Houston

Astros

After an injury-plagued 2025 season, Alvarez is slated to start the majority of games at designated hitter, but that doesn’t mean we won’t see him in the outfield. “Yordan likes to play left field, and that balance is important to keep,” Espada said on MLB Network. “He likes to go out to left field and put some at-bats behind him and go focus on something else defensively, and we’re going to do that. And also, by doing that, it allows us to DH some other veteran players that we will need to get off their feet.” How many games Alvarez plays in the outfield is anybody’s guess, but his having outfield eligibility in fantasy leagues would be big, as would getting extra at-bats for Isaac Paredes and Christian Walker at DH.

Yohel Pozo homered off him. Gordon spent about half of his rookie season in the Astros’ rotation, going 6-4 with a 5.34 ERA in 14 starts and six relief appearances. He’s not a threat to be part of this year’s season-opening group unless injuries strike, but he is jockeying for position with the team’s other fallbacks.

Janek, the Astros’ first-round pick two years ago, is 3-for-5 with a double, three walks and four steals this spring. Last year, he was 30-for-32 stealing bases in High-A ball, so even though his bat remains something of a question mark, he’s an intriguing fantasy prospect as he aims to become a starting catcher in the bigs a couple of years down the line.

He took a liner from Marcus Semien off the leg, but recovered to force Bo Bichette to ground into an inning-ending double play. Imai topped out at 94.7 miles per hour and was credited with only throwing a change-up and a sinker, though he claimed after the game he had also thrown some sliders. Through an interpreter, Imai said that the plan was for him to throw just one inning and that his leg is fine. Imai looks to be a fine SP dart throw at the end of mixed league drafts.

He’s continued to play catch after biceps inflammation sprung up in early February, but the fact that we’re now almost in March and Hader doesn’t really seem to be progressing is ominous. Fantasy managers that draft Hader — and at this point we’d continue to break tier ties against Hader — should consider pursuing Bryan Abreu as a contingency plan later in their drafts.

He’ll likely be managed with a lot of DH time this season, but it’s a good sign to see Alvarez ready to go before we get too deep into spring training. Our last update on him was that he was completely pain free, so fantasy managers shouldn’t have any reservations about drafting him early based on what we currently know. He’s still coming at a slight discount after last year’s 48-game injury-plagued debacle of a season.

Trammell is off to a 4-for-8 start as he tries to win back a spot on Houston’s roster. He was outrighted off the 40-man roster after two weeks after signing a major league deal worth $900,000 in November. Unless it’s decided that Cam Smith or Zach Cole needs more time in the minors, then there’s probably one spot on Houston’s roster for Joey Loperfido, Zach Dezenzo, Shay Whitcomb or Trammell.

He struck out two. Five months after he last faced hitters in game action, Brown averaged 96.6 mph with his fastball and 95.9 mph with his sinker today, both matching his 2025 averages exactly. It’s really kind of amazing when you think about it.

The Astros had Jason Alexander and J.P. France work in front of Teng today, but Teng outshone them, essentially retiring seven straight while having to pitch around a Jeremy Peña error. There’s not going to be room for any of those three in Houston’s rotation unless someone gets hurt, but Teng is the most interesting of the bunch.

Cole’s three balls in play were hit 105.8, 101.7 and 101.4 mph with xBAs of .890, .650 and .300, but it did him no good in this one. Especially with Jesús Sánchez gone, Cole has a great chance to start against righties for the Astros. We worry about the strikeouts, but the speed and power could give him some value in deeper leagues.