While the Houston Astros have been major players at all levels of the free agent and trade markets, the one area where they have not made much headway is with regard to attracting talent from Japan. The Astros did trade for Yusei Kikuchi in 2024, and they did sign Kazuo Matsui before the 2008 season after he had already played in the majors for a few years, but Houston has never really been truly in play for top talent coming over from the NPB. That is something that needs to change this offseason.
Other than Framber Valdez, who the Astros obviously have plenty of history with, the starting pitching market isn't all that exciting when it comes to upside.