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This might be a sign of the apocalypse. For once, I’m really hoping that ESPN is right about something. Today, they have made the bold prediction that JJ Wetherholt will be the National League Rookie of the Year-sort of.

The 2026 season predictions for MLB’s top prospects on ESPN is a fun read for St. Louis Cardinals fans. They begin by saying they believe that the Philadelphia Phillies Aidan Miller will win the third base job by Memorial Day and win the NL Rookie of the Year, but they second-guessed themselves and said that the Pittsburgh Pirates Bubba Chandler would instead hoist that trophy. Finally, they decide on the St. Louis Cardinals JJ Wetherholt as the most likely to be the National League’s top rookie specifically because of the opportunity that Brendan Donovan’s trade provides him. Kiley McDaniel believes that JJ has the most opportunity to see full-time playing time compared to other top NL rookies which leaves a more likely path to NL Rookie of the Year.

If you saw JJ Wetherholt’s interviews during the Winter Warmup a couple weeks ago, you know that he believes that this type of preseason hype is “poison”. He said that he began to deal with “bold predictions” about his future during his college time at West Virginia.

JJ Wetherholt – “Where there were articles about me…all the preseason stuff, that’s what we label it. It’s poison. It’s cool to have people talk about you, but at the end of the day, you’ve got to perform. Those guys who hiked you up will be the same ones that tear down as soon as it goes bad. You try to tune all that stuff out and just do the work you can and hopefully that comes true”.

As I shared earlier in the winter, I think there’s good reason to hop on board the JJ Wetherholt hype train, but the optimism should be measured. I have yet to see a player not have to overcome struggles when they first break into the big leagues. The only exception I can think of is Albert Pujols. Major league pitchers have a way to find holes in your swing. The good/great ones adjust and overcome and I’m hopeful that will be JJ Wetherholt’s story. If he even comes close to ESPN’s prediction, I’ll be thrilled.

I believe Houston needs to move on from their CF.

Astros fans, here I am again, the voice of reason. A few weeks ago, I floated the idea that it might be time to trade Jeremy Peña. Now I’m back with another uncomfortable but necessary conversation: the Houston Astros should seriously consider trading Jake Meyers while his value still exists.

This isn’t about disliking Meyers or dismissing what he’s brought to the organization. It’s about timing, roster construction, and the reality of where this team stands as it tries to extend its championship window. If you don’t move him now, his value may plummet and you may never be able to sell at this rate again.

Why the Astros Should Explore a Jake Meyers Trade

The Astros desperately need left-handed pitching to complement a rotation overloaded with right-handers. That alone should push Dana Brown and the front office to explore every viable trade chip they have. Moving Meyers could help address that need while simultaneously opening playing time for younger talent—most notably Zach Cole.

Meyers has been an above-average defender for much of his Astros tenure, but injuries have been a recurring issue. When he’s had to return from those injuries, the defensive confidence hasn’t always followed. Fly balls become adventures, throws become liabilities, and the overall impact starts to wane.

The bigger question, however, is offensive sustainability.

Was 2025 Peak Jake Meyers?

Teams around the league still value defense, and that’s where Meyers maintains trade appeal. But can he replicate last season offensively? Was that production a stepping stone toward more growth—or a fool’s gold season that inflated expectations?

I lean toward the latter. When all is said and done, last year may very well represent the best offensive season of Jake Meyers’ career. That belief matters even more when you consider the Astros’ depleted farm system, which doesn’t provide the same luxury of trade capital that other contenders enjoy. If Houston wants to upgrade areas of need, they must be strategic with the few movable pieces they have.

If Meyers Is Gone, Who Plays Center Field?

This is the natural follow-up question, and it has a legitimate answer.

I believe the Astros traded Jacob Melton because they see a higher ceiling in Zach Cole. Cole’s first major league home run understandably grabbed headlines, but his real value lies in his complete skill set. He can play all three outfield positions, runs well, owns a solid arm, fields at a high level, and competes at the plate.

That combination makes him a legitimate candidate to take over in center field, as he can play all three outfield positions.

Cole is only going to improve, and going to spring training with the big league club for the first time represents a critical developmental step. The Astros need to start identifying long-term everyday players, and Cole has the tools to become a quality, if not cornerstone piece if given the opportunity.

An Outfield Full of Questions

While the infield is overloaded with talent, the outfield remains unsettled. It underperformed last season and enters spring training with far more uncertainty than answers. Injuries and the Kyle Tucker trade exposed just how thin this group can be when things go sideways.

