We’re halfway home in what may be the last full baseball season until 2028! It’s been an up-and-down first half, and the 2026 Astros are sitting right around just under .500 with more questions than answers. So let’s do what every teacher does at the midpoint: hand out some grades. You’re not going to agree with all of them, and that’s fine.
It’s a little long, so take your time and, by all means, tell me where I’m wrong.
Yordan Alvarez: A+
This isn’t complicated. Yordan is leading the majors in OPS and slugging, he’s on Triple Crown watch, he’s the AL MVP frontrunner, and he’s played in almost every game. That last part matters more than anything because health has always been the one thing standing between Alvarez and the award. If he keeps this up, we’re not just talking about one of the best offensive seasons in Astros history; we’re talking about one of the best in the American League in the last decade or so.
Jose Altuve: B-
Forget the $33 million and declining skills. He’s Jose Altuve. The oblique cost him time, and the slump coming back was painful to watch, but he’s heated up over his last few games, and he’s still producing at 36 years old. Altuve isn’t the player he was five years ago, and that’s fine. He doesn’t have to be. He just has to be good enough to hold down a lineup spot and mentor the younger guys, and he seems to be doing both. The Hall of Fame conversation is entirely separate.
Jeremy Peña: C
Where’s the 2022 World Series MVP? The hamstring issues have slowed him down, and that hasn’t been good for the Astros. Peña is 28 and should be entering his prime, but it doesn’t look like it right now. He started only 120 games last year, and he probably won’t hit that many this year. And with Scott Boras as his agent, an extension is off the table, which means Houston is watching a core player drift toward free agency.
Nobody saw this coming. Started the year in Triple A, got called up in mid-April, and went 7-1 with a 1.34 ERA in his first eight starts. He won AL Pitcher of the Month in May and looked like the ace this rotation desperately needed. He had five quality starts through June 8, but the ERA has crept past 3 after his last couple of outings. So the question now is whether he’s a guy figuring it out or a guy who got figured out. The second half will answer that.
Josh Hader: B
When he’s on the mound, he’s still Josh Hader. The problem is getting him to the mound. So do you punish a guy’s grade for being hurt just because he’s making $19 million a year? He missed the first month with biceps tendinitis after the shoulder capsule strain ended his 2025 season in August. You need your closer available from Opening Day, and the durability concerns are becoming a pattern that’s hard to ignore.
Christian Walker: C-
Give him credit: after hitting .238 last year and looking like the second coming of Jose Abreu, he’s turned it around a bit in 2026. The bat has been productive (until late), and if he keeps this pace, he could pass several of his 2025 numbers by mid-to-late August. But $20M a year buys All-Star expectations, and he’s not that. He’s a solid everyday first baseman with an untradeable contract.
The Incompletes
Hunter Brown is back after a two-month hiatus on the IL, and the Boras clock is ticking on his future here. Carlos Correa is out for the season, and the dead money is piling up. Yainer Diaz remains a question mark behind the plate. Cristian Javier is just now working his way back from rehab. Not enough data to grade any of them fairly, so I’ll let you do it.
Joe Espada: C
Year three, final year of his contract, and the trajectory is pointing in the wrong direction. Won 88 his first year, 87 his second, and now the team’s under .500 at the midpoint. You could defend the first two seasons as solid work with a roster in transition, but this year the pitching has fallen apart, the energy feels flat, and Crane hasn’t extended him. That silence speaks louder than any press conference. I still don’t hold him as accountable as Crane and Brown. You can nit-pick his decisions, but face it, he doesn’t have much to work with.
Dana Brown: D
Also, in the final year of his contract. Brown came in talking about locking up young players early and rebuilding the farm system. Three years later, the only extensions he’s completed are Javier and Altuve. Boras now represents both Brown and Peña, and those extension windows are effectively closed. The Tucker trade was sharp, but the Walker contract looks shaky, and the farm is still near the bottom of baseball. The report card on his tenure isn’t finished, but the grades so far aren’t encouraging.
Jim Crane: F+
He has to set the tone and lead, and in my book, he has done neither. Two guys running his baseball operation are both on expiring deals, and he hasn’t committed to either one. The Correa dead money is on the books, the payroll questions never go away, and the gap between what Crane spends and what the Dodgers and Mets spend gets wider every year. He approved the Hader deal and the Correa re-acquisition, so he’s not afraid to spend when it suits him. The problem is nobody can predict when that mood strikes.
Medical/Training Staff: D
I don’t really know how you judge this, since injuries seem rampant in MLB. At some point, though, the injury list stops being bad luck and starts being a pattern. Hunter Brown’s shoulder, Hader’s biceps, Peña’s hamstring, Ronel Blanco on the 60-day, McCullers’ whatever-this-time, Brandon Walter’s elbow, and Shewmake’s abductor strain. That sounds more like a casualty list. Something isn’t working.
Minor League System: D
Still ranked near the bottom of baseball. Kevin Alvarez and Xavier Neyens are both in Single-A, and Ethan Frey is the most exciting bat at High-A. Frey’s the one I believe in, a 6’6” LSU product with plus raw power who hit .330 in his pro debut, but even he is at least a year or two away. There’s no cavalry coming this year and not much next year, if at all. This is a two-to-three-(or four-) year rebuild at the minor league level, and that timeline doesn’t match the window Alvarez and Altuve are playing in right now.
Rob Manfred: D
The CBA expires December 1, and the owners are pushing a salary cap that could trigger the first lost games since 1994. The regional sports network thing fell to pieces on his watch. The competitive balance gap between the Dodgers and the Mets, and everyone else, has become a canyon. And the man’s signature accomplishment is a pitch clock. I’m genuinely asking: what has he done well?
The ABS: B
The strike zone is more consistent, the embarrassing blown calls on obvious strikes are mostly gone, and it hasn’t slowed the games down. But I keep coming back to this thought: how would Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux have fared with this system? Those guys built Hall of Fame careers partly on getting calls that nobody else got because they could paint corners better than everyone else. The ABS doesn’t care about your reputation or your command. A quarter-inch off the plate is a ball, period. That’s fair, but it also erases a dimension of pitching artistry that made the game fascinating. And that’s why I give it a ‘B’, because I’m still a purist.
The AL West: C+
Worst division in baseball? Seattle has been solid (if you can call .500 ‘solid’), Texas and the A’s are bunched in the middle ground, and the Angels are doing whatever the Angels do. Houston is sitting under .500 and still within striking distance of the division. That’s either competitive balance or evidence that the whole division is mediocre, and I’m leaning toward the second one.
Final Thought
Those are my grades, and I’m sure you disagree with at least five of them. So tell me. Where am I too generous? Where am I too harsh? And who did I leave off the report card entirely?
ALL THINGS ASTROS 