Astros ace Dallas Keuchel is making the minimum salary this season and won’t be eligible for free agency until after the 2018 season, but Evan Drellich of the Houston Chronicle reports that there have been multi-year contract talks.
Keuchel confirmed that some level of negotiations have taken place between his agent and the team, but didn’t get into details. It’s possible that the two sides may simply be discussing, say, a two-year deal to buy out his first couple seasons of arbitration eligibility, which would provide Keuchel with life-changing money and give the Astros some cost certainty.
If instead they’re working on a bigger deal that stretches into Keuchel’s free agency, then the money would be pretty huge considering he’s a 27-year-old top-of-the-rotation starter who followed up a breakout 2014 campaign by pitching even better this season with a 2.37 ERA and 156/41 K/BB ratio in 179 innings.