Jesús Sánchez adds another layer of complexity. He has league-wide value and a team-friendly salary, but unless Houston gets a meaningful return, moving him doesn’t make much sense. He provides insurance, especially if Cam Smith continues to look more like the player we saw late last season rather than the cornerstone prospect expected in the Tucker deal. He has experience, some pop and can play everyday, so the value is there both here and possibly elsewhere.

Smith’s situation is delicate. Once a young player has tasted the major leagues, sending him back down can have developmental consequences. Dana Brown and the coaching staff will have to balance patience with production. If he starts the season on the big league roster and they plan on starting him in right field, then Sanchez is a much needed insurance policy for the team in case Smith fails.

Yordan Álvarez and the Position Shuffle

Then there’s Yordan Álvarez. The Astros must decide whether to honor his preference to play the field or keep him primarily at DH to reduce injury risk. Beyond Yordan, the remaining outfield options are largely converted infielders: Zach Dezenzo, Shay Whitcomb, Brice Matthews, and the ongoing experiment involving José Altuve.

At some point, experimentation has to give way to clarity.

The Bottom Line

The Astros need to clear the outfield logjam and define their core starting outfielders. Moving on from Jake Meyers now, while his value remains intact, makes sense to me. I believe we’ve already seen the best version of him, and if another team believes there’s more upside, Houston should capitalize.

Whether the future belongs to Zach Cole, Brice Matthews, or someone else entirely, the Astros can’t afford to stand still. The time to make a decisive, forward-thinking move is now.

So I’ll ask the question again:
Should the Astros trade Jake Myers? If the answer is yes, who would you want in center field?

The Nationals are going to have a number of position battles this spring. Not many spots on the pitching staff are secure, and it is anyone’s guess as to who the first baseman will be. However, the camp battle that intrigues me the most comes at the catching position. 

Keibert Ruiz has been the full time starter since 2022, and has a contract that runs through the 2030 season. However, the last two seasons have been disastrous for Ruiz. His combined OPS since the start of 2024 is only .610, which is an issue for a bat first catcher. With the trade for top catching prospect Harry Ford, Ruiz is fighting an uphill battle to be the starting catcher.

It is telling that the first major transaction Paul Toboni made in DC was trading for a catcher. When speaking to fans yesterday, Toboni said there are no limits on Ford. He said the trade was a unique opportunity for the Nats that was only possible due to the fact the Mariners have such an elite catcher.

While Toboni has said all the right things about Ruiz, his actions tell me that he is high on Ford and has questions about Keibert Ruiz. If the organization had things their way, I think they would want Ford to win the job. That does not mean the job will be handed to the youngster though.

Ford is going to have to earn the job. While he has made his MLB debut, he is not proven enough to have a job handed to him. The Nats are committed to both players, so this will be a real competition. Ownership is committed financially to Ruiz and the new front office is committed to Ford because they are the ones who traded for him.

One interesting twist in this competition is the World Baseball Classic. Harry Ford will be playing for Great Britain during the event. It is a great honor for Ford, who has British parents, but it also could cost him in this competition. This could be a major opportunity for Ruiz or even Drew Millas to impress the new staff while Ford is away.

Great Britain play their first exhibition on March 3rd, and their last group phase game is on March 9th.  That means Ford will be gone for at least a week of Spring Training. Britain is in a group with the US, Brazil, Italy and Mexico. The top two teams in the group will advance. America will be a shoe in, but the second spot will be up for grabs. With Ford and Jazz Chisholm on the team, Britain has a chance to advance. If they do, Ford will be out even longer.

Despite this, I still think Ford should be considered the favorite to be the starting catcher. He has already proven he can do it at AAA. Last season, Ford hit .283 with an .868 OPS at the highest level of the minors. If the Mariners did not have Cal Raleigh, Ford would probably have more MLB experience by now.

The Nats are a young team with low expectations. That is the perfect spot for a player like Harry Ford. He will get the chance to learn on the job and get MLB reps. Unless he struggles mightily this spring, I have a hard time believing he will not be on the roster.

Another thing to consider is how the playing time will be split. Davey Martinez really rode his starting catchers hard, especially Keibert Ruiz. The new regime is probably going to be more open to playing two catchers. It would not be surprising if we see Ford catch 60% of the games and Ruiz catch 40% of them. That timeshare will be important for Ruiz in particular, who has suffered the wear and tear of being an everyday catcher.

The Nats also have depth options behind these two. Drew Millas has never been given an extended run of playing time, but has always looked good in his chances. He is also the best defender of the group. Despite being DFA’d, Riley Adams remains in the organization and has plenty of big league experience. He also has some interesting power upside that has not quite been realized yet.

