2026 ZiPS Projections: Houston Astros

For the 22nd consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction, as well as MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Houston Astros.

Batters

For the first time since 2016, the Houston Astros missed the playoffs. Now, it would be a mistake to call the 2025 season a disaster, as they were just barely squeezed out of October baseball by virtue of an awful idea that I hate with every fiber of my being: the tiebreaker. Still, it’s an unhappy milestone for this era’s Astros, especially coming after the departure of two of the team’s key players, Kyle Tucker and Alex Bregman, before Opening Day. The prospect of losing Framber Valdez after the season makes the early elimination feel even worse.

One of the main reasons Houston missed the playoffs is simply that it’s really hard to make up for shedding Tucker and Bregman in a single winter. Add in Yordan Alvarez’s season being ruined due to hand problems, and you’re talking quite a few wins that suddenly went poof! into the aether. As a result, the Astros fell to 12th in position player WAR, the first time they’ve been that low over a full season since 2014.

It’s probably no coincidence that the last time Houston struggled, in the COVID-shortened 2020 season, they were also missing Alvarez. An Alvarez who is healthy and playing at his normal level is crucial to Houston returning to the postseason, and is probably even more important than it was in 2021. Naturally, ZiPS isn’t penciling Alvarez in for 150 games after missing so much time, but even if it’s more skeptical than Steamer, he lands right at the top of the WAR pile.

The Astros lost the battle last year, but unlike a lot of losing battles throughout history (Vicksburg, Manizkert, Yiling, etc), Houston’s 2025 shortfall doesn’t signal the franchise’s eventual doom. The Astros remain a strong team with genuine pluses across the roster, and it wouldn’t be remotely shocking to see them win the AL West in 2026, even if ZiPS currently gives the Mariners a moderate edge. What has changed is the shape of the team. This roster no longer resembles the 2017–24 Astros, with overwhelming star power and a farm system that reliably supplied reinforcements. Instead, Houston now looks more like a well-constructed vintage Cardinals club: good almost everywhere, dangerous on a given night, but no longer a team that inspires dread the moment it shows up on the schedule. It’s also a club that is far less capable of filling its own holes internally than it was at its peak.

ZiPS doesn’t quite believe that Jeremy Peña is a six-win guy, but it’s hard to complain about a 28-year-old who’s projected to have their second-best career season. The lineup projects as average-to-good pretty much everywhere else, with ZiPS thinking that Carlos Correa still has some gas left in the tank, forecasting a still-gentle decline for Jose Altuve, and having a decent amount of faith in Jake Meyers and Zach Cole. While Christian Walker’s first season in Houston inspired some José Abreu flashbacks, ZiPS thinks Walker has more left in him than Abreu did at a similar stage. This lineup should return to the top 10 overall, though I think it’s a stretch to predict much more than that.

Pitchers

Hunter Brown was one of my breakout picks in 2024, so it wasn’t shocking to see him continue to improve in 2025, to the point where he was a legitimate Cy Young contender. ZiPS likes him, too, and as well it should: I might take out a stick of RAM as punishment for its insolence otherwise.

After Brown, however, the rotation looks more serviceable than sparkling. Tatsuya Imai is a really solid pickup at that price, but ZiPS never saw him as being in the same tier as Yoshinobu Yamamoto or even Shota Imanaga, and it appears MLB teams felt similarly since he was landed for just three years and $54 million. If the computer is right, he doesn’t replace Valdez’s performance, and neither does former Royal and Diamondback Ryan Weiss, who is back from Korea, though ZiPS does think that he’s more than a reasonable back-of-rotation option.

The projections for Spencer Arrighetti and Mike Burrows are averageish, with ZiPS not seeing a high ceiling for either player. Cristian Javier and Lance McCullers Jr. both have to be considered risky due to their injury histories, though the odds are that at least one of them gets back to where they once were. I’m a little more bullish on Javier; McCullers has missed a lot more time and pitched a lot worse.

The rotation might be a bit underwhelming, but the bullpen looks like one of the better ones in baseball; of the teams I’ve run, ZiPS ranks them as the fifth-best ‘pen, at least using the depth chart playing time. There aren’t that many teams left to go at this point, either. Josh Hader, Bryan Abreu, Bryan King, and Steven Okert is a tough late-inning gauntlet to wade through, and assuming his elbow problems are resolved, the computer will happily fire up the marching band for Bennett Sousa. ZiPS doesn’t mind Enyel De Los Santos and thinks Weiss will be more than adequate if he ends up in the bullpen. Another arm would still be welcome, but it isn’t absolutely necessary.

All told, ZiPS sees the Astros as roughly a 90-win team. I think if they really want to make the Mariners sweat, another starting pitcher would be a helpful addition.

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here. Size of player names is very roughly proportional to Depth Chart playing time. The final team projections may differ considerably from our Depth Chart playing time.

Players are listed with their most recent teams wherever possible. This includes players who are unsigned or have retired, players who will miss 2026 due to injury, and players who were released in 2025. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in August to form a Ambient Math-Rock Trip-Hop Yacht Metal band that only performs in abandoned malls, he’s still listed here intentionally. ZiPS is assuming a league with an ERA of 4.16.

Hitters are ranked by zWAR, which is to say, WAR values as calculated by me, Dan Szymborski, whose surname is spelled with a z. WAR values might differ slightly from those that appear in the full release of ZiPS. Finally, I will advise anyone against — and might karate chop anyone guilty of — merely adding up WAR totals on a depth chart to produce projected team WAR. It is important to remember that ZiPS is agnostic about playing time, and has no information about, for example, how quickly a team will call up a prospect or what veteran has fallen into disfavor.

As always, incorrect projections are either caused by misinformation, a non-pragmatic reality, or by the skillful sabotage of our friend and former editor. You can, however, still get mad at me on Twitter or on BlueSky. This last is, however, not an actual requirement.