Astros make two September call-ups

The first wave of September call-ups will be joining the Astros for today’s series finale against the Mariners. The two players recalled were already on the 40-man roster but probably aren’t part of the team’s long term plan.

Jorge De Leon and Trevor Crowe will provide a little more depth for Bo Porter down the stretch. But the real prospects will be staying in the minors — at least until the playoffs are over.

The additions of Crowe and De Leon are sure to be met with a certain amount of disdain by Astros fans. But we have to remember to try to look at the bigger picture.

The organization is committed to building through the minors. Fans in minor league cities crave championships just as much as anyone else does. Winning at the minor league level is also important to growing the fan base. To pluck the best talent off the rosters of theses teams at such a critical juncture wouldn’t exactly spread a lot of Astros goodwill around Oklahoma City and Corpus Christi.

So, at least for now, the Springers and Wojciechowskis of the world will stay down on the farm. When the minor league playoffs are over, we may see a few more call-ups. But, we may not get the players we’ve all been waiting for.

Wojo, Singleton, Springer, Stoffel, and Santana aren’t on the Astros 40-man roster. In order for one or more of them to get called up, someone would have to be removed from the 40-man to clear a spot.

Now, many of these prospects will need to be added to the 40-man by November to be protected from the Rule 5 Draft. But the Astros are likely to delay those decisions for as long as possible — meaning it is highly unlikely that we will see Springer added to the roster until next year. The rest of the players mentioned above will need to be protected, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will happen this month.

So, chances are we will see Marc Krauss in an Astros uniform before we see any “new blood” added to the roster. The silver lining: maybe CSN Houston will be available to the masses before these promising youngsters make it to the big leagues. Because it would suck if millions of us weren’t able to share the experience when these players finally realize their big league dreams.