With the addition of Ford, the Nats catching situation should be much better than it was last year. To be blunt, the production the Nats got behind the plate was abysmal. Toboni saw those numbers and knew he could not roll with the status quo. He added a young hot shot in Ford, while keeping the door open for the catchers on the team last year. 

Developing catchers has become a real art, and it is something the Nats have not been good at in recent years. Hopefully the new regime can improve the Nats catchers, particularly on the defensive side of the ball. 

If I had to bet, I think Harry Ford will be the Nats starting catcher. However, he is not going to be playing every day like Keibert Ruiz was under Davey Martinez. That will keep him fresh and give Ruiz one last opportunity to try to live up to his contract and potential. This is the happiest I have been about the Nats catching situation in quite some time.

The deal now gives the Astros, or any new team, two years of cost certainty.

Earlier today, Brian McTaggart of MLB.com reported that the Houston Astros have come to a contract agreement with 3B Isaac Paredes on a 2-year, $22.7M deal.

This deal having a second season with a club option (unless he finished Top 10 MVP) give the Astros a cost certainly on Paredes for the next two seasons, taking him through his final year of arbitration.

It also gives cost certainty to any team that should trade for him.

Paredes is a player that has high value on the trade market, and having the next two years salaries established would make it easier to deal him. The Astros currently have a clear logjam at 1B with Paredes and Christian Walker.

While the club would like to keep Paredes, GM Dana Brown has pined for a reliable lefty hitting outfield bat all offseason, and Paredes may be his best chance of getting one.

The Astros have had trade discussions revolving around Paredes all offseason with various teams. With a 2-year deal now in place taking him through his arbitration years, it may make setting compensation with an interested club easier.

David Hamilton. Trey Faltine. Jalin Flores. Adrian Rodriguez?

Over the last decade, the Texas Longhorns have featured elite play at the shortstop position, a standard that former Gold Glove winner Troy Tulowitzki has helped elevate since joining the coaching staff on the Forty Acres in 2019.

After playing second base, third base, and left field last year for the Longhorns, Rodriguez takes over the position that Flores played at a high level for three seasons as he works his way back from hand surgery.

The sophomore battled through pain after missing seven games when he was hit by a pitch against Missouri that forced him to only hit left-handed for the rest of the season and made it difficult for him to play in the infield.

As Rodriguez proved his toughness in earning Perfect Game Freshman All-American honors despite the injury, he was able to reach base safely in the final 25 games of the season, ultimately slashing .313/.410/.516 with 35 runs scored, 14 doubles, seven homers, and 23 RBI and tying for the team lead with 15 stolen bases.

The expectation is for Rodriguez to take a step forward in 2026 if he can stay healthy even though his offseason development was hampered by the hand surgery — his ability as a switch hitter ensures he always has favorable matchups, and his bat-to-ball skills were impressive even when it was painful for him to swing.

“He’s on track to come back from his hand surgery. He’s not swinging the bat right now, but he should be able to do that in about a week or two,” Texas head coach Jim Schlossnagle said last week.

“The biggest thing with him was we had to hold him back. If you tell him five swings is good, he’s going to take 50. So we’ve to be careful with him that way.”

The double-play partner for Rodriguez is junior Ethan Mendoza in his second season on the Forty Acres. After gaining strength and showing early signs of a power surge after transferring from Arizona State, Mendoza was set back by a shoulder injury that forced him into a designated hitter role and seemed to sap his improved power.

Adding about 20 pounds of muscle during the offseason while focusing on making similar gains in straight-line and lateral quickness has further increased Mendoza’s pop with hopes that he can translate the four home runs he hit over a six-game stretch last season into more consistent power across the entire season. At the least, improvements in his exit velocity should translate to a higher slugging percentage thanks to better gap-to-gap power.

The Southlake Carroll product was also successful in altering his approach at the plate after arriving at Texas, showing more patience and working deeper into counts to get better pitches to hit, jumping from 13 walks in 2024 to 36 walks in 2025, although the side effect was nearly doubling his strikeout rate, a concession that Schlossnagle is willing to make.

To replace Kimble Schuessler, the former catcher who grew into one of the best defensive first baseman Schlossnagle has ever coached, the staff moved junior Casey Borba across the diamond from third base back to his primary infield position from 2024.

The focus for the California product has been improving his functional athleticism and understanding of the position because Schlossnagle wants to have a regular starter at first base.

“It takes some time to learn bunt defenses, where to play, where to position yourself, what balls to go get that are towards the second baseman, how to communicate in running away from the ball knowing that the second baseman can get the ball. And you only get those things through repetition and in the games and in practice,” Schlossnagle said on the Around the Horns podcast.

