Monday, January 16, 2017

Astros Farm Report: 1-16

Taking a break from reading Across that Bridge by John Lewis to bring you today's Astros farm news ...

WISHING A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO

1-17: OF Kyle Tucker (20)
1-18: SS/OF Osvaldo Duarte (21)
1-20: LHP Ben Smith (24)
1-21: RHP David Schmidt (24)
1-22: OF Angel Tejeda (20)
1-23: RHP Keegan Yuhl (25)

Osvaldo Duarte - May 2016
Photo by Jayne Hansen

ROSTER MOVES/TRANSACTIONS

Things continue to be quiet on the transaction front, but here is a reminder of what has transpired so far this offseason.

Dustin added the three 1-9 transactions after I posted last week, so I'm reposting in case you missed them. The only new transaction I saw was the news about Makay Nelson.

1-13: RHP Makay Nelson placed on the restricted list for 50 games
1-9: C Luis Mario Barajas signed to a minor league contract (18-year old from Mexico)
1-9: RHP Agapito Barrios released
1-9: LHP Austin Nicely released

The Astros also released LHP Bryan Radziewski, OF Leo Heras, and RHP Manuel Gonzalez on January 9; those moves showed up on the latest iteration of Baseball America's Minor League Transactions.

Radziewski was the Astros' 9th-round pick in 2013 out of Miami. He did not pitch in 2016.

Heras was signed from the Mexico City Red Devils in 2013, and the bulk of his time in the Astros system was spent with Corpus Christi. In 2016, he played two games with Fresno before being loaned back to the Red Devils.

Manuel Gonzalez made 13 relief appearances in the Gulf Coast League in his lone season with the Astros after beginning his career with the Padres.

In addition, Jake Kaplan of the Chronicle reported that 2B/3B Nick Tanielu, who finished the regular season with the AA Hooks and appeared in the Arizona Fall League, will miss most of the 2017 season after having offseason surgery to reconstruct his ACL.

ASTROS FALL/WINTER LEAGUE UPDATES

Since all of the fall/winter regular seasons are now over except for the Australian Baseball League, I am going to mothball the cumulative winter stats page, but you can find that final update here.

With that said, there is still a bit of news to report. OF Drew Ferguson has been playing with Santurce in the Puerto Rican Winter League as that team advanced to the Championship Finals. Ferguson had a good night last night, going 2-for-4 with a double, triple, 3 RBI and a walk in Santurce's win over Caguas. The best of nine series is tied at one win each.

1B Connor MacDonald only played in one game last week for the Brisbane Bandits in the Australian Baseball League. His winter line is .277/.351/.373 with two doubles, two home runs, 17 RBI and 10 runs scored in 26 games.

WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC

The World Baseball Classic will soon be upon us. It runs from March 6th through March 22nd and the full schedule can be found here. The rosters haven't been officially announced yet, but several Astros players are slated to participate, including the most recent announcement that Alex Bregman will be playing for the U.S. team.

RHP Luke Gregerson (U.S. Team)
3B/SS Alex Bregman (U.S. Team)
SS Carlos Correa (Team Puerto Rico)
OF Carlos Beltran (Team Puerto Rico)
2B Jose Altuve (Venezuelan Team)
OF Nori Aoki (Team Japan).

NEWS AND LINKS

The Astros Minor League Coaching staff and Dustin has all the info here.

The Astros Spring Training non-roster invitees were announced this week. The list includes newly signed LHP C.J. Riefenhauser, C Juan Centeno and IF Reid Brignac as well as several current Astros minor leaguers:

IF Reid Brignac
C Juan Centeno
3B J.D. Davis
OF Derek Fisher
RHP Edison Frias
OF Alejandro Garcia
C Tyler Heineman
LHP Brian Holmes
RHP Jordan Jankowski
OF Jon Kemmer
OF Ramon Laureano
RHP Francis Martes
RHP Tyson Perez
LHP C.J. Riefenhauser
1B Jon Singleton
RHP Cy Sneed
C Garrett Stubbs
RHP Aaron West

Former Astro Jake Buchanan talks about being a part of the Cubs World Series team.

Minor league umpires are getting a boost.

And MLB/USA Baseball team up in a new program aimed at giving high school players a leg up in their development.

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