Who should be paid and who shouldn’t? How much are we going to have to pay?
With the season ended at the hands of the Detroit Tigers, it is now time to start looking ahead to the 2025 season. There is a long list of players who are going to be gone come next season and it is time for the team to start figuring out what they are going to do about its roster. Who are they going to spend their money on and who is going to have to be let go?
In 2024, the Houston Astros ended the year with the 3rd highest payroll in baseball, only behind the New York Mets and the New York Yankees, while having more buried money than any other team and retaining less than 10% for 2025. Houston’s roster is looking thin going into 2025, so what can they do to fix that.
First, let’s take a look at who is coming back.
Players on multi-year contracts
Jose Altuve
Altuve signed an extension with the club before the 2024 season. The contract goes from 2025 till 2029, when he will be 39 years old. The extension is worth $125,000,000, with an AAV of $25,000,000.
Yordan Alvarez
Alvarez signed a six year extension with the Astros prior to the start of the 2023 season worth $115,000,000 in his second year of arbitration. The contract expires in 2028 and pays him an AAV of $19,166,667.
Josh Hader
The Astros big acquisition during the 2023 offseason, Hader signed a five year contract with $95,000,000, which at the time of signing was the largest contract ever given to a relief pitcher. Going through the 2028 season, Hader has an AAV of $19,000,000.
Christian Javier
The breakout for the Astros the past few years, Javier signed a five year extension with the club last year, keeping him an Astros through 2028. The team gave him $64,000,000, earning his an AAV of $12,800,000.
Lance McCullers
Since signing his five year, $85,000,000 extension in 2022 that kept him with the team till 2026, McCullers has thrown only 47.2 innings. Earning $17,000,000 a year, McCullers has a lot to live up to in 2025.
Other Money
Jose Abreu
The other big offseason acquisition for the team along with Hader, Abreu signed a massive three year deal worth $58,500,000 only to end up off the team. Coming off a 2023 season that saw him take his first major step back of his career with the Chicago White Sox, he was completely awful in 2024 with the Astros, leading to his release.
The former MVP is still set to earn an AVV of $19.5 million from the Astros, despite not being on the team at any level.
Rafael Montero
After starting the year in the majors on a massive three year contract worth $34,500,000, Montero ended the season in Triple-A. One of the keys to the Astros elite bullpen, Montero signed his extension with the team before having an awful 2024 season, seeing him pitch only 41 games in the bigs.
Montero is set to earn an AVV of $11,500,000 while pitching in the minors, with hopes of being back up in the bigs in 2025.
Deferred money
Zach Greinke
While not counting towards their active payroll, the team owes Greinke $12.5 million in deferred money, same as in 2022, 2023 and 2024.
Players going into arbitration
There is a very long list of players who still have remaining years of arbitration left who will likely be returning in 2025. When a player goes into arbitration, it means that they give the team a number that they think they are worth. If the team does not agree with that number, it goes to a court, where it is decided between the two numbers which the player will get for the coming season.
Young players like Jeremy Pena, Hunter Brown, Chas McCormick, Luis Garcia and Jake Meyers are all expected to return to the team in 2025. It is just unknown at the moment as to how much they will be getting paid.
Sometimes this can end well and sometimes this can end poorly. If there is a big difference in the numbers from the player and the team, it could have an effect on the relationship between the two and make dealing with a long term contract more difficult.
Take Kyle Tucker for example. In 2023, Tucker lost his arbitration hearing, causing him to make $5 million instead of the $7.5 million he wanted. After having an explosive 2023 season, Tucker and the team agreed to a $12 million deal for the 2024 season. With one year left of arbitration for him, there is no telling what that deal may look like this offseason.
As of now, it is projected that the Astros payroll for the 2025 season will be around $237 million, with a threshold of $241 million.
Next article, we’ll take a look at where the money should and shouldn’t be going this offseason.