At the plate, the staff has continued to emphasize the need for an opposite-field approach. Borba hit 12 home runs in 2025 and improved his slugging percentage by 86 points, but his batting average suffered because he was hitting the ball hard into the shifts regularly employed against him, which put a hard ceiling on his ability to get base hits.

Borba did flash his upside in the Austin Regional win over Kansas State, recording the first multi-home run game of his career with a grand slam and a three-run blast on his way to a career-high eight RBI.

For Borba to have a true breakout season and capitalize on the potential that made him a near top-150 prospect nationally by Perfect Game out of Orange Lutheran in California, Borba will have to use the entire field as a hitter.

Back across the diamond at third base, Schlossnagle teased a platoon between Stanford transfer Temo Becerra, a defensive-minded former shortstop with a high contact rate and little power, and Wichita State transfer Josh Livingston, who has mostly played first base and second base.

“He worked his tail off to become a serviceable or even better than that third baseman — he’s really done a nice job,” Schlossnagle said of Livingston.

After leading the Shockers in home runs (15) and slugging percentage (.555) last season, Livingston brings a left-handed power bat to the Longhorns lineup and should receive starts against right-handed pitchers in addition to the possibility that he could see time at designated hitter.

Asked to pick a position player who could surprise, however, Mendoza nodded to Becerra.

“I think he’s a really good baseball player. Obviously, he’s been there for a really long time. He knows what the game is about, and he’s just a grindy player, too,” Mendoza said.

Sophomore Liberty transfer Callum Early provides infield depth after batting .295 for the Flames last year, as does well-regarded freshman Maddox Monsour, who has the versatility to play in the outfield, as well.

Schlossnagle would prefer to have more depth in the infield, but the starting group has plenty of experience and enough untapped potential to make the trajectories of Rodriguez, Mendoza, and Borba intriguing storylines to watch in 2026.

It’s only a motion away.

Could there be an Astros and Framber Valdez reunion? Maybe the odds are better than we previously thought?

Monday night on AREA 45 on Sportsradio 610, I posed the idea of the Astros getting back in on Framber Valdez with a short term, high AAV type deal with opt outs that would allow Framber to pitch in Houston this season, and go back on the market next year to search for his long-term deal without being attached to a Qualifying Offer.

Framber is the highest rated free agent still on the market, and the fact he has not signed yet is puzzling. Framber was easily the best pitcher on the market, and not only the best but most durable. Framber is baseball’s biggest ground ball machine and he eats innings. Framber pitched 192 innings in 2025, and has thrown 767.2 innings the past four seasons.

Five seasons ago was the last time Framber didn’t make at least 28 starts, and that was because of a fractured finger he suffered on a comebacker in Spring Training. He made 22 starts and pitched 134.2 innings.

For his career, Framber has a 3.36 ERA and 1.20 WHIP. His career groundball rate is 61.5%, and the MLB average is 42.4%. In an era of chasing the long ball, Valdez is the antidote.

Several teams have been linked to Valdez, but as the offseason has worn on, many have gone in different directions. There is now a question as to whether the long-term deal Valdez seeks will be available to him this season. Any team signing Valdez this season will also have draft pick forfeiture as a penalty for signing a free agent who rejected the Qualifying Offer. The combination of losing draft pick(s), losing international bonus pool money and paying out a long-term high value contract seems to have weakened teams’ desires to pay Valdez.

Enter the Astros.

Valdez clearly is familiar and comfortable in Houston. The Astros know Valdez’ temperament better than anyone, and know how to get the most from him.

For a team that may be offensively challenged (Houston has several ‘good hitters’ in it’s lineup but only one great hitter in Yordan Alvarez), having an elite rotation would catapult the Astros back into the World Series conversation. Framber is that kind of a difference maker.

A contract similar to the one Blake Snell signed in 2024, two years with a high AAV and an opt out, would make sense for all parties should the long term deal Valdez wants not be available.

Earlier today, Astros GM Dana Brown addressed the media and in his comments left the door open to a possible Framber reunion (Framber question in video at 3:06)

Adding Framber Valdez to a rotation that already has Hunter Brown, Tatsuya Imai, Cristian Javier and Mike Burrows would create a lot of competition for the sixth rotation spot and also give the Astros a chance to have two righthanders in the pen who can give multiple innings. Having multi-inning relievers in a short pen due to the longer rotation would be paramount for the club to keep key arms like Josh Hader and Bryan Abreu from being overworked.

It may be a longshot, but before today it seemed like a no shot.

Brown swooped in on Imai late and stole him when few in MLB thought Houston was a real player. Could he do it again with Framber?