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Astros prospect on the verge of breakout season among latest round of roster cuts

Eric Cole
Eric Cole

Climbing Tal's Hill

Houston Astros v Toronto Blue Jays / Miguel Rodriguez/GettyImages

The Houston Astros, and every other team, have to start aggressively trimming their spring training rosters right around now. There are only 26 roster spots available on the big leagues roster, and the Astros need to begin culling so the everyday players can receive enough time to ramp up for the 2025 season.

Unfortunately, this also means it's time for a number of prospects who fans are excited to see will soon be sent back to minor-league camp and receive their work on the backfields. That a wave of roster cuts happened on Thursday as the Astros sent three players, including top prospect Brice Matthews, to minor-league camp. Brandon Walker and Bryan Lavastida were also sent down.

Astros latest round of spring cuts include top prospect Brice Matthews

Matthews' reassignment shouldn't be all that surprising for Astros fans. Despite his tremendous upside on both sides of the ball, finding a spot for him on the big league roster would be a massive challenge. Houston is already trying to shoehorn in playing time for Mauricio Dubon, Isaac Paredes, Jose Altuve, and now Cam Smith. The downstream effects of those machinations is a lack of opportunities in the infield unless the Astros shocked everyone and cut bait with Jeremy Peña.

Complicating Matthews' already fringe roster case was his poor spring performance. In 10 games this spring, Matthews only managed a .188/.278/.375 slash line while striking out quite a bit. Though he remains a prospect on the rise, and could have a breakout season in 2025, it became clear that Matthews wasn't quite ready for a shot at the big leagues.

Neither Walker nor Lavastida had much chance to make the Astros Opening Day roster. Walker is an interesting lefty arm, but has posted a 5.14 ERA in four appearances this spring. Lavastida was always a camp depth piece behind the plate. With both Yainer Diaz and Victor Caratini around, he was going to have to do a lot more than go hitless this spring to get in the conversation.

With spring training winding down, expect the Astros to continue to aggressively trim their roster over the next week or so. While these moves were largely expected, the name to watch is still Smith who appears to be defying the odds and could be in play to join the Astros on Opening Day.

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Eric Cole

Eric Cole

I started my career writing about baseball covering the Atlanta Braves for SB Nation's Talking Chop back in 2015 which has since been renamed Battery Power. After years of writing for those fine folks, I made the decision to take over as Site Expert at House That Hank Built before becoming a full-time MLB Staff Writer for FanSided in 2023. Along the way, I have been a guest on multiple ESPN radio affiliates as well as 680 The Fan and 92.9 The Game to discuss Braves baseball and especially Braves prospects and was a long-time host on the Battery Power podcast. These days, I continue to write about the Braves as well as covering the Astros, Padres, and Angels with particular expertise with minor league coverage, the MLB Draft, and bashing Anthony Rendon when possible. When I am not writing about or talking about baseball (which is seldom), I am an avid baseball card collector (Maddux and Soroka being my primary personal collections) and I also collect shark teeth. All other sports are mostly dead to me as my Bills have broken my heart too many times.