Baseball America reported that the following individuals have been released by the Astros:
LHP Travis Blankenship
LHP Colton Pitkin
LHP Shane Wolf
C Federico Hernandez
SS Hector Rodriquez
OF Kellen Kiilsgaard
The only one of these that I don't get is Travis Blankenship. He had a 3.90 ERA and a 1.067 WHIP in 2011 at Tri-City with 8.4 SO/9 and a very respectable SO/BB ratio.
In addition, the Astros have signed 2B Jordan Kreke from the Atlanta organization and OF Jordan Brown from the Brewers organization.
The 24-year old Kreke has a .239 minor league career batting average and hit .218/.262/.288/.550 at AA in 2011. He was drafted by Atlanta in the 13th round in 2009.
The 28-year old Brown was originally drafted by Cleveland in the 4th round in 2005 and played in both the Indians and the Brewers organization in 2011. He hit .230 in 26 games for Cleveland in 2010. His career minor league average is .307. At AAA last season, he hit .311/.346/.466/.812.
I don't know...Blankenship was 24 years old and hadn't made it out of short season ball. I can understand the cut.
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