The Astros’ signing of Japanese pitcher Tatsuya Imai marked a shift in direction for the team. They have had three Japanese players play for the team: OF Nori Aoki, IF Kazuo Matsui, and most recently SP Yusei Kikuchi. But this is the first time, the Astros have signed a player directly out of the Japanese professional league. This move does follow along with other moves made to bolster the starting pitching staff this off-season.
The four potentially significant moves related to starting pitching this offseason were:
- Moving on from Framber Valdez – yes, a bit of a negative move, but it is the move that triggered the other three major moves this off-season. It meant they were not tying up a ton of money on one pitcher for his age 32 to 37 or so years.
- Signing 29-year-old Ryan Weiss to a $2.6 million contract out of the Korean league, which could cost as much as $10 million over two seasons with bonuses and a team option. Weiss seemed to find himself over the last two seasons in the KBO and will likely be given every chance to be in the Astros rotation this season.
- Trading for Mike Burrows from the Pittsburgh Pirates – sending prospects Anderson Brito and Jacob Melton to the Rays to complete a three-way trade. The 26 y.o. moved into the Pirates rotation last season after a late May call-up from the minors. He pitched solidly, will be earning the league minimum in 2026 and is controllable through 2031.
- Signing Tatsuya Imai out of the NPB league in Japan for a contract that is worth at least $54 million over three seasons, but with bonuses, could reach $63 million. It could also cost the team only $18 million if he opts to leave after one season. He will undoubtedly opt out after one season if he pitches anywhere near his terrific numbers in Japan. He turns 28 y.o. in May and could be one of the top free agents for 2027 with a good 2026.
What do these four moves tell you about the Astros?
- They will not tie themselves to a long-term boat anchor contract (six years and more) for their own player.
- They were committed to bringing in pitching talent without trading from the major league roster. Melton played a bit (not well) at the major league level and Brito was moving up the minors quickly, but they are both prospects.
- They were willing to take risks as they brought in two players from the Korean and Japanese leagues, respectively. They also brought in a pitcher in Burrows with a short resume – only 99.1 major league innings in his career to date.
- When they did take on a more costly contract it was a) Much less than what Framber will likely bring in on a per-year basis and b) It maxes out as a 3-year commitment at the most.
- They went cheap in a lot of ways, but their experience with their pitching coach staff getting the most out of pitchers may have weighed heavily in what they did.
Here is a completely unscientific ranking of the current rotation choices headed into spring training.
- Hunter Brown – slam dunk #1
- Tatsuya Imai – (I am trying hard to get used to his name – it took me a whole year to remember Rockets Coach Ime Udoka’s sobriquet). I think he will give the Astros a very good 2026.
- Cristian Javier – Can he trend more towards 2022 Javier?
- Mike Burrows – Can he go deeper into games than he did in 2025 and move into the third spot?
- Ryan Weiss – It might not be him, but they will give him every opportunity to earn it.
- Jason Alexander – He was a very steady addition to the rotation in 2025. Was that a fluke?
- Lance McCullers Jr. – Will they give him a rotation spot based on his salary? I would love to see some vintage Lance
- A.J. Blubaugh – Loved what I saw of him at the end of 2025. Will he get a shot, or will he start off in AAA?
- Spencer Arrighetti – He was not pitching that well last season before he was hurt. But that 5th spot in the rotation could easily fall to him.
- J.P. France – The forgotten injured man, who looked good in a couple late season appearances
- Colton Gordon – He pitched below average in 2025 swinging back and forth from the bullpen to the rotation. Somehow, he squeezed out 6 wins from an offense that could not give Hunter Brown what he deserved in the win column.
- Ronel Blanco – Probably back in the second half of the season – he may have been the Astros best starter in 2024
- Hayden Wesneski – Had barely gotten going in 2025 when he went down after 6 games. Like Blanco maybe he returns in the second half of 2026?
- Jayden Murray – Looked good after his call-up in 2025, but is there any room at the inn for him?
