Astros’ 2027: Looking at the $$$

An interesting discussion in the comments section of the last post about dead or bad contracts has prompted me to review the overall 2027 budget against the current 40-man roster.

Note: a lockout or strike may / will totally turn this discussion upside down as would a new CBA, so a lot of this may fall by the wayside. But following current rules, here is where we stand.

Approximate Luxury Tax Level for 2027 – This is unknown – 2026 was $244 million, and the level had not gone up more than a few million each season, but… the new CBA could change this drastically.

Contracted Salaries  (7) – Jose Altuve ($33MM), Carlos Correa ($20.5MM), Yordan Alvarez ($26.8MM), Cristian Javier ($21.4MM), Christian Walker ($20MM), Josh Hader ($19MM), and Tatsuya Imai ($18.6MM) are under contract for ~$159.3MM total.

The areas of possible relief here are:

• If by some miracle Imai decides to turn his back on $18.66 million for each of the next 2 seasons and opts out and heads back home or to another team – that money could come off the books. Don’t hold your breath on this.
• Christian Walker being traded with a chunk of his salary paid by the Astros ($10 million??) for some low level prospect.
• Cristian Javier being traded with a chunk of his salary paid by the Astros ($11 million or more) for some low level prospect.
• Yordan Alvarez and Josh Hader being traded as part of some kind of sell-off.

But in reality there will probably be no relief here unless the new GM is told to slash and burn.

Arbitration Salaries (11) – Note this includes Isaac Paredes – there is a team option for him for $13.35 million for 2027, which almost exactly matches his predicted arbitration number of $13.6MM. All arbitration predicted numbers are from Spotrac and of course depend on if there is even something called arbitration in the future.

Jeremy Pena ($17.5MM), Isaac Paredes ($13.6MM), Hunter Brown ($10.75MM), Yainer Diaz ($5.75MM), Jake Meyers ($5.3MM), Peter Lambert ($4.5MM), Nick Allen ($1.35MM), Hayden Wesneski ($975K), Taylor Trammell ($900K), Bennett Sousa ($850K) and Ronel Blanco ($850K) – a total of approx. ($62.32MM).

The areas of possible relief here are:

• There is no way Jake Meyers will be allowed to go to arbitration (IMHO). He will be non-tendered (unless they get him to agree to some incentive laden low-ball contract).
• They could also decide to non-tender Trammell (performance), Sousa (performance and a big mouth) and Blanco (lack of confidence he will ever be an effective pitcher again).
• Jeremy Pena, Isaac Paredes and Hunter Brown are all candidates for potential trades. All of them should have quite a lot of trade value. Pena and Paredes will be free agents after 2027 and Brown after 2028.
• I am putting Yainer Diaz in another category here based on the lack of catching depth in the organization, but if they are trying to go grab prospects in a fire sale mode, he would also draw a lot of interest.

What will they do? Meyers will be gone and if….a CBA is agreed to, I believe they will at least attempt to send Jeremy Pena elsewhere at the height of his value and while he still has a season of control.

Other (1) – The Astros have a $5MM team option on Ryan Weiss that they will not opt for, but they will have to pay him a $500K buyout.

Pre-arb (20) – Spotrac shows the remaining folks as Pre-arbitration and estimate their salaries at $1 million a year. This includes the likely to be on the roster – A.J. Blubaugh, Can Smith, Ethan Pecko, Miguel Ullola, Lucas Spence, Logan VanWey, Michael Burrows, Joey Lperfido, Kai-Wei Teng, Alimber Santa, Colin Price, Brice Matthews, Joey Loperfido, Zach Dezenzo, Zach Cole Jr. and Josh Hendrickson. It also includes the question marks – Bryan King, Nelson Velasquez, Brandon Walter, Raynel Delgado and Jorge Barrosa.  Now since the minimum salary for 2026 was $760K, that seems a little high unless they think the minimum salary will be a million in the new CBA. There are a couple that would likely get a contract over the minimum when it happens, such as A.J. Blubaugh and Cam Smith. No matter what they do the “rest” of the roster (at this point) is going to cost them in the $25 million range – up or down.

Areas where decisions could be made to clear roster spots….

• They likely will bring back King and Walter. Walter pitched very well before his surgery and perhaps King was pitching through “something” in the second half of 2026.
• I’m showing some underperforming OFs as safe and maybe they are and maybe the new front office will go a whole new direction. Matthews may be safe as a top draft pick, but where do Loperfido, Dezenzo and Cole Jr. fall in the hierarchy.
• Velasquez, Delgado and Barrosa did not do anything to tell me they need to be kept around.

Toting these numbers up – the numbers above take you to $247.1 million without adding any new shiny free agents or without sending anyone packing. This is above last year’s luxury tax level.

Looking ahead, if the Astros are not throwing in the towel on this competitive window, the Astros should spend or trade for a backup catcher, outfield help, starting pitching help and some bullpen help.

Some questions….

• Will they chase either/or Steven Okert, who was excellent last year or Bryan Abreu who was excellent when his brain was screwed on straight? They don’t usually like to compete for their own players once they hit free agency.
• Will they spend money or trade value on real pitching help this time around rather than relying on a number of forays into signing questionable (cheap) help or in Imai’s case (not so cheap) options?
• Most of their top prospects Astros Top Prospects | MiLB.com are not close to the majors. Jason Schiavone had a 20/20 season as mostly a catcher and part time 1B, while walking a ton, but wait for it…striking out 173 times in only 437 ABs in levels up to AAA. You would think a new GM would say this team has to bring in some strong prospects from other organizations while waiting for some of their best prospects (Kevin Alvarez, Xavier Neyens, Logan Hughes, etc) to climb the ladder.
• Which brings this around to a real base question. Are they going to watch Jeremy Pena leave like George Springer, Alex Bregman and others or will they trade him before hand? Or will they trade Isaac Paredes to make room for Carlos Correa? Or will they sit on it while they wait for Correa or someone else to pull up lame in 2027 – if there is a 2027?
• And the biggest question of all – do they have the stomach to do a half baked or full throttle tear down and rebuild for this team?

We will explore these questions more as the off-season moves on towards the inevitable labor dispute. Will one side or the other blink? Will they go with the nuclear option and let the 2027 season disappear like the 1994 season? Posts for another day.