Ranking the Astros Most Deserving of a Contract Extension

Which Astros most deserve a long-term extension?

The Houston Astros fittingly call the old Union Station home. They've dominated the American League over the last six seasons, steamrolling the competition like a freight train. They've sustained massive losses like 2017 World Series MVP George Springer, Carlos Correa, Gerrit Cole, Dallas Keuchel, Charlie Morton and others, yet haven't missed a beat as they continue racking up pennants.

How long can they continue to hit on championship caliber talent while letting home grown stars walk in free agency? If it were that easy to keep calling up impact rookies, wouldn't everybody be doing it?

The Astros went two years without a first or second-round draft pick and just lost Oz Ocampo to the Miami Marlins. Ocampo notably landed massive international talent in Framber Valdez, Cristian Javier, José Urquidy and Luis Garcia.

If any team has shown no single piece is irreplaceable, it's Houston. But with the cupboard deemed bare in the farm system and a surefire exec having moved on, is it time to go the Braves' route of looking up young talent long before they reach free agency?

Houston's window to rack up titles remains wide open, but if they are going to remain perennial contenders, now may be the time to lock up these five key pieces for the future.

5) Hunter Brown

Wait, we're already advocating for an extension for a rookie with less than 25 career innings on his arm? You got it.

Brown had a meteoric rise through the Astros' farm system. A former fifth-round pick in the 2019 draft, Brown flew up prospect boards after coming to Houston, soaring past Forrest Whitley as the Astros' future rotation workhorse. He currently sits 68th on the MLB's Top 100 prospect list, the lone representative for the Astros.

Brown spent much of the year with AAA Sugar Land, where he was recently named PCL Pitcher of the Year, but not for lack of success. The Astros' six-deep rotation kept Brown blocked in AAA, where all he did was dominate the competition to the tune of a 2.55 ERA and 11.4 K/9.

He eventually made it to The Show as a September call-up, where he continued to wipe away the competition, going 2-0 with a 0.89 ERA in 20.1 innings thrown. His mid-90's slider left opposing batters tied in knots, as only Jacob DeGrom topped Brown's 95.7 mph slider in velocity.

Much was made of the striking similarity between Brown and the mechanics of his childhood idol, Justin Verlander. But it wasn't just their mechanics that were similar.

Verlander is well on his way to a third Cy Young, backed by a four-seam fastball/slider combo that tied up opposing hitters all year. Opponents had a .194 batting average and .300 xwOBA against his fastball. Brown's four-seamer yielded a .305 xwOBA.

JV's put-away slider held opponents to a .222 xwOBA. Brown's? Opponents posted only a .167 xwOBA against his slider.

Yes, Brown has a very small sample size as a big-leaguer. But in that sample, it wasn't just his windup that imitated Verlander. His results were the same: untouchable.

Sure, the Astros may bring Verlander back this year, but when they've got a carbon copy in the wings, why not lock him up for the long haul before his market value explodes?

4) Framber Valdez

When Framber Valdez gets the ball, opposing hitters know they are in for a tough night. Valdez tormented opposing lineups in 2022, going 17-6 with a 2.82 ERA and an MLB-record 25 consecutive quality starts. Valdez will likely finish top-5 in Cy Young voting in the American League.

As baseball trends more and more towards the bullpen, Valdez is an old-school starter, going deep into games every fifth-day. He averaged just a tick under 6 2/3 innings per outing and went over 100 pitches 15 times.

When the playoffs came around, Valdez went to an even higher level, going 3-0 with a 1.44 ERA over his four starts. In the Fall Classic, he became just the second pitcher since 2003 with multiple 8+ strikeout starts.

How can an arm this dominant be only fourth on the list?

Valdez has two things working against his future:
1) He is already under contract through his age 31 season.
2) He is heavily reliant on the ground ball and will likely see some drop-off with the banning of the shift.

Valdez will be entering year-2 of arbitration this offseason, meaning he is under team control through 2025. When he finally becomes an unrestricted free agent, Valdez will be 32. In an era when we see arms like Scherzer and Verlander continue to dominate at an advanced age, it doesn't exactly make him old. But it is worth keeping in mind when kicking around the idea of a huge extension.

Even more notable is the MLB's banning of the shift beginning next season. No pitcher in baseball recorded more outs on the ground than Valdez, and it wasn't particularly close. His 314 ground ball outs were 41 more than any other pitcher. His 66.5% ground ball rate was 9.8% higher than the next closest pitcher.

Does the elimination of the shift mean Valdez is no longer a fantastic pitcher? Not hardly. But it is possible that his 18th percentile hard-hit rate means his 3.31 xERA is a more accurate representation of the pitcher to come than his 2.82 actual ERA.

A 3.31 ERA still makes Valdez a top-25 pitcher in the game, and one that is well deserving of an extension. But, to the victor go the spoils. It speaks immense volumes that the Astros have three players even more deserving of a long-term extension.

2) Cristian Javier

What can be said about Cristian Javier that hasn't been already? He started two combined no-hitters, including the second no-no in World Series history. He's a proven October performer. His "invisiball" fastball makes him a nightmare for opposing hitters (and even teammates in Spring Training as alluded to by Alex Bregman). Javier earned the nickname "El Reptil" for his cold-blooded nature, as evidenced by his playoff domination.

