Breaking: Astros Consider Early Extension for Emerging Staff Ace

The Houston Astros pitching staff is going to look a lot different when Opening Day rolls around in 2025 than it did at the end of the 2024 season.

Their starting pitching depth endured a few blows with Justin Verlander and Yusei Kikuchi leaving in free agency, agreeing to deals with the San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Angels, respectively.

Jose Urquidy was non-tendered earlier in the offseason. Lance McCullers Jr., Cristian Javier and Luis Garcia are all working their way back from injuries and will be tough to count on as contributors right out of the gate.

That puts a lot of pressure on the pitchers who are locked into roles heading into spring training.

One of the players who will have a lot of attention on him is Hunter Brown.

A fifth-round pick in the 2019 MLB Draft, he made his debut Sept. 5, 2022 against the Texas Rangers, firing six shutout innings with five strikeouts en route to the victory.

He showed a ton of promise during that first stint, making seven appearances and throwing 20.2 innings, striking out 22 and allowing only two earned runs for a minuscule 0.89 ERA.

Despite the limited work, Brown managed to record a 0.8 WAR, providing optimism for what the future may hold.

He held a rotation spot in 2023 but his production was nowhere near as dominant, as he was as average as possible with a 0.0 WAR.

Through 31 appearances, 29 starts, he threw 155.2 innings with an unsightly 5.09 ERA. But, it wasn’t a totally lost cause, as he still managed to record 178 strikeouts. His FIP of 4.37 hinted that there was some bad luck involved.

In 2024, he was able to take his producton to another level, emerging as the team’s No. 2 starter behind Framber Valdez.

A slight tweak in his pitch selection led to a remarkable turnaround, as he recorded a 2.6 WAR across 170 innings. Where his biggest improvement came was limiting hard contact, as opponents had an average exit velocity of only 86 mph and hard-hit rate of 30.3%, both well below league average.

That improvement has led to Mark Feinsand of MLB.com listing Brown amongst the extension candidate to keep an eye on in 2025.

The emerging star pitcher isn’t even arbitration eligible until after the 2025 campaign and is under team control through 2028. But, working out pre-arbitration deals isn’t something new for general manager Dana Brown.

“…Astros have been known to sign pre-arb players to extensions in the past. General manager Dana Brown was also part of a Braves front office that had great success locking up young players well in advance of free agency, so he’s no stranger to the process,” Feinsand wrote.

With Valdez an impending free agent, it would make sense for Houston to try and work out an extension to at least lock their current No. 2 into a long-term deal.

The team has lost a lot of homegrown talent and contributors to their 2022 World Series team this offseason and needs to start identifying and securing commitments from players who can make up the next core.