Astros top prospect’s struggles forcing team to keep playing ghost of Chas McCormick

For all of the decisions the Houston Astros have made with playing time this season, few have been as puzzling as their stubborn insistence on playing Chas McCormick. Instead of playing the strictly better option in Joey Loperfido before he was traded, the Astros just kept running McCormick out there expecting him to do something. For their patience, McCormick has rewarded Houston with a .575 OPS, including a tragic .468 mark since the beginning of July.

After trading Loperfido to the Blue Jays in the Kikuchi deal, playing McCormick at least made more sense, as there wasn't a clearly better option on the big league roster (except to split the outfield duties between McCormick and Mauricio Dubon). For those wondering why top prospect Jacob Melton hasn't been considered, given all of the prospect promotion chatter surrounding the Astros, that has a rather unfortunate explanation.

Jacob Melton's struggles are holding the Astros' outfield plans back

When Melton was promoted to Triple-A late in July, the hope was that he would make a strong case for a big league promotion. He entered the 2024 season as Houston's top prospect thanks to his tantalizing blend of power and speed, and it sure as hell hasn't been as if McCormick has done anything to block his ascension.

Unfortunately, Triple-A hasn't been kind to Melton so far. In his 13 games since getting bumped up to the top levels of the minors, Melton is slashing just .204/.316/.347 with one homer and 17 strikeouts in 58 plate appearances. Given Melton's high profile as a prospect, it feels extremely likely that he may have been given a chance in the big leagues if he had shown a bit more than that.

Instead, Astros fans have had to suffer through what has been a decidedly unproductive outfield alignment. Things should improve once Kyle Tucker returns from the IL, but we still don't know when that will happen, as Tucker's bone bruise has been extremely difficult for him to recover from. For now, fans will just have to accept this as the status quo, as painful as it is to watch.

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