Jeremy Pena Is on the Winter's Trade-Candidate Lists - and the Astros' Choice Is Extension, Keep Him, or Cash In
SI ranks Houston's shortstop the No. 10 trade candidate of the offseason and a CBS analyst predicts a trade. There is no indication the Astros have made him available - but his contract clock is the reason everyone is asking.
Jeremy Pena's name is doing the winter rounds. Sports Illustrated ranked the Astros' shortstop the No. 10 trade candidate of the MLB offseason, and CBS Sports analyst Mike Axisa predicted Houston will trade him while keeping Isaac Paredes - a prediction, not a report, and one this story treats as exactly that.
The case starts with the calendar, not the player. Pena hit .277 with 22 home runs, 56 RBIs and a .802 OPS across 112 games in 2026, worth 3.7 bWAR, and he has not finished a season below that mark in five years in Houston. He is also entering his final year of arbitration - he earned $9.475 million in 2026, with MLB Trade Rumors projecting about $13.1 million next season - and can become a free agent after the 2027 World Series.
Houston has been here before, in both directions. The club held serious extension talks with Pena during the 2025 season, discussing five years and more than $105 million, before negotiations stalled after he changed representation to Scott Boras. And the front office knows the other road well: two winters ago it traded Kyle Tucker in his final year of control rather than risk losing him for nothing, taking back Paredes - whose $13.35 million club option for 2027 the Astros have now exercised - pitcher Hayden Wesneski and prospect Cam Smith.
NBC Sports Philadelphia, sizing Pena up as a Phillies target, put the honest line in print: there is no indication the Astros have made their 29-year-old available. What exists is a shortstop market thin enough - the Braves, Blue Jays and Red Sox are among SI's listed suitors - that a team holding a prime-age shortstop on an expiring clock gets asked. Whether Houston answers with an extension, a season, or a trade is the Astros' first big decision of the winter.
