Jeremy Peña contract prediction a reminder Astros are up against the clock

While the Houston Astros' payroll is a bit of a mess at the moment, the one thing that most fans agree on is giving Jeremy Peña an extension. While betting on Peña to duplicate his offensive explosion from 2025 may not be a good idea, he's been a productive shortstop on both sides of the ball for four seasons now. Assuming the terms are remotely reasonable, the Astros and Peña need to figure this thing out.

That doesn't mean, however, forging an extension will be easy. Recently, Bleacher Report took a stab at profiling the players who could be the next $250 million man. Peña received a prominent mention that included some really intriguing comps, but the biggest takeaway is that the longer both sides wait to get an extension done, the less likely it is that they will ever come to terms.

Bleacher Report's Jeremy Peña extension discussion raises even more questions for Astros to consider

Bleacher Report's Kerry Miller raises a pretty intriguing point regarding the odds that Peña could get a massive deal. It's true that he's going to be on the older side when he hits free agency, but Miller pointed out that Trea Turner and Xander Bogaerts both got massive deals when they were 29 and 30 respectively. The Bogaerts contract was a terrible idea from the jump, but both deals are worth mentioning despite Peña not being a household name.

The real takeaway, however, is that the Astros clearly have a player that is more than deserving of a real extension and not the joke of an offer Houston put on the table previously. The Astros may not prefer to hand out long-term deals, but that's the price you must pay to keep good players around past their arbitration years.

Whether or not the Astros will ever pay that sort of price is a fair question. Houston has a long and storied history of letting really good players walk in free agency (George Springer, Carlos Correa, Alex Bregman, etc.) when they got too expensive. If the Astros want to change that narrative with Peña, they may want to act before it is too late.