Prospects in the Houston Astros Farm System
Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Houston Astros. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as our own observations. This is the fourth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb. A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here. All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here.
Other Prospects of Note
Projectable Pitchers
- Yeriel Santos, RHP
- Derek True, RHP
- Julio Marte, RHP
Santos, 20, is an athletic A-ball righty who is sitting 92-95 with an average curveball and a changeup of mixed quality. He could end up with three average or better offerings, but he has no overt plus trait right now. True is having pro success in a piggyback role after he was a pure reliever at Cal Poly. He’s sitting 93-95 with an above-average slider and below-average command. He’ll probably shift back into a short relief role eventually. Marte, 21, is a super projectable righty at 6-foot-5, 180 pounds. He has a long, vertical arm stroke and sits 91-95. He’s a smooth, graceful athlete but isn’t all that powerful yet, and he struggles to locate his breaking stuff.
Power Hitters
- Nehomar Ochoa Jr., OF
- Jeron Williams, 3B/SS
- German Ramirez, 2B
- Franchely Silverio, SS
- Fernando Caldera, C
- Zach Daniels, OF
- Oliver Carrillo, 1B
- Anthony Huezo, OF
Ochoa, 18, is a physical outfielder with big present strength and a lift-heavy approach at the plate. Williams played his freshman season at Lincoln Trail Community College before he transferred to Toledo, and two seasons later, he was MAC Player of the Year. He’s built like a big leaguer and has sufficient athleticism, which is evident in Williams’ best swings and his acrobatic flashes on defense. He’s been promoted to Corpus Christi pretty quickly, but don’t we believe in his feel to hit because of the way his swing looks. Ramirez, 17, is a pull-power projection infielder in the Complex League. He’s a bucket strider and has long-term hit tool risk, but he sure can swing hard for a teenage infielder. Silverio is a more physically mature version of Ramirez, except in the DSL. Caldera, 21, is a physical A-ball catcher who hit for power last year but is struggling so far in 2024. Daniels, 25, is a yoked, power-hitting outfielder with a bottom-of-the-scale hit tool. Carrillo, a 21-year-old Mexican first baseman, is built like an unsliced rotating spit of gyro meat at a rectangular 5-foot-11. He swings hard and got a quick hook to High-A after a hot start, but the righty-hitting first base profile is tough. Huezo is a projectable lefty-hitting outfielder with a long, lanky frame. He signed for $400,000 last year and was one of the youngest players from the 2023 draft. He has been overwhelmed so far by pro stuff.
Spot Starter Ceilings
- Julio Robaina, LHP
- Edinson Batista, RHP
- Jose Fleury, RHP
- Ethan Pecko, RHP
- Alain Pena, RHP
Robaina, 23, is a slider-oriented Cuban lefty who has finally pitched his way out of Corpus Christi. Batista, 22, is a Dominican righty who sits 91-95 with sink. He’s an advanced, athletic, undersized depth starter type. Fleury, a 22-year-old 6-foot righty, is similar to Batista (he’s undersized and relatively advanced), but his fastball plays with vertical action rather than sink. This year, he was skipped over High-A and sent straight to Double-A, where he’s held his own despite sitting 90-91. Pecko is a drop-and-drive 21-year-old righty from Towson. He’s a loose-bodied athlete with a pretty delivery and a strong (if mature) frame, but he has 40- and 45-grade stuff across the board. Pena, 21, is a cutter-oriented Mexican righty who is working efficiently in A-ball. His low-90s stuff isn’t quiet big enough for the main section of the list, and like everyone in this group, he has the look of someone with depth starter ceiling.
Relief Depth
- Forrest Whitley, RHP
- Cesar Gomez, RHP
Whitley was throwing hard (97-99) at the start of the season but quickly hit the IL with elbow discomfort and has only recently resumed throwing. He hasn’t been consistently effective or healthy for a while, and now that he’s almost out of options and clearly on the fringe of Houston’s roster, he needs to prove it at the big league level to have any kind of trade value. Gomez is a 25-year-old kitchen sink reliever — slider, cutter, changeup, with fastballs and sinkers up to 96 — who is having success at Double-A.
System Overview
As was the case with last year’s list, Houston’s system has the most depth and upside among its position players, with Jake Bloss the lone starting pitcher in the top eight of this ranking. The Astros make an obvious effort to maximize the versatility of their position player group, with a majority of them getting playing time at multiple positions on the defensive side of the ball; players like Joey Loperfido, Alberto Hernandez, and Brice Matthews are good examples of this. For some, their projections would look drastically different without above-average defensive versatility.
There’s also no shortage of high-risk/high-reward types in this system, players who have huge offensive upside but some underlying issue that acts as a loose Jenga block in their profile. Luis Baez epitomizes this. The Astros continue to have an abundance of intriguing arms from the Latin American and domestic markets, but fewer and fewer of them have enough starter-like traits to even allow you to dream on them filling a rotation spot at the major league level. Arms like Alonzo Tredwell, Alimber Santa, and Miguel Ullola all have pitch mixes that look deep enough on paper to start, but their command is light enough that their most productive innings will be out of the bullpen.
Prior to being named the Astros’ general manager in January of 2023, Dana Brown led one of the most successful amateur scouting departments in the league in Atlanta. We think it’s safe to assume Houston will continue to operate without much of an in-person pro department, as they have since the mid-Luhnow era, because that was also Atlanta’s approach when Brown was there (though again, he led the amateur side). There has yet to be a drastic spike in the number of scouting boots on the ground Houston has covering the amateur ranks, but it’s also still early in Brown’s tenure; the next couple of years will tell us a lot about how the Astros’ amateur apparatus will operate moving forward.
Their international department has been among the most consistent in the league at identifying future big leaguers (many more pitchers than average, and often older, $10,000 or $20,000 signees), but recent signing periods haven’t produced a Top 100 type of prospect. Even with two prospects moving into the Top 100, this is a below-average system on impact and an average one in terms of depth. With the 28th pick in the upcoming draft, any short-term leap in farm system quality will come from trades.
Houston’s 2024 injuries and slow start might lead them to take a seller’s posture at the deadline for the first time in a long time. Alex Bregman is in the final year of his deal, while Kyle Tucker and Framber Valdez will be free agents after next season. The Astros are only 7.5 games back in the division as of this writing and Brown has…
