Quick update on Ethan Frey in this morning’s Baseball America newsletter:
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In Baseball America’s May update to their T100, the Astros have a T100 guy again: Xavier Neyens, coming in at number 100. This is mostly thanks to other prospects graduating from the list as they’ve made the majors, but Neyens is having a promising start to his first pro season. There’s no question he’s striking out too much, but there’s no question .286/.421/.558 is a damn good slash line, either.
Of note: most of his reps this year are coming at 3B rather than SS. This is expected; I can’t recall anybody saying before the draft that he would be able to stick at short.
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MLBpipeline has updated their top 100 and the Astros have TWO on the list !!!
Kevin Alvarez is #80
Xavier Neyens is #100
How long has it been?
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He’s nowhere near the T100 discussion but Asheville catcher Jason Schiavone is off to one of the best starts in all of baseball. With another homer last night he’s got 17 on the season and is now hitting .272/.444/.781. He’s also striking out in about a third of his plate appearances, very on-brand for the Astros system these days.
11th rounder in 2024 out of James Madison. The results were terrible in his first two pro seasons (.175 hitter across 2024-25, albeit with great walk rates) before he exploded this year.
Since Schiavone hasn’t ranked on any Astros prospect lists to this point I don’t think there are any written reports online on his skills behind the plate. He splits time between C and 1B; not sure if they don’t see him as a long-term C or if they just use those 1B starts to keep him rested.
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Schiavone is having an insane start to the season. But the Asheville Tourist who’s surprised me in all the best possible ways this season is Cole Hertzler (5th Round pick in 2024 out of Liberty). He has 40 K’s in just 27.1 innings. If he keeps pitching like this, I have to think a promotion to Corpus is imminent.
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Any time you are looking at a hitter in Asheville it is good to check out the splits. Asheville is a very hitter friendly park. Schiavone’s splits indicate it might be some home cooking helping him:
The same goes for pitchers. Which is what makes Hertzler’s numbers even more impressive:
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Last night Jason Schiavone homered in his first game at Corpus.
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Another reason to take low-minors HR totals with a grain of salt: something’s up with the MiLB ball. HR rates have skyrocketed at AA and below, but held flat at AAA and MLB. What distinguishes those groups? AA and below use the MiLB ball; AAA & MLB use the MLB ball.
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MLB Executives: maybe no one will notice
Stat Geeks one month into the season: WTH???
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Kevin Alvarez is the lone Astro farm hand playing in the futures game.
According to Chandler Rome, Xavier Neyens has just been added to the Futures Game roster.
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Congrats to the FCL Astros on taking the FCL championship after a dominant 42-11 season.
Complex league baseball is amazing. Their top four hitters by plate appearances hit a combined .199, led by SS Landon Arroyos (.176), who stole 31 bases and was caught just once. In 43 games, C Jase Mitchell collected 17 hits and drew 54 walks.
C/1B Luis De Leon (#5 in PA) led the team with a .390/.482/.559 line, including 4 dingers in 38 games. If you want to dive into the wonders of the whole team’s stats, here you go:
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“amazing” is certainly one way to describe it
Bruce Mayer makes BA’s top 10 pitchers of July, saying that he should stick as a starter and could debut in 2027
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Meyer just promoted to Sugar Land
6 innings, 9 Ks, 0 walks, 0 runs, 3 hits in his last start at Corpus Christi.
Supposedly, at last year’s trade deadline heaps of teams were interested in him. I’d love for the Astros to keep Mayer, but I think if they want to get a quality player this year he’s the guy they’ll have to trade in return.
Other than a version of Skubal plus club control, which of these type players are on the market? One of the possibly available Mets?
Mets dealt most of their attractive assets. I think Luis Robert, Jr. is still available. Is he someone you’d want to trade for? Not so sure.
Supposedly, Mariners are dangling George Kirby and Emerson Hancock. I don’t think the Astros have the prospects for Kirby (at least, I doubt I’d like what it would take to make that trade - i.e. gutting the system). Hancock would be a great addition. Still think it would be a high cost and in-division trades rarely happen.
MLB Pipeline updated their organizational rankings. Houston comes in at #29 for the fifth time in a row. As unimpressed as I am about the overall talent in the system (especially AA and AAA), there’s no way in Hell there are twenty eight orgs that are better.
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