12:03 p.m.: According to USA Today’s Bob Nightengale, it’s a three-year, $60 million deal for Walker.

12:00 p.m.: Walker and the Astros have reached an agreement pending the completion of the physical, Jim Bowden of The Athletic reports.

11:25 a.m.: The Astros and free agent first baseman Christian Walker are in “advanced” discussions, reports FanSided’s Robert Murray. Chandler Rome and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic are hearing similar news and reporting that the two parties are moving toward an agreement. Walker and his agents have reportedly sought a four-year contract with CAA.

A Walker deal for Houston would seem to eliminate the possibility of a Houston reunion Alex Bregman. Houston was recently acquired Isaac Paredes from the Cubs as part of the trade show Kyle Tucker to Chicago, and while Paredes could have played with Bregman at first base, he would certainly have been scheduled at third base if Walker were signed.

Walker, 33, has been a target of the Astros for some time, dating back to the trade deadline when he was reportedly high on their wish list. Of course, a deal didn’t materialize back then, but Houston still has a need at first base after his three-year deal Jose Abreu imploded on them almost immediately. Houston first basemen – led by Abreu and Jon Singleton – posted a terrible .226/.291/.360 batting line during the 2024 season. Walker, on the other hand, hit .251/.335/.468 – almost an exact match to the .253/.333/.464 line. He has made 3,171 plate appearances since the 2019 season.

In addition to his excellence at the plate, Walker has emerged as arguably the best defensive first baseman in the MLB. He has won three consecutive Gold Glove Awards in the National League and leads all first basemen in Defensive Runs Saved (33) and Outs Above Average (39) over the past three seasons. Matt Olson (27) and Carlos Santana (20) are in second place in these respective metrics. Walker’s defensive excellence at his position was essentially unmatched.

Both Walker and the recently acquired Paredes are a good fit for the Astros, given the short left field porch at the newly renamed Daikin Park. That’s more true of Paredes, who is one of the game’s most dangerous and prominent flyball hitters. Walker takes more of an all-field approach, but when he isolates his splits on pulled batted balls, he ranks 15th among qualified hitters in fly ball rate (32.2%). Put more simply: Walker may squirt the ball around a little more than Paredes, but when he pulls the ball, he lifts it up a lot more often than the vast majority of big league hitters. For a right-handed hitter with a lot of power in his bat, that should work just fine with a 314-foot left field porch.

Walker rejected a $21.05 million qualifying offer from the D-Backs at the end of the season. As such, he would cost the Astros their second- and fifth-highest picks in the 2025 draft as well as $1 million in cap space from their league-allocated international amateur free agency bonus pool. That’s the maximum penalty possible for signing a qualified free agent, but the Astros are in this category because they exceeded the luxury tax threshold in 2024. The fact that they passed the tax threshold also means that they would only receive a compensatory pick after the fourth round in the now likely event that Bregman signs elsewhere. The D-Backs received a comp pick after the first round.

More will follow.