This is what's off-season plan. Trade Yordan. To replenish the farm system and make way for Altuve as the dh long term. Yordan is a great hitter, but he has limited value as a fielder and so it makes the lineup less flexible. This probably won't happen but I'd be on board with it. Get rid of Lance injury waiting to happen. Trade Walker, salary dump. Fire espada. He really hasn't done much wrong, but we need a fresh perspective. Make sure we find a high value left handed bat, a young talented 2nd baseman, keep Jake Myers (I think he is way undervalued), find a young talented left fielder. Find a number 2 arm behind hunter brown. And some more bull pen depth.
I hope Brown replaces Espada with a more aggressive, hands-on strategist. A new 3rd base coach is a must, though by all accounts Perezchica is a good infield coach so can keep that role. Whoever does defensive positioning should be replaced or given better information. Keeping Miller and Murphy must be the top priority. Overhaul the health and readiness/rehab department. The roster is a completely different mess and needs its own post.
Team has 45 players on 40 man once FAs are removed. Potential rule 5 guys must be added. I would protect Ullola and Santa. 7 guys need to be gone + any room they want to add ( back up catcher and #2 SP at the very least) Trade them for a bucket of balls if possible, but most likely just end up non-tendering them Chas, Sanchez, De Los Santos, and Luis Garcia are well into arbitration and no longer worth their salaries. Urias is more likely to have trade value but too expensive as a backup, especially with Dubon on the team ( I see Dubon as a glue guy who should not start more than 50 games but improves the tean) and multiple infielders with guaranteed contracts who are better. 4 more need to go: Kenedy Corona - expendable Nick Hernandez - not good enough Kaleb Ort - out of options J.P. France - out of options
-Extend Espada -Sign McCullers to a long term contract -Bring back Framber on a 1 year $45 mil contract -Make Jesus Sanchez an everyday player next year -Keep Yordan on the DL the entire 2026 to rest -Bring back Maldy
Let's first take a look at the OPS for our starters Code: .840 SS Jeremy Peña .811 3B Isaac Paredes .797 DH Yordan Alvarez .788 3B Carlos Correa .769 LF Jose Altuve .727 CF Jake Meyers .726 DH Victor Caratini .705 1B Christian Walker .696 C Yainer Diaz .668 RF Cam Smith .652 2B Mauricio Dubón .610 2B Ramón Urías .586 RF Jesús Sánchez I left out a few rookies Zach Cole (13g) Zach Dezenzo (34g) Brice Matthews (11g) Jacob Melton (30g) The glove before bat positions (C, SS, CF) actually look solid. RF and 2B underperformed and could be upgraded. Our two trade deadline pickups were duds: Urías (1 more year of control) and Sánchez (two more years of control). The Astros should keep one of Mauricio Dubón or Ramón Urías, as their backup IF. Dubon also backs up the OF and has a slightly better bat. Both have 1 more year of control. Who plays 2B will be one of the major offseason decisions. Altuve can spot start there, but can not play 2B everyday. Both of the 3Bs could play 2B, if they will allow such a thing. Brice Matthews is down on the farm, who may figure out enough next season in AAA to be a mid to late season callup. RF is another open question. Sanchez underperformed. The casts of 1000s from AAA are unknowns: Smith, Cole, Melton, Dezenzo. Cam Smith even after all of those 2025 starts should not assume RF is a lock in 2026. If the Astros do not makes some offense upgrades this offseason, they are a 86-90 win team and a borderline playoff team. Pitching is another matter. Miller and Murphy both work miracles with AAAA arms and keep TJ surgeons busy. I suspect that 2025 was just an extremely unlucky year for pitching ... as 2022 was an extremely lucky year. There are some very good arms in AAA that should see some 2026 MLB starts: Miguel Ullola, Ethan Pecko, AJ Blubaugh. They are also some of the Astros best trade assets. And then there are injured SPs. Who knows when they will be back? and how well they pitch post-surgery? 2025 has taught us that we can not bank on meaningful September starts from the newly recovered. The Astros will certainly look for another AAAA reclamation project like Brandon Walter. No guarantees, one will be found. With Framber almost 100% guaranteed to test the FA waters, the Astros are at a watershed moment. The Astros need to find ToR talent. If they had the money, they would just keep Framber. A trade would be in order, but the farm lacks the top end prospects to make it happen. The Astros just might need to call 2026 a rebuilding year and play their prospects, to see who will pan out.
The biggest coaching offseason concern is to determine, if any of the TJ injuries could have been prevented. This falls into Miller/Murphy purview and is review worthy.
Trade Walker to St.L for Sonny Gray. Both are owed $40M but Gray is 1 yr (+ club option) and Walker is 2 yrs. Cards may not go for it since Gray's AAV is $27.8M so its only a $7.8M savings this year and adds $20M to 2027. But it does give them a legitimate rebound candidate 1B to replace Contreras who they want to trade. Walker had 1.2 fWAR July1- current and 3+ fWAR each of the previous 3 seasons. Good bet he is not a negative player in 2026 or 2027. Plus they defer $20M in actual money from 2026 to 2027. Astros will likely pay $20M for a #2 SP so adding that to Walker means 2026 payroll is not any higher than expected. Solves 2 problems= a #2 SP and glut of everyday infield options. Plus it cleans the books for 2027.
Fire espada Get at least one real mlb caliber starting pitcher Sign Caratini Trade Diaz (Caratini and Salazar) Trade Myers (Zach Cole) Trade Dubon (Ramon urias) Get some real bullpen help and not castoffs We should be able to get some decent pieces for Diaz, Myers, and Dubon.
Swap Mickey Storey and Joe Espada. Fire the medical staff. Limit duties of Perezchica to infielders coach. Hire new 3rd base coach. Bring in Brantley or Yuli as hitting coach. QO Framber. Sign Verlander. Teach Paredes 2B. Lower ticket prices as an apology to the fans.
Not sure we should give up on Diaz and weaken the catcher position so much. Salazar is a good 3rd catcher. He can’t hit and it makes people think his defense is better than it is. Diaz had a rough season but it was his first rough season after 2 good ones. I could see him rebounding next year at the plate. Yainer also had a rough year defensively, I get that. His defense was also better in his first 2 years. I think he gets that back too. Even with his off year, if he had hit in the bottom 3rd of the order, his offensive production would have been sufficient for the catcher position. Of course I say this without seeing what he would attract in return, via a trade.
