Impending Astros arbitration raises threaten to create another offseason roadblock

After missing the playoffs for the first time since 2016, the Houston Astros missed the playoffs and that is going to inevitably lead to some real changes. Manager Joe Espada may not be safe, and general manager Dana Brown could be on the chopping block as well. The one thing that is going to be true regardless of who is in charge is that the Astros are going to have to be creative in managing their roster and payroll if they want to upgrade their roster, given their lack of minor league depth at the moment.

Houston has some real payroll challenges they are needing to deal with. Yes, they are going to be losing some players like Framber Valdez that will get some cash off of their books, but contracts given to Christian Walker, Jose Altuve, Cristian Javier, Carlos Correa, and Josh Hader are eating up a lot of payroll space and we know that owner Jim Crane does not like going over the luxury tax threshhold if he can help it.

Complicating the Astros' quest to regroup this offseason is that they also have a number of higher-end players who are going to get significant raises in arbitration before 2026. Depending on how many of those players Houston keeps and how big their raises are, the Astros' offseason checklist could prove difficult to complete.

Arbitration raises are poised to cause the Astros' payroll headaches before the offseason even starts

Every team has some number of players who are arbitration-eligible. In most cases, the amount of money those players end up getting is relatively minimal in the grand scheme of things and unlikely to move the needle in terms of payroll flexibility unless there are a zillion of them. However, some of the names the Astros have in arbitration this year are going to require some real investments if Houston is tendering them contracts.

At the top of the list, we have Isaac Paredes (who made $6.625 million in 2025), Jeremy Peña ($4.1 million), Jake Meyers ($2.3 million), and both Hunter Brown ($870K) and Yainer Diaz ($805.6K) are hitting their first years of arbitration. All of those players are going to be getting significant raises in arbitration, and depending on negotiations ahead of time, a number of them could end up in the arbitration hearing room, and Houston won't even know how much they will have to pay them until later in the offseason.

Not all the news on the arbitration news is bad; however, Luis Garcia seems like a prime non-tender candidate at the moment, given his injury status and that he was/is entering his final year of arbitration. There are real arguments to non-tender Ramon Urias, Mauricio Dubon, Jesus Sanchez, Enyel De Los Santos, and Taylor Trammell as well, which would clear millions off the Astros' books, but also create even more roster openings that the team would have to fill.

In short, this offseason is looking like another juggling act that the Astros are going to have to navigate carefully. Once the decisions at the top regarding who will comprise the leadership team, the next obstacle may be the Astros' bloated roster issues of their own making.

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