Astros closer Josh Hader opened the season on the 15-day injured list after experiencing biceps tendinitis during spring training. Fans hoping for a minimum stint will have to wait a bit longer than that. General manager Dana Brown told the team’s beat today that the target is for Hader to begin facing hitters at some point in mid-April (link via Brian McTaggart of MLB.com). He’d presumably then need to make at least a couple appearances on a minor league rehab stint before rejoining the club. A return in late April seems like a best-case scenario, speculatively speaking.
Hader missed the final seven weeks or so of the 2025 campaign after suffering a capsule strain in his left shoulder. There’s no indication the shoulder is still bothering him at this stage. He’s one of four Houston relievers to open the season on the shelf, joining fellow lefty Bennett Sousa and righties Enyel De Los Santos and Nate Pearson. Sousa is dealing with an oblique strain. De Los Santos was slowed by a knee strain during camp. Pearson had offseason elbow surgery.
With Hader sidelined to begin the season, closing duties will fall to Bryan Abreu, who’s been one of the best (if not the best) setup men in baseball in recent seasons. Bryan King and Steven Okert had strong 2025 seasons and will serve as key setup men. It’s a patchwork group behind them. Rule 5 pick Roddery Munoz made the Opening Day roster. Ryan Weiss, who signed a big league deal after a breakout in South Korea, will make his MLB debut the first time he gets into a game. Christian Roa was a minor league signee. Kai-Wei Teng was acquired in a trade after being squeezed off the Giants’ roster. He has a 7.30 ERA in 40 2/3 MLB innings. AJ Blubaugh was tagged for a 5.27 ERA in 19 Triple-A starts last year.
The ‘Stros did get at least some good injury news recently Star shortstop Jeremy Peña managed to avoid an IL stint to begin the season despite suffering a small fracture in his finger during WBC exhibition play. He’s not in the Opening Day lineup, however. A team spokesperson tells Chandler Rome of The Athletic that Peña is getting some live at-bats over at the Astros’ Triple-A complex in Sugar Land this morning. The implication seems to be that while Peña won’t be out for a full 10 days, he needs a few more reps and/or a bit more healing before the team is comfortable plugging him into the big league lineup.
With Peña out, the oft-discussed Astros infield “logjam” has sorted itself out for at least Opening Day. Carlos Correa gets the nod at shortstop, while Isaac Paredes slots in at the hot corner. Jose Altuve and Christian Walker are on the right side of the infield, and Yordan Alvarez is at designated hitter. The team hasn’t indicated when Peña might return to the lineup, but with Houston facing lefties in three of their next four starts (Yusei Kikuchi tomorrow, Reid Detmers on Saturday, Ranger Suárez on Monday), they’ll hope to have their shortstop back in the fold; Peña is a career .302/.343/.469 hitter (128 wRC+) against left-handed pitching.
Both Peña and the aforementioned Abreu are nearing free agency. Abreu is in his final year of club control and will reach the open market at season’s end. Peña is controlled through 2027, as is Paredes. Ace Hunter Brown is controlled through 2028. Asked about the possibility of an extension for anyone on the roster, Brown said this morning that the club has had only internal discussions about potential long-term deals (via Chron.com’s Michael Shapiro).
“We haven’t really discussed at length with any of our players,” he said when asked to clarify whether any of those internal talks have extended into talks with various players’ representatives.
Brown has often voiced a desire to sign various core players to long-term arrangements, but since he was hired as general manager, right-hander Cristian Javier is the lone player to do so. There have surely been other efforts to come to terms with some of Javier’s teammates, but owner Jim Crane tends to shy away from long-term contracts in general. The six-year deals given to Yordan Alvarez and Jose Altuve are the longest in Crane’s 15 years owning the team. Alex Bregman, whose original Astros extension was $100MM over five years, is the only other Houston player to sign a nine-figure deal in that time. Hader’s $95MM deal is quite close, obviously, and the Astros have made nine-figure offers to keep both Bregman and Correa in free agency. Both found larger deals elsewhere.
Of course, not all of the listed players would necessarily command $100MM+. Abreu, good as he is, would fall shy of that. The Astros have talked more about trading Paredes than extending him. But to have any hope of signing Peña or Brown to a long-term deal — be it via extension or simply re-signing them in free agency — Houston would need to stretch well beyond Crane’s prior comfort levels.
They aren’t giving Brown or Pena extensions. Crane will let them walk.
If history tells us anything about ownership priorities, I can see an offer to Brown and Pena as a “well, we tried to resign them both but couldn’t get it done” type of contract offer. We do have several players that played short stop up and down the organization. What I really find somewhat annoying is they dont ever seem to have any fire under them to try and sign them as a younger player. Look at both Correa, Tucker, as contract offers. I would love to see them lock up Brown for the foreseeable future. Let’s not make the Cole, Valdez type of offer. Why wait until the walk year when you can get those type pitchers at a younger age and also set some of your budget moving forward.
I hope they’ll at least offer $180 million to Brown.
Extend Cam Smith for $65 million plus contract escalators!
I would totally agree with this except I just think its going to take a bigger yearly commitment than this. Something in the range of 6/120 as long as he still keeps putting up the numbers to go with that offer. He was absolutely a stand out rookie for the first half of the season but fell off towards the end of last year. I dont think it was anything alarming other that it was the most he had ever plays in any season. Now he knows what being in the boys takes to be successful.
Thing is, you don’t know if Smith will post up these sort of numbers. Smith is not Roman Anthony who got 8/130. I think something like 7/84 is fine with contract escalators and maybe a few club options.
If I’m Cam Smith, I’m not signing anything offered for less than 9 figures. I’d bet on myself.
You know, there’s something called contract escalators. Give Smith contract escalators to boost his earnings by performance.
So you want him to take a low figure and rely on escalators? He would be agreeing to this at lesser value than he had before he was called up. I don’t think that makes sense for him, given his enormous potential, unless he doesn’t believe in himself, in which case you probably don’t want to offer him that contract.
The issue is that they dont seem to have a “strike first” type of contract offer. I remember when they hired Dana Brown amd he was speaking of wanting to lock up players with a contract very early in their careers. The only 2 that even half way wete extended in Alvarez and Javier. Both of those were pretty team friendly. If Brown goes another full year like he had last year and they most likely won’t be able to resign him on the same type of deal. All we can do is see if Dana can stick to his word about signing them young and early in their careers. I feel like if Hunter Brown dont get extended this year Boras won’t let him do anything but go to free agency to get a lot bigger deal.
Click extended Alvarez, not Dana
Another thing Dana was brought in was to improve the farm system. Didn’t exactly do that very well.
Blanked by the Angels, for shame
I am all in for Abreu and Peña extensions.
Parades needs to stay long-term, Walker is gone after next year. Cam Smith has a lot to prove, let’s not get too anxious for an extension.
I want to extend Brown, Abreu, and Pena but it’s not possible. I also want to extend Smith and maybe Burrows if he pitches well.