter. A few depth transactions would still be likely but the roster might be mostly set. It’s theoretically possible for the Astros to trade an infielder, which would open up a bit of a playing time logjam and also potentially some payroll space, but Brown also downplayed that.
“I think there’s a chance where we can get all of these guys a ton of at-bats,” Brown said in the MLB Network appearance linked above, “whether it’s the DH slot, whether it’s giving some guys some time off. I don’t think all these guys are going to play 162 games, right? You have guys that may play 140 and so there’s going to be some at-bats. It protects you when you want to give guys rest. So, we’re looking at this in many ways. But, you know, we still are listening to other teams. We have teams calling us about some of our players. We’ll still listen.”
The Astros currently have Correa at third,
Jeremy Peña at shortstop,
Jose Altuve at second base and
Christian Walker at first base. That leaves
Isaac Paredes potentially splitting time at the corners with Correa and Walker. He has second base experience but hasn’t played there since 2023. Altuve played some outfield in 2025 but didn’t grade out well there.
Yordan Alvarez should get most of the DH time. He can also play the outfield, where the Astros have
Jake Meyers,
Cam Smith,
Jesús Sánchez,
Zach Cole and
Zach Dezenzo.
Walker is making $20MM annually through 2027. Paredes is projected by
MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz for a $9.3MM salary in his penultimate arbitration season. Given the somewhat crowded infield picture and the tight budget, there’s an argument for the Astros trading someone to free up some cash. However, based on Brown’s comments, it seems the club is leaning towards keeping the whole group and portioning out playing time with some off-days to keep everyone fresh.
Perhaps a trade will come together, given Brown’s admission that they will listen when other teams call. But if the status quo holds, that doesn’t leave much room for any more notable rotation additions, unless the Astros decide to again shoot over the CBT line. Barring that scenario, the Astros will likely open the season with a
six-man rotation consisting of
Hunter Brown, Imai, Burrows, Weiss and
Cristian Javier with guys like
Nate Pearson,
AJ Blubaugh,
Spencer Arrighetti,
Jason Alexander, McCullers and
Miguel Ullola in the mix for starts.
Speaking of Hunter Brown, Dana Brown was asked about the possibility of signing the righty to an extension and GM said they will broach the subject at some point. “We had some discussions with Hunter Brown about two years ago and we expect that to heat up again. Look, he’s got Boras, so it won’t be easy. But at the end of the day, we will definitely talk to Hunter Brown about an extension at some point.”
It was
reported last year that Hunter expressed interest in an extension prior to the 2024 season but talks went nowhere and he lated hired Scott Boras to represent him. Boras clients do sometimes sign extensions but it’s a bit of a rare occurrence, as the GM alluded to.
What also complicates matters is that Brown has taken his performance up quite a bit since then. He posted a 5.09 earned run average in 2023, his first full season in the bigs. He dropped that to 3.49 in 2024 and then 2.43 last year, finishing third in 2025 American League Cy Young voting behind
Tarik Skubal and
Garrett Crochet.
Hunter is now three years from free agency, meaning his earning power could be pushing towards the upper levels of Houston’s comfort zone. The Astros signed Javier to a $64MM extension going into 2023, when he was between three and four years of service. Brown’s demand could be reasonably in that range and would only get higher as he gets closer to free agency. Crochet just set a new bar for guys within two years of the open market, signing a $170MM deal with the Red Sox last winter. Given the gap in those numbers, Houston would surely be wise to get something doon sooner rather than later.
A big extension for Brown has the potential for increasing the club’s CBT number. Even if the deal is structured so that his salary increases gradually over the years, a player’s CBT hit is calculated based on a contract’s average annual value. Perhaps the Astros would like to first sign Hunter to a one-year deal for 2026, where he’s projected for a $5.7MM salary. They could then have the extension start in 2027 so that it doesn’t impact the 2026 CBT. That would increase the CBT hit in future seasons but the McCullers deal is off the books after 2026 and it’s possible Imai will also opt out after one season in Houston, freeing up some future CBT room.
Photo courtesy of Troy Taormina, Imagn Images
