Astros’ scuffling infield on notice with rumors of another prospect call-up surfacing

The Houston Astros have had a number of players underperform or get hurt in 2024, but one of the places on the roster where it has been particularly painful is in their infield. Alex Bregman has been mediocre at best this season, Mauricio Dubon has cooled off considerably, Jeremy Peña remains offensively limited due his inability to draw walks, and Jon Singleton has been basically unplayably bad for a month now after a promising hot stretch.

It isn't like the Astros didn't notice this problem. Instead of just riding with the group they have and hoping for the best, the team made one effort already to remedy things by calling up Zach Dezenzo to try and give their struggling offense a boost. The jury is still out as to whether or not he will perform in the bigs, but he is at least off to a solid start.

However, it sounds like Houston may not be done shaking up their roster ahead of the final stretch of the 2024 season. According to GM Dana Brown, the Astros could call up prospect Shay Whitcomb soon after his torrid stretch down at Triple-A.

Astros News: Houston strongly considering calling up Shay Whitcomb to boost offense

You are forgiven if you aren't exactly familiar with Whitcomb as a prospect. Whitcomb was Houston's fifth-round pick in the five-round 2020 MLB draft out of UC-San Diego and currently ranks as just the 28th best prospect in the Astros' shallow farm system, according to MLB Pipeline. However, Whitcomb's case is a reminder to not read too much into prospect rankings, as things can change very quickly with young players' trajectories. In Whitcomb's case, that shift has been for the better.

In 102 games at Triple-A this season, Whitcomb is slashing .301/.387/.542 with 24 homers and 26 stolen bases. While he is loaded with good raw tools, the issue many had with him was that he lacked patience at the plate and had too much swing and miss. Given his numbers through last season, those concerns were absolutely justified, as he struck out a ton and didn't walk enough to offset them.

However, 2024 has been a different story. Not only has Whitcomb been able to cut his strikeout rate by a third to 19.8% this season, but he has also doubled his walk rate along the way. There is always a danger in reading too much into less than one season of work, but the eye test certainly suggests that Whitcomb has figured something out in 2024 and has pushed himself into the mix for a promotion.

Given Dezenzo's speedy promotion to the big leagues, as well as the Whitcomb chatter, the writing is clearly on the wall that Jon Singleton's time with the Astros could be coming to an end soon. However, that the Astros are considering calling up Whitcomb even after Dezenzo's promotion may suggest that other Astros' bats could lose some playing time in the near future as well.

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