- Miguel Ullola – Considered one of their top prospects if he can ever control his control. Was protected on the 40-man roster and may get a chance to debut in 2026.
- Ethan Pecko – Pitched better at AAA than AA in 2025.
- Nate Pearson – Most likely only pitching out of the bullpen but was a starter earlier in his career.
OK, this list may look ridiculous, but remember the Astros had 15 different men start games in 2025. That #5 thru 10 area of the rotation is very tight and any of those pitchers making the rotation out of Spring Training would not constitute a surprise. Hopefully they can avoid the injury bug that caused that huge usage of starters in 2025, but if it does happen, there are lots of options. Whether they are good options…we will see.
ALL THINGS ASTROS 
34 responses to “Astros’ 2026: What do the latest starting pitching moves mean?”
The top post in the baseball subreddit right now is about the largest dropoffs in WAR by players from their 20-29 seasons to their 30-39 years. Without summarizing the chart, the one that jumped out to me was Clayton Kershaw who was 58.8 before and 19.3 after turning 30. Understand that he had one bad year due to injuries, but we would have taken every other season from his 30’s in a heartbeat. Framber is now 32 and has put up 18.9 WAR in his career. Paying him would be foolish on anything but a short term deal. Also, fwiw, Tim Lincecum had 19.9 WAR for his career, but his age 28 year onward was actually a -4.6 (he didn’t make the chart). Zac Gallen is 30 and has 20.7 WAR for his career. Expecting him to outplay a guy like Burrows seems questionable. We got LMJ to sign a team friendly extension that hurts right now given his injury history and outstanding questions about how he can contribute moving forward. I’m hopeful on Javier, but that salary is similarly problematic. For the regular season I’m really most interested in which guys have options and can therefore be used to replace whoever gets hurt. I’d love to have another pitcher like Brown at the top of the rotation come September and beyond, but I don’t think we have the prospects to trade for one of those and still don’t see them on the free agent marketplace. Hopefully Imai can be that guy, but I have to plead ignorance as I’ve never actually seen him play.
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Have I said Happy New Year yet?
Housekeeping note: Brian McTaggart annoys me sometimes. He’s putting out Astro press releases. That’s all he does. Can’t he share his opinions? At least Rome puts down his own thoughts.
It looks like the Astros might have enough arms around to at least get deep into the season. I sure hope we don’t need them all. At this point, there are about three or four guys that I’m looking forward to seeing in the rotation. That’s not enough. But, I’ve got to give Dana and Joe the opportunity to make it all make sense.
Right now I’d like to see Bregman get signed by someone. That will help determine the fate of Walker/Paredes. Paredes played 9 games for Hermosillo in December but has not played since. I hope that means nothing.
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I reached out to old friend of the blog – Becky – to check on her and here is what she wrote back
“Hi Dan I’m glad to hear from you! I’m still at the Assisted Living facility and probably will be the rest of my life.
I fell last year and broke my shoulder and finally after 6 months of physical therapy I’m able to use my arm again. Hopefully everyone is still with you at Chips blog. I keep up with the Astros news, so I know what the club is doing. Life is so empty after losing my husband😥
It’s VERY difficult losing your mate when you get old. He was my everything and now it’s just an empty chair. Tell Old Pro and Daveb I send my best! I miss “talking” to all of you. I hope you’re doing well and in good health. I promise to check in with you as the new season starts.
Send my love to everyone!
Becky”
I tried to be comforting back to her. I am concerned that we have not heard from Old Pro in a while – I’ve tried to reach out to him but have not heard back. If anyone knows anything else let me know.
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I’m going to do a little bragging here.
Sunday 11AM Mass – The Epiphany of the Lord – January 4, 2026
If you go to about the 12minute – 30 second mark of the video – you will see me singing at last week’s Mass with the archbishop. It was a bit exciting especially considering this is one of the toughest responsorial psalms to sing.
