October never even started for Jose Altuve & Co.
Suffering a wild-card sweep against the Chicago White Sox, the Houston Astros became the first team to make an exit in the 2026 MLB playoffs -- on the last day of September.
So, what's next for Houston -- and all of the other towns that won't be celebrating a World Series parade this fall? For every eliminated contender this October, ESPN MLB experts Jorge Castillo, Bradford Doolittle, Alden Gonzalez, Jesse Rogers and David Schoenfield list its key free agents and biggest offseason questions and also make their predictions for the long, cold winter ahead.
Teams eliminated in wild-card series
Houston Astros
Eliminated by: Chicago White Sox
Key free agents: RHP Bryan Abreu, 3B Isaac Paredes (club option, converted to mutual option if Paredes lands in top 10 of AL MVP balloting)
Biggest offseason priority: The Astros navigated the stretch run without a general manager after Dana Brown was let go in late August. That was after the draft and the trade deadline, so the committee guiding the front office was able to make it work. Going forward, the Astros will need to find or promote a new lead executive, then empower him to implement his own processes. Given the influence of owner Jim Crane and ex-player Jeff Bagwell, a vocal analytics skeptic in the past, the outcome of the search will tell us a lot about how the higher-ups in Houston see the landscape of best practices in the industry. That can be good, or not, but either way it's time the Astros returned some continuity to their most important baseball operations position.
How much weight should the Astros put on this playoff appearance? Of course the Astros deserved to celebrate the latest in the spree of division titles the franchise has won over the past decade. And it's certainly true that Houston's ability to climb out of a 20-31 hole in late May was fairly remarkable. Nevertheless, the Astros had to win their last two games to reach .500 at season's end and were outscored by 32 runs overall. If not for the low bar the AL West set this season, the Astros would have been watching from the playoff sideline for a second straight season. Thus, as the next Astros GM sets out, they'll have to be clear-eyed about it. The starting point for the club is one of mediocrity and there aren't enough upward-pointing trajectory arrows on the roster. Maybe a full reset isn't needed, but at the very least, the short and the long terms will have to be given equal shrift, or else this thing could really crumble in a hurry.
Offseason prediction: Houston has had a coterie of bright front office personalities working out of the spotlight going back to the Jeff Luhnow days. The most obvious course of action would be to promote one of them -- someone like assistant GMs Charles Cook, Gavin Dickey or Connor Huff. But just as crucial is to empower that hire to build and run their own front office. Questions about whether the Crane/Bagwell-led leadership team is willing to fully commit to that are why a promotion from within seems like the most likely course of action. The first indication about how this will go probably will be whether the Astros wait to have a new baseball chief in place before committing to bringing back manager Joe Espada in 2027. -- Doolittle
