Astros’ insider identifies the next player Houston should give a contract extension

Kansas City Royals v Houston Astros
Kansas City Royals v Houston Astros | Tim Warner/GettyImages

This offseason has been an interesting one for the Houston Astros. With the expectation that Alex Bregman was gone, the team still had an elite, World Series group of players like Kyle Tucker, Yordan Alvarez, and Jeremy Pena. They also still possessed a solid group of young talent like Yainer Diaz, Hunter Brown, and Spencer Arrighetti.

With holes at both of the corner infield spots, and flirting with the 2025 competitive balance tax threshold, Dana Brown was going to have to be creative, and potentially even bold to address those needs. And bold he was, trading perennial All-Star and MVP candidate, Kyle Tucker, for third baseman, Isaac Paredes (and top prospect Cam Smith) and pitcher Hayden Wesneski. They then used some of the savings from that deal to sign All-Star and Gold Glove winner, Christian Walker to a three-year contract.

With most of the heavy lifting done, it might be time for Brown to turn in-house, in hopes of getting some extensions done. In Chandler Rome's latest Astros mailbag on The Athletic, he addresses some questions regarding the Astros extending some of their younger players.

Astros' Insider states that Yainer Diaz is the "most ideal candidate" to get extended by the Astros

At just 26-years-old, Yainer Diaz is one of the most promising, and already productive catchers in the league. Over the last two years, amongst catchers, he has combined for the seventh highest fWAR, he has the highest batting average and ranks fourth in wRC+. Diaz has proven himself to be one of the most valuable catchers in the league, giving the Astros consistency at catcher that they haven't had in a long time, if ever.

Now is the perfect time to consider extending Diaz, as Rome states, "Diaz is the most ideal candidate for an extension this winter". Diaz is in his second year of pre-arbitration meaning his is only set to earn the major league minimum, around $800K. A potential extension might intrigue the Astros backstop as it could increase this year's salary quite a bit. In exchange, Houston would buy another year or two of club control. This could be a beneficial deal for both sides, and Diaz seems like the most realistic player that Houston could opt to extend, as Rome stated.

The Astros have done this in prior years and signing someone like Diaz to earn a couple more years of club control from one of the game's best backstops could be one of the better moves of the offseason from Dana Brown.

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