Houston Astros: 2 contract extensions they need to make and 1 to avoid

Extension to make: Kyle Tucker

This is an obvious one as Kyle Tucker’s name has been very much on folks minds when it comes to contract extensions. Indeed, the front office was very candid when they expressed a desire to lock Tucker up long-term and it is not difficult to see why. Kyle is coming off back to back seasons where he has put up nearly 5 fWAR, hit 30 home runs, and has been a consistent performer on both sides of the ball.

2023 hasn’t been QUITE as good for Kyle thus far, but he has still been a well above average big league hitter thanks to his combination of power and speed. Noticeable improvements in Tucker's walk rate and strikeout rate point to likely improvement over a larger sample and the months of June and August have usually been when he is at his best during his career. More importantly, Tucker is just 26 and will still have plenty of prime years left that would be covered by a potential extension.

There are certainly some hurdles to a potential deal, though. First, Tucker is represented by Excel who is not exactly known for leaving money on the table. Many are thinking that for a deal to get done, he is going to need a deal in excess of $200 million which is definitely a large financial commitment especially for an owner like Jim Crane.

Secondly, the timing right now is a little difficult for an extension as Kyle still has two years of team control after the 2023 season. It may make more sense for both sides to wait for at least one more arbitration hearing/settlement to get a better sense of his current value and then go from there.

All of that said, Tucker is the kind of dynamic young player that Houston should be looking to build around. Everyday players that can defend, hit, hit for power, and produce on the base paths are hard to come by and Kyle checks all of those boxes. There is certainly a chance that he could become too expensive or require too many years in a deal, but the Astros should make a good faith effort to try.

Extension to make: Framber Valdez

You would be completely excused if you thought that giving contract extensions to pitchers is usually not a great idea. Indeed, some of the worst contracts in baseball (looking at you, Patrick Corbin, Madison Bumgarner, Chris Sale, and Stephen Strasburg) were given to pitchers and the laws of physics plus good ol’ fashioned Father Time are particularly unkind to arms. However, you have to have guys in your rotation you can trust and adding Framber Valdez to the already extended Cristian Valdez in the Astros' rotation is a worthy gamble.

Coming into the 2023 season, the Astros clearly wanted to extend Framber. He was coming off a season where he threw north of 200 innings and posted an ERA of 2.82 and a fWAR of 4.4. Those are big time numbers, but Valdez has somehow been even better in 2023 as he has been one of the better pitchers in all of baseball this season. He has shown real gains in ERA, FIP, xFIP, strikeout rate, and walk rate. In short, he is quickly positioning himself to be a bona fide ace.

In fact, his performance this season is actually a reason to think that getting an extension done could be MORE difficult now vs. before the season started. The Astros and Valdez were negotiating before spring training on an extension, but those talks broke down after the gap between the two sides was too large. Well, Framber has only gotten more expensive since then given how well he has been pitching in 2023 and is less likely to want to give any discounts. Framber also has the same problem that Tucker has in that he still has two years of arbitration left, so waiting at least another season may be the best way to get talks going in the right direction so that the two sides have an arbitration figure to work from.

Framber will almost certainly require significantly more to extend than the five year, $64 million deal that Javier got. The Astros should be very wary of giving Framber too many years as he is already 29 years old and will be in his early 30’s before he runs out of team control. That said, starting pitchers that you can trust to throw meaningful and quality innings are tough to come by and since the Astros aren’t likely to be playing in the deep end of the starting pitcher free agent pool too often, extending Valdez seems like a good option. 

Extension to avoid: Alex Bregman

To be clear, this isn’t an indictment of the work that Alex Bregman has done with the Astros to this point. He is a two-time All-Star, has a pair of 8+ fWAR seasons under his belt, is a strong defender at third, and is coming off a strong season in 2022 where he posted an .820 OPS and 5.5 fWAR. However, there are some real reasons to avoid extending Bregman any further than the Astros already have.

The extension that bought out Bregman's first three years of arbitration also has him making $28.5 million this year and next. That contract has been a bargain so far especially with his production in 2022, but his next extension isn’t likely to be at any discount with Scott Boras as his agent. There is no denying that Bregman is a valuable player, but once a contract gets to a certain point, there are going to be opportunity costs especially for a team that is somewhat payroll constrained like Houston. Is it worth keeping Bregman at the cost of not being able to fill other spots on the roster? Our guess is no.

The other problem is that Bregman is showing some signs that he is beginning to decline. His average exit velocity is starting to creep slowly downward, he isn’t barreling pitches as much, and he hasn’t hit more than 23 homers since 2019. He does still have a really good walk rate and elite K-rate along with his usual excellent defense, but it is clear that Alex isn’t hitting the ball hard as much as he used to. Investing a lot of money in a guy who will be 30 next season and is already seemingly declining is problematic.

In the end, everything comes down to cost. If Bregman is willing to do a shorter term deal that doesn’t break the bank, then by all means do it. However, if the Astros find themselves needing to give him a long-term deal with a high AAV to keep him from walking, they should let him go after his current deal runs out after the 2024 season.  

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