Astros: The help needed sign is not up yet, but A.J. Reed looks ready in Triple-A

The Astros minor league depth at Triple-A could be at an all-time high! Reed is one of the guys to watch out for.

The Fresno Grizzlies have only played seven games this year, but the offense is looking great. With a crowded MLB 25-man roster, it will take an injury to get someone up. Everyone of the Astros hitters have had some type of impact early in the regular season. Even if a player is struggling, these guys are established players.

It looks like Yulieski Gurriel is about to start hitting.  Even if he struggles, the Astros have too much invested ($32 million) in him to do anything about it. The people who have played the least might be Nori Aoki and Jake Marisnick. The team had $5 million invested in Aoki and $1.1 million in Marisnick. They aren’t going anywhere.

It will take an injury for one of the guys in Triple-A to get a chance. You won’t see the continuos flow of players from the minors like we saw last year. This is how teams like to build their systems, with plenty of depth on both levels. With the team signing Josh Reddick, Carlos Beltran, Aoki, and trading for Brian McCann, MLB playing time will be hard to come upon this year.

The young players who shined this Spring are now at Fresno continuing to hit.

Derek Fisher stood out this Spring, he is batting .292 with two homers. Tony Kemp would be the Marwin Gonzalez type guy on many MLB rosters. Kemp is off to a hot start, hitting .400 with six runs scored. Teoscar Hernandez is hitting .292 with two homers and a team high 8 RBI’s.  Tyler White is batting .333 with a homer.

I could keep going, but even Max Stassi is hitting .286 early. I wanted to focus on a player who I still believe will be a star in this league. That player is A.J. Reed who has gotten off to a great start this year, opposite of his start last year. Through seven games, Reed is batting .333 with two homers and six runs batted in. Should he keep up this pace, he will be more prepared this year.

Last year, the Astros needed Reed to come up to be the guy. He was to be their answer to the question of who’s on first. Reed never really got it going in Fresno, but the Astros called him up because of a need. In his two stints last year, he was not ready for the challenge.

This offseason, he worked with the Astros and Jeremy Booth of Program 15. How did Reed get with a training program like P15? After a Talking Stros where Reed came on, I made a suggestion that he contact Jeremy. They worked together and we are seeing the evidence early on with Reed’s hard work this offseason.

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Reed will either play himself onto the team or increase his trade value. If he continues his early season pace, he will be ready this time around. Keep up with the Grizzlies box score this year, it looks to be entertaining. Let’s go Stros!

***Stats from Baseball-Reference***