Simply put, Javier is special. He's special in the regular season and he's special in the playoffs. He is special at home and he's special on the road. He's special as a starter or as a reliever. But with his role finally carved out as a starter for good, Javier's value is about to explode.

Javier's 2022 regular season numbers were phenomenal: 11-9 with a 2.54 ERA, 0.95 WHIP, 11.7 K/9, a 152 ERA+. His expected numbers were almost impossible to believe: 98th percentile in expected batting average, 96th in expected ERA/wOBA, 95th in expected slugging, 94th in strikeout rate and 82nd in whiff rate. Had he not spent his first two months in the bullpen, he'd have recorded enough innings to qualify as an ERA leader and likely would have made serious noise as a Cy Young candidate.

Entering next season as a full-time starter, he'll likely be a trendy pick among Cy Young favorites. If Javier records another season like he did in 2022, his price tag will skyrocket. The Astros should not allow that to happen.

He is three years younger than Valdez and is not nearly as reliant on the ground ball. In fact, no pitcher in baseball is as reliant on the fly-ball as Javier. His 56.9% fly-ball rate led the bigs. He possesses an elite ability to miss bats and limit hard contact.

Javier is arbitration eligible for the first time and will eventually enter unrestricted free agency at age 29.

Both Valdez and Javier should be rotation cornerstones for years to come, but Javier's youth and projected lack of dependence on the shift make him a slightly more deserving extension candidate. Even still, there is a greater need for one other Astro to be locked up long-term by the time pitchers and catchers report in February.

1) Kyle Tucker

If you can answer to the nickname "Ted," you can hit the baseball. If you're known as "King Tuck," you're royalty. If you're Kyle Tucker, both of these things are true.

The Astros right fielder is one of the elite players in the game, and if the Astros don't lock him up now, they may regret losing him more than any other piece of this era. Tucker is about to play himself into a $30-$35 million AAV player by this time next year. Houston needs to ensure he's an Astro for the future before he plays himself out of their budget.

King Tuck had a phenomenal 2022 season, racking up 5.2 bWAR on the back of 30 home runs, 107 RBI, 25 stolen bases, an .808 OPS, a 128 OPS+, 13 defensive runs saved and a Gold Glove.

Tucker doesn't get cheated at the dish, constantly squaring up the baseball. Back-to-back years he's finished in the top 10% in xSLG. He finished 2022 in the 89th percentile in xWOBA after finishing in the 94th in 2021. With a lineup as deep as Houston's, he is a lock for 100 RBI each year.

His numbers this year were already tremendous. What Tucker does next year may very well resemble a season of MLB the Show played on the easiest difficulty. Tucker was given the nickname Ted when rising through the Astros ranks because he resembled Ted Williams from the left side of the plate. With the shift going away in 2023, he may very well rival some of the numbers his namesake racked up.

Kyle Tucker recorded 66 outs on ground balls/line drives into the shift in 2022, second most in baseball. It's not fair to say those automatically become 66 base hits, but if even 30 become singles, Tucker bats .313 with a .913 OPS.

Tucker stepped to the plate 605 times in 2022. He faced a shift in 550 of them, the 16th highest percentage in the game, and recorded a .336 wOBA when shifted. A .336 wOBA for the season would place Tucker in a tie for 77th in the game. By all means, a good big league hitter, but not the special one we know Tucker to be.

It is no secret the shift unfairly punishes lefties (lefties that consistently put the ball in play like Tucker, Corey Seager and Jose Ramirez that is). An MLB team simply can't position their shortstop in shallow left field to take away the would be singles off the bat of a righty that they can against a left-handed hitter.

With the shift going away, no player in baseball should see a bigger jump in their numbers than Tucker. In the 55 plate appearances in which Tucker was not shifted, he recorded a .463 wOBA. For context, Aaron Judge and his 62 home runs led baseball with a .458 wOBA.

Obviously the elimination of the shift won't give Tucker 32 more big flies, but it likely will give him plenty more singles and doubles. Gone will be the days of the 113 mph "groundout" on a one-hop into shallow left.

Am I saying Kyle Tucker becomes the best hitter in baseball with the banning of the shift? Not entirely. But I think it's entirely possible he puts up numbers that place him in the top-five hitters in the game.

He's already an All-Star and he's already the best defensive right fielder in the game. If/when Kyle Tucker hits .315 with 35 home runs and a .930 OPS, the photoshops will begin making the rounds of Tucker in Yankee pinstripes or Dodgers blue.

He's arbitration eligible for the first time this year and Houston has three years of team control left. If he isn't locked up this offseason, its' entirely likely he prices himself out of what Houston has been willing to spend on their homegrown talent.

The Astros cannot afford, no pun intended, to let the sweet-swinging lefty get anywhere near sniffing unrestricted free agency. Locking Kyle Tucker up long-term should be mission number one for the Astros' front office this year.

With that bat in the heart of the order for the next six-to-eight years, the "Golden Era" of Astros baseball may trend into the "Golden Generation" of Astros baseball. Keep the window open for another decade. Extend Kyle Tucker this offseason, whatever it takes.