Astros acquire outfielder who dominated Dominican League in trade with Padres

One area that the Houston Astros absolutely need to address in the coming years is their depth in the minor leagues. Once a strength of the Astros as an organization has become a bit of a weakness after years of picking lower in the draft due to their dominance, the sanctions placed upon the team after the sign stealing scandal, and trades they've made to keep their window of contention alive and well.

For many fans, they think of big trades involving big names for big prospect packages when they think of reloading a farm system. That is certainly an option, but there's a lot of value in making seemingly innocuous moves for minor leaguers that can pay big dividends. Hell, the Rays have a long and storied history of making such deals only to turn their hauls in those moves into productive big leaguers.

Houston made one of the latter moves on Tuesday when they acquired outfield prospect Oliver Carrillo from the Padres in exchange for some international bonus pool money.

The Astros may have gotten a steal in their trade with the Padres

First things first, Houston giving up international bonus pool money is a bigger deal than one would initially think. Getting very young talent on cheap deals on the international market is a critical component of building out a minor-league system, and decreasing that spending power can represent the loss of several quality players. However, the Astros got screwed by age fraud this year in international free agency, so turning some of that money into a real prospect isn't the worst way forward.

As for Oliver Carrillo, he put up some very eye-popping numbers in the Dominican Summer League with the Padres. Across two seasons down there, Carrillo slashed .315/.505/.611 with 20 homers in just 270 at-bats with more walks than strikeouts. No matter the level of the minors, that's impressive.

A certain amount of caution is needed when looking at Carrillo's minor-league stats, though. Most of the guys that are playing in the DSL are teenagers whereas Carrillo is 22 years old. The true tale of the tape will be when Houston gets Carrillo into full-season ball and see if he can translate that early success against guys in his age bracket.

That said, for an Astros' farm system that needs an infusion of talent, getting Carrillo looks like a good start.

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