Astros Farm Ranks Near the Bottom by Baseball America

Since 2019, the Houston Astros‘ minor-league system has taken a nose dive in rankings, in part to the Zack Greinke trade, prospects graduating and losing draft picks.

With Seth Beer, Corbin Martin and J.B. Bukauskas departing the system, the rise of Yordan Alvarez and Kyle Tucker left the crop looking freshly farmed. While another season passes, the Astros’ system continue to scrape the bottom-half of rankings.

The Astros’ minor-league system ranks No. 28 by Baseball America.

Two Houston prospects — Korey Lee (70) and Jeremy Peña (72) — rank in Baseball America’s top-100, but beyond those two, the outlet doesn’t see much for the Astros’ system to be slated higher.

On Wednesday, Baseball America released its 2022 farm system ranking (subscription needed), leaving the Astros in the bottom-five for yet another year.

Houston has found quiet a few diamonds in the rough that went unnoticed. Those being Cristian Javier, Framber Valdez, Jose Urquidy and Jake Meyers, just to name a few. But without big names, Baseball America doesn’t see much depth within the system.

"“Houston built much of its perennial playoff team through excellent player development,”  Baseball America wrote. “Korey Lee and Jeremy Peña could help before long, but the rest of this system just isn’t where it was a few years ago, with a lack of power arms that were a fixture of the system at that time.”"

This is all the outlet had to say about the Astros’ system moving forward. Without much chatter on outfielder/shortstop Pedro Leon over the last year, there could be worries about his adjustment to professional baseball in America.

Yet, Leon did suffer a hand injury, right when his 2021 season started to pick up. With a full year in Triple-A on the horizon, he and right-handed pitcher Hunter Brown could also be names in the mix for the following major-league season.