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Dan, please give Becky my best. Maybe she might consider checking in with us every now and then, as it sounds like she’s still following her Astros.
Old Pro is on my mind regularly. I do hope he checks in soon.
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Dan, I finally listened. I get what you’re saying about the difficulty in singing that Psalm. In layman’s terms, a whole lot of up and down with the voice! Great effort in a packed house.
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Thanks Daveb – along with ups and downs – there are a lot of words crammed in there and a lot of quick notes – eighths and sixteenths.
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Yeah, and I guess the crowd might boo you if you skipped a word here and there!
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The one nice thing about singing in church is that no one ever boos and if you mistakes they disappear into nothing after you are done. (Except when once and a while they do make a video of it)
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Concur, the Astros are doing the right thing letting Framber walk. Devin’s point is spot on, reminds me of the example I gave a few weeks ago of David Price – Tampa got more WAR in 5.5 years of Prices career for pennies, the rest of baseball got OK WAR from the last 9 but for 150M+. When you’ve gotten the best anyone is going to see from them, let someone else pay that market price unless you just have the duckets to burn.
If St. Louis, who was in the market for pitching, had asked for Javier and 2 prospects in exchange for Donovan I would have jumped, and thats tough for me because I stand by the motto offense can win a game but pitching wins championships. I just don’t trust Javier’s health, and while he can be very shutdown in any at bat in any given game, his finishing 5 innings at 95 pitches habit is frustrating and has to be a challenge to manage. And the salary relief could be crucial for a mid season acquisition.
I have a bad feeling 17M will dictate the 5th spot in the rotation. Crane has shown he is willing to eat salary with Abreu and Montero, but he also showed a stubbornness in his willingness to pull that drain stop. If McCullers is terrible through April, I’m sure he will eat the salary, it’s just going to be frustrating as a fan that it could be 3 or 4 games where a different pitcher might have won a game or 2 that he loses. Who knows though, maybe LMJ gains enough of a combination of confidence and velocity back in his fastball to keep people from sitting on the curveball and actually starts getting some consecutive outs and gets on a roll.
Brown-Javier-Imai-Weiss-Burrows-Arrighetti is as good a foundation you could ask for giving the marching orders about the cap and what we had to work with. Probably not as many 8 inning, 1 run gems in that rotation as previous years, but I don’t think there will be many 2 inning, 7 run blow ups that instantly put you out of games either.
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I don’t care about LMJ finding a way to increase velocity – he needs to improve location. He only threw a fastball 10% of the time last year. If he can get ahead in the count by locating pitches well…even if they’re only 90mph…his breaking stuff will matter. If he can’t locate and doesn’t throw fastballs the hitters will just be looking for hangers.
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Devin – totally agree with what you are saying – in many ways this is how a lot of dynasties keep going. Yes, the Patriots had Brady – but they also….got him to buy into smaller contracts so there was more money to spread around and they were totally unsentimental about almost every player they had. Always looking for a cheaper option with similar output.
Daveb – yeah I think they have enough arms – but will they choose the right ones?
Steven – Same kind of thing – if you look back at 2025 I am sure if you replaced Lance with someone else – let’s say A.J. Blubaugh you make the playoffs. That will be the most interesting spot to watch on the pitching side.
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Old Pro has contacted me by email and he’s fine but lost his password that allows him to comment – I’m trying to help him with that
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I have lost my password a few times. It is cumbersome to get back on.
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That’s good news.
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Morning, seems the Yankees are willing to give Cody Bellinger 30 million a year. They just don’t want to go 7 years. But that’s some pretty big money for a guy that has had some very erratic seasons. It’s got to bode well for a guy like Kyle Tucker.
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On a 162 game average over their careers
Bellinger – .261 BA/ .334 OBP/ .817 OPS / 30 HRs / 97 RBIs – 31 y.o. in July
Tucker – .273 BA/ .358 OBP/ .865 OPS/ 31 HRs/ 103 RBIs – 29 in a few days
Tucker would seem to be a better choice (if he stays healthy and does not melt down like he did last year and in playoffs)
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Potential bullpen help??
