2 Astros players that the team should try to extend before it is too late

The Houston Astros haven't had much luck with extensions of late. The club is mercifully coming to an end of the extension it gave Lance McCullers Jr., as the right-hander's injury-plagued and disappointing tenure is guaranteed to come to an end when his contract expires at season's end. The Astros have to have similar feelings regarding the deal they signed Cristian Javier to, as it's become abundantly clear that neither arm became the rotation building block they had hoped for.

At the same time, Houston waited too long in some cases. They nearly locked down Jeremy Peña, but stalled and allowed Scott Boras to slither in and embrace the star shortstop in his tentacles. As for Hunter Brown, last year's third-place Cy Young finish all but ensures he's no longer a candidate for a team-friendly pact.

Still, the organization needs to find ways to retain talent on the cheap. The ledger is going to continue to be full for the next couple of years, in part thanks to Jose Altuve's regrettable (but necessary for PR reasons) extension and the salary the team added when trading for Carlos Correa.

If the league's proposed salary cap, or something similar, comes to pass, it will be even harder for the Astros to maneuver around. Jim Crane wants to continue to compete each and every year of his ownership, so getting ahead of pricey arbitration raises and eventually free agency will be paramount.

Astros missed the boat on Hunter Brown, so they must extend Spencer Arrighetti

How much trouble would the Astros be in today if it weren't for Spencer Arrighetti? The right-hander wasn't on the Opening Day roster as the planned sixth starter, and every day that passes, that seems like an even greater blunder.

Arrighetti finished the month of May as a true AL Pitcher of the Month candidate, posting an AL-leading 0.96 ERA over his five May starts. The only pitchers better were National League stars Cristopher Sanchez (no earned runs allowed the entire month) and Jacob Misiorowski (0.23 ERA).

We advocated for an Arrighetti extension way back in the winter. He's exceeded our wildest expectations in terms of production. With that said, there are still some rough edges he needs to refine, namely the walks, which have pushed his 3.97 FIP up to the point where it's well out of whack with his 1.34 ERA.

With that said, he's clearly got the makings of a front-end starter, and he'll be arbitration eligible for the first time next season. As we've seen with Tarik Skubal, the latter arb years for top-of-the-rotation starters can get quite pricey, so keeping costs down while also buying out a couple of free agent years seems ideal.

Extending Cam Smith now is a risk, but waiting could have the Astros left in the cold

It's been a wild ride with Cam Smith, who opened the 2026 campaign on a heater. That didn't last long, however, and he got mired in a terrible slump that may have had the club at its breaking point if not for all the injuries.

However, just as we thought he might need to go down to Sugar Land and get the refinement that he was robbed of thanks to his meteoric rise, he began putting on a show again and sparking a newfound sense of optimism that he's finally turning talent into consistent production.

Smith has two of the 10 longest homers of the season so far, with a 457-foot blast on May 26 against the Texas Rangers and a 462-foot moonshot to dead center on April 6 against the Colorado Rockies. His power is real, and if he can reach it consistently, he could be one of the game's top stars.

Locking him up now before he's proven anything beyond impressive flashes will ensure a deal that's well below market value should he hit his sky-high ceiling. In the event that he flames out, Houston still won't be paying him a ton of money, making the loss easier to swallow.

On the flip side, waiting for Smith to truly break out could be an expensive proposition, and could have the gem of the Kyle Tucker trade pricing himself out of the Astros' budget. The choice is clear: extending Smith now is a gamble that must be taken.

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