In a big city like Houston, we are going to have our good sports weeks and our bad sports weeks. It goes without saying that the last ten days or so have been the pits. Between the Houston Astros’ season actually ending, and the Houston Texans’ season functionally ending, as they dropped to 0-4, there’s not much to get excited about.
Everybody has a coping process, and I’ll pay all due respect to the University of Houston’s Top 25 football program and whatever hope the Rockets are bringing to the table, but my coping process is way more about attacking what’s wrong with the bad teams than avoiding discussion of them altogether. I’m a fight guy, not a flight guy!
Today, I am going to take a break from the Texans to shift focus back over to the worst team in the history of the MLB Playoffs, the 2026 Houston Astros. More accurately, I’m going to focus on what the hell the 2026 AStros can do to make the 2027 Astros a better version of the squad. Therefore, understanding that the big 2027 question across baseball is “How long will the impending work stoppage last?”, here are the five biggest questions I have for Jim Crane and the Houston Astros:
**Who is the manager in 2027?**
Joe Espada has outright said that he wants to be back to manage this team next season, and why wouldn’t he? There is no job out there that will pay Espada what a big league manager makes. Also, I think he genuinely has affection for this roster of players, and for the organization, even if the owner had him working through the final year of his deal. Right now, Espada is a man without a contract. The heavy betting favorite is that he will be replaced. Do the Astros hire a young manager with new ideas? Do they bring in a veteran manager, who instills a discipline that it felt, oftentimes, Espada’s team lacked (see the first inning fo Game 2 last week)? Who has the most influence on that decision? I’d guess it will be the new GM, which brings us to…..
**What will Jeff Bagwell’s role be?**
Right now, Bagwell has a senior adviser’s title, reporting directly to the owner, Jim Crane. It’s very evident, from numerous reports, that Bagwell has Crane’s ear, and we saw the disastrous effects of that in early 2023, when the team operated without a GM, and among other moves, signed Jose Abreu to a huge deal. Crane has operated through two GMs now, James Click and Dana Brown, with this secondary braintrust of Bagwell and others, who seem to have veto power (or at least enough respect from Crane to talk HIM into vetoing moves) over moves the general manager lines up. Bottom line question, given the aging, expensive roster, the barren farm system, and Crane’s modus operandi, is this even considered a good GM opening?
**Does Tatsuya Imai opt-in on his deal for 2027?**
Speaking of absolutely atrocious moves (that may or may not have been more of Crane making the decision than the actual GM), the Astros are in the awkward spot of having one of their most expensive players performing so badly last season that they didn’t even trust him to itch mop up innings in blowouts. Tatsuya Imai is one year into a three-year, $54 million deal, in which he has player options for Years 2 and 3. Heading into Year 2, given Imai’s absolutely atrocious 2026 season, the hope for the Astros has to be that Imai decides to return to Japan and gets the Astros off the hook for 2027 and 2028, and $36 million in salary. This is what every Astros fan should be rooting for.
**Does the new general manager want to go all “Kyle Tucker trade” on the star players?**
We all know that, back in December 2024, Brown engineered the trade with the Cubs, sending Tucker packing and bringing in three players, who’ve produced to varying levels for the Astros — 2025 All Star Isaac Paredes, Hayden Wesneski, and Cam Smith, who was the crown jewel of the trade. Smith has yet to realize his full potential, but the trade still feels like a win for the Astros, one of Brown’s few wins as the GM. Jeremy Pena and Hunter Brown are the Astros’ two key pieces that are winding down on “team control” seasons, like Tucker was in 2024. While the Astros could still be viewed with a straight face as a contender in 2024-2025, trading either or both of Pena or Hunter Brown this offseason would seem to indicate the team is entering a full rebuild, like when they traded Hunter Pence, Lance Berkman, and Roy Oswalt back in 2010 and 2011.
**Is Brent Strom back?**
Credit the Astros for some outside-the-box thinking late this season, when they pulled the retired Strom off the couch, and brought him back to the organization as a paid, in-uniform consultant for the pitching staff and the coaching staff. There were definitely indicators that it helped, most notably Cristian Javier’s resurgence before running into arm trouble at the end of the season. Strom’s return might be directly correlated to the Astros’ approach this offseason. If this is a rebuild/quasi-teardown, at age 77, Strom might not want to endure 162 games of helping out a 72-win team. That said, Strom indicated he was miserable in retirement, so maybe imparting wisdom to some young arms in the organization might stimulate him. Either way, nothing bad can come from Strom’s involvement in some capacity.