Astros Sign Christian Roa To Minor League Deal – MLB Trade Rumors
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Roa had a good year at Jacksonville, AAA club of the Fish. Historically has had a hard time throwing strikes. Doesn’t everyone? But a big guy, 6’4″, 220. You never know. Dan, he’s 18th on the starters list now.
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So I listened to these guys on the tube yesterday that was “playing GM” for the Astros on a 30 minute podcast. Here are the results of what they said they would do –
Xavier Neyens, Brice Matthews, AJ Blubaugh and Kevin Alvarez to the Nationals for McKenzie Gore.
They signed Evan Phillips.
Traded Jesus Sanchez to the Tigers for Eduardo Valencia and Blake Dickerson.
Signed Cooper Hummel to a minor league contract.
Not only did they just trainwreck the Astros minor league system even more, but they suggested bringing back Cooper Hummel. I found it interesting that they addressed the log jam in the infield but added that Correa is not tradeable, Walker is basically not tradeable, and Paredes is too necessary to the lineup.
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Appears, by your posting, that they are anti-Astros. I had never heard of the station and have no idea who they are.
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Holy Guacamole, Batman…I mean Steven
So they want us to
In exchange for Gore – who is a solid pitcher – a lefty allstar last year – pitching for a very bad Nats team and who has only 2 more seasons of control 2026 and 2027.
That is just a bad trade.
In Phillips you are grabbing a very good reliever who is recovering from TJ surgery and may not pitch this coming season. Don’t we have enough medical projects of our own?
I would go for the Sanchez trade – You would get one guy who might be aging out a bit – but with a big bat in Valencia and one guy who is just starting out pitching well in a small sample in Dickerson. I don’t think the Tigers would make that trade.
Hummel – He is a 31 y.o. AAAA level player. You don’t want him sucking up minor league innings at this point.
Can we get any of these experts a job in another team’s front office?
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LOL Dan, my thoughts exactly. Clowns. But they have clowned enough to have a podcast with 20k subscribers and probably growing. You are in the wrong business my friend.
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And they are on youtube, it was called Just Baseball Media.
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Steven I could say that I have a face that’s built for writing and radio – but then I have seen what some of these youtubers look like…
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McKenzie Gore has been consistently mediocre. I’ll say that for him. I’d like to see our #1 picks get a bit more of a shot with the organization. Heck, Neyens hasn’t even had an at bat yet.
BBR say Evan Phillips is a FA in 2027.
Cooper Hummel?
I’m glad I missed that programming.
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Look I’m bored on a Friday. You are just going to have to hear thoughts. Listening to this podcast gave me an idea – WWSD! What would Steven do!
Disclaimer – I FULLY understand that I am not the GM. Nor am I suggesting this is what Dana should do. Guys behind keyboards have no actual grasp of what is happening from a business standpoint, they don’t have an army of scouts and analysts feeding them information, and we certainly don’t have months to let this all play out. No, it plays out right here in our limited capacity in an hour of being bored. I’m also going to pretend there is a handful of GMs around baseball that would just give me what I want.
Here goes.
Move 1 – I’m trading Yordan Alvarez to the San Diego Padres for Kash Mayfield, Ethan Salas and Jose Espada. The last is throw in because of how I plan on treating the 8th spot in the pen and I really want Joe Espada to call for Joe Espada out of the pen. This is to clear the DH spot for Altuve and salary relief. We won 87 games last year basically without him.
Move 2 – I’m trading Isaac Paredes, Steven Okert and Walter Janek to the Red Sox for Wilyer Abreu and Connor Early. So please Arizona give Breggy what he wants, take him in, and create need.
Move 3 – I’m going to assume the guys from the podcast are right and the Tigers will indeed give me Eduardo Valencia for Jesus Sanchez.
