2026 Team Previews: Houston Astros
A detailed fantasy baseball oriented team preview of the 2026 Houston Astros
Full Series Links and Explanation Page Here
Podcast
I did the Mets & Astros together, just talking about the most interesting spots in both write-ups. So if you want the full details and every player covered, you’ll want to be reading the below instead of listening to the podcast.
Intro
All good things must come to an end. Which is kind of a negative way to describe that truth. All things, period, must come to an end. But we get more mad about good things ending than happy when bad things end.
Anyway, the Astros dynasty is over. They missed the playoffs in 2025. I don’t think it will take them a super long time to get back into the playoffs, and the roster is looking somewhat competitive for 2026. But I don’t think they’ll be the division favorite, and we could very well see a few-year stretch here of them being a sub-.500 team.
But they’ve been pretty active this offseason. They acquired Mike Burrows in a trade for Jacob Melton, and then they made the splash in the international market to sign Tatsuya Imai. You won’t find Imai below, but I’ve covered him here.
Here’s the current guess at the starting 14:
There are plenty of worse lineups out there, and at least a handful of worse rotations. The offense is old, and there aren’t many reinforcements coming up through the farm. We have them as the #28 prospect organization in the game right now. Check out those full rankings here.
The great thing about fantasy baseball is that team wins and losses don’t matter at all. Hit me up on like July 9th and ask me what the MLB standings look like, and I’ll hardly even know. Let’s talk about some fantasy-relevant names from the Astros.
Hitters
Yordan Alvarez
Age: 28
Pos: OF
We don’t need to spend a ton of time on Yordan. The guy rakes:
A near .950 OPS over the last five years. He has four 30+ bomb seasons, and it comes with a high batting average. He’s a top ten pure hitter in the league without question. It’s just about staying healthy. And 2025 was a bad year for him on that front. Those 48 games played crushed fantasy teams after he was a second-round pick last season.
It was a broken hand early in the year and then a severe ankle sprain late in the year. Those sorts of injuries aren’t ones that you should be worried about the following year. But we have a long history of injuries with Yordan prior to this. There’s been a bunch of leg and back stuff. So it seems pretty unlikely that Yordan will rip off 150 games next year.
But he can play to a first-round value if he does get to 130 games or so. He’ll likely hit .290 with at least 25 bombs and a bunch of RBI. The upside is something like a .320 batting average with 45 bombs and 110 RBI. Not many other guys can offer that.
Projection
567 PA, 88 R, 30 HR, 91 RBI, 6 SB, .290/.369/.540
Ranking
Jeremy Pena
Age: 28
Pos: SS
Pena deserves a much closer look. He had a breakout [fantasy] season in 2025, going for 17 bombs with 20 steals along with a career-best (by far) .304 batting average.
Pena’s real-life value has been better than his fantasy value for most of his career. He’s a durable shortstop who plays elite defense and can hit enough to be a positive in that regard.
The big difference, and the thing we need to figure out most, is that +50 on the batting average last season. The K% stayed the same at 17%, so that didn’t cause the batting average gains.
You do see a walk rate gain from 3.8 to 6.4, so he was making better decisions with the bat.
He swung less in 2025, but it was mostly swinging less in the zone. The chase rate stayed about the same, he just took more strikes. But a lower swing rate does translate to more walks, and that worked for him.
Pena’s .345 BABIP was a career-high. I bet you could have guessed at that!
→ 2022: .298
→ 2023: .323
→ 2024: .301
→ 2025: .345
He hit fewer ground balls than in the previous two years, and that can help the batting average.
But you see the xBA there. It came up to a career-high, but it was just still under .270. So the .300 batting average seems to be the result of some good fortune.
His exit velos make you think that he could pull off 20-25 homers per year. At 104.8, it’s fine, and he pulls the ball in the air enough to take advantage of Crawford Boxes.
Base-running-wise, he’s extremely quick (97th percentile sprint speed). So it’s a bit strange that his career high in steals is just 20. His attempt rate has been at 14% for his career. That keeps him away from being a 30-steal threat. But it puts him around a 15-steal floor.
Pena is a very good baseball player, and he’s going to make some big money in free agency after 2027.
But he’s pricey in fantasy leagues this year. His max pick is 112, and his ADP is double-digits. That’s fine for the floor he gives you. You can feel extremely good at getting a bunch of playing time with a 15-15-.270 season, but the upside to me doesn’t really justify an 8th round pick.
Projection
618 PA, 85 R, 20 HR, 68 RBI, 16 SB, .267/.321/.431
I won’t call him a bust. I don’t think you’re going to really regret having him, even if you do pull in the 7th-9th round, but I’d rather not pay this price for a guy with so little fantasy ceiling.
Ranking
Yainer Diaz
Age: 27
Pos: C
The Astros are heading in the wrong direction, and Yainer contributed to that decline in 2025. It was the worst work of his brief career at the plate. His batting average (his best fantasy skill prior to last year) fell from .299 to .256.
He’s never been a high-power guy, but getting around 20 bombs from a catcher is good enough. The good news is that he played another 143 games. It’s hard to get that much volume from your catcher.
The strikeouts weren’t the issue, and there was certainly some bad luck with the .277 BABIP. You see the .279 xBA there. So we could count on a bounce-back batting average-wise from Diaz.
He stayed very aggressive at the plate with a 59.5% Swing%. He’s up there hacking. That makes him rough to use in OBP leagues, and it turns into extended cold streaks. Pitchers really don’t need to throw him good pitches to hit. He’s swinging almost half the time at pitches out of the zone.
The FEAR SCORE is high at 121, but that’s because pitchers know they don’t have to pitch to him:
This much aggression at the plate is too much. The guy needs to figure out how to see the ball better and take more bad pitches. A 30.9% Ball% against him is so, so low, and it’s not because the pitches are out of the zone. He’s just giving away strikes with all of these chases.
Diaz is not a guy you reach for in fantasy leagues. He’s a catcher you take because he’s the best guy available when you decide that it’s time to get a catcher.
There is a clear top ten at the catcher position. He rounds out that ten. There’s a big gap from him down to Adley if you’re looking at NFBC ADP.
There’s a lot of juice at the catcher position these days, so I’ll be looking to get one of the top seven in most of my leagues. But Yainer is a guy who can be a plus on your fantasy team if he can return to a .280 batting average with 15-20 bombs and all of that playing time.
I suppose we do not have to worry slightly about him losing DH reps since he didn’t hit super well last year. If the team is fully healthy, maybe they want to get Yordan more DH reps, or maybe give the young guys more opportunities. The projection reflects that, giving him fewer than 500 PAs.
Projection
479 PA, 63 R, 19 HR, 67 RBI, 2 SB, .279/.313/.464
Ranking
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