Jeremy Peña extended his hitting streak to 13 games Saturday, the latest data point in a season that’s become a real problem for Houston’s front office—not on the field, but at the negotiating table.
The timing could hardly be worse for Houston’s leverage. Peña has hit .429 (24-for-56) with six home runs and 11 RBIs during his 13-game hitting streak, dating back to just after the All-Star break, and he earned American League Player of the Week honors in late July. His season line, a batting average north of .310 with an .889 OPS, already exceeds the career-best .840 mark he set just last season.
Peña and the Astros were reportedly in the final stages of agreeing to a contract extension earlier this year, according to Chandler Rome of The Athletic, before Peña switched agents to Scott Boras. As we reported at the time, that agent change effectively stalled the negotiations. That reporting came before the more recent accounts from The Crawfish Boxes and Climbing Tal’s Hill, both of which describe those talks as having effectively collapsed once Boras entered the picture. General manager Dana Brown said last year that he called Boras directly and remains “still interested in signing Jeremy long-term,” but no extension has materialized since. No specific contract framework or dollar figure from those earlier talks was ever made public, so what’s actually at stake remains a question of leverage rather than a known price tag.
Based on his service time, Peña is on track to reach free agency after the 2027 season, giving Houston one more full year beyond this one to get a deal done. That’s real time to work with, but every productive month Peña strings together likely raises his price, not lowers it. Brown has been through a similar situation before, making similar public overtures about extending Alex Bregman before those negotiations ultimately fell apart and Bregman departed for Boston.
Elite shortstops rarely get cheaper the longer teams wait, particularly those putting up career years in their late 20s, which is exactly the bind Houston now finds itself in. With the trade deadline passing Monday without Houston moving him, despite some outside speculation about the possibility, the more pressing question isn’t whether Peña stays through the end of this season.
It’s whether Houston can find its way back to the negotiating table before his asking price climbs beyond what the front office is willing to pay.
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