Move 4 – Cristian Javier to the Giants for Luis Matos. This is mostly a salary dump.
Move 5 – After freeing up a bunch of money, I am giving Kyle Tucker 10/350, not for nostalgia but because I really think he is what this lineup needs the most and I believe he will be more durable than most going forward.
Move 6 – Brice Matthews, Spencer Arrighetti, AJ Blubaugh and Jake Meyers to the Cards for Brendan Donovan and Jose Fermin.
Move 7 – resign Caratini. Or just live with Valencia and Salazar, but there is depth with Caratini being signed.
My lineup – SS Pena, 2B Donovan, RF Tucker, 3B Correa, LF Abreu, 1B Walker, DH Altuve, C Diaz, CF Smith. Three lefties. Altuve out of the field. Dezenzo makes this squad and sees plenty of playing time between all 4 corners. Fermin gives you a great option in case of significant playing time needed in the infield due to his walk rate, or Allen can make the roster as a defensive guy. Matos should find at bats with this outfield, and Caratini goes back to doing what he does, a lefty bat that catches a bit, DH’s a bit, plays a little first, and gives us an experienced pinch hitter that we’ve seen handle the role in the past.
You’ve still got Cole, Valencia, Salazar, Trammell, Whitcomb, Allen or Fermin, stored at AAA.
My rotation – Brown, Imai, Burrows, Weiss, Early, and (ugh) LMJ to start. LMJ will get those first 5 starts while they are in a 6 man to prove his worth. Alexander makes the pen as the swing/long man. Of course, I’ve got Hader, Abreu and King, joined by Sousa and De Los Santos. The last two slots are open competition but will be a shuttle that includes Pearson, Roa, Munoz, Ullola, Murray, Gordon, France, Espada just kind of based on what the team needs and they all have options. The only issue on the bullpen swing between Daikan and Constellation is the 40 man, where 2 of those guys are going to start off it, presumbably Pearson and Roa since they are on minor league deals already.
Look, I could at least make this work on the nintendo. And I did rough math but it looks 15M or so under the cap even with Tuckers monster contract. Dreamers, they dream.
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Steven, that’s a lot more effort than I’ve got in me. But I really can’t argue with any of it. That’s a fun line up. Maybe not the 40 plus homers we might have gotten from Yordan, but he’s never given us 40 homers. He’s given us 100 RBI’s once. Over a full season, he’s given is a 1.000 OPS once. He’s been a dynamic, thrilling guy to watch when playing. But he’s a DH and I’m going to have a real hard time watching two DH guys playing in the same line up for the next three years.
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I wish I could predict whether Yordan could stay healthy this year. I’m not against moving him if we get a solid return. What I am against is putting Wilyer Abreu alongside Christian Walker and Jose Altuve. 26 year old Abreu matched 35 year old Altuve’s stats. The upside is he costs less money, but that’s Jim Crane’s money and not mine. Obviously that deal has to be about obtaining Early, though, which makes it enticing. I’m not ready to predict a Cy Young for him, but he performed well at Portland and then in a small sample AAA and MLB last year. Worst case scenario he’s a lefty that can get you a strikeout when you need it.
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I’d be pleased to have Wilyer back. No doubt, he’d sit against lefties, but his career OPS is about the same as Paredes. And he’s an excellent outfielder. Our outfield stinks right now unless we’re going to assume Smith is a hitter. He’s not, at least yet.
Steven, I keep checking MLB Trade Rumors for your first domino to fall. Let’s get to it!
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Yes, Wilyer is two fold – one Early is the target, two Matos would take the at bats against lefties. Matos is not a particular good hitter against either one but that .237 is better than Wilyer against lefties – and Matos is still only 24.
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I love what your boredom gave us Steven.
Oh well – nice way to fill a Friday
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Steven has a great idea for the blog though.
What would we do if we were the gm?
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that’s a great idea Sarge – I’ll write something later today when I am back from my mom’s house.
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