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Unsung Astros pitching prospect making noise down in the minors to start 2025

Eric Cole
Eric Cole

Climbing Tal's Hill

Houston Astros / Ron Jenkins/GettyImages

The Houston Astros have done a good job reinforcing the big league lineup with some help from the minor leagues, but have lagged behind when it comes to pitching development. There have certainly been some success stories, like Hunter Brown, but the Astros' preference for investing in position player-talent in the early rounds of the draft has created a lack of pitching depth throughout the organization.

There are some potential bright spots, such as Colton Gordon. The left-hander could be a useful No. 4 or No. 5 starter in the big leagues. AJ Blubaugh is another Astros prospect who's off to a strong start to the season. But another pitcher, who's a bit further away from the big leagues, is making some noise early in 2025.

Anderson Brito is a name that followers of the Astros' minor leagues will know as a pitcher who possesses a good fastball, but comes with a lot of reliever risk. However, after a strong 2024 season, it looks like Brito is changing some minds in the organization, and his ceiling may be higher than some expected.

Astros prospect Anderson Brito is turning heads in the minor leagues

Now, it's worth noting that Brito's sample-size to date is exceedingly small, and his success is coming in the lower levels of the minor leagues. Brito isn't dominating at the Double-A or Triple-A level, and won't be pushing for a big-league promotion anytime soon. It's highly unlikely that Astros fans will see Brito in the major leagues this season.

However, it does look like Brito could continue his already quick ascent through the minors. The Astros chose an aggressive minor-league assignment for Brito — deploying him at High-A Asheville — and he hasn't blinked. In two starts last week, Brito didn't give up an earned run and struck out 12 batters in 7 ⅔ innings of work.

Brito has yet to operate under the type of workload that a typical starter would see, and observing how his arsenal plays against more advanced hitters the second and third time through the batting order will be a determining factor in his development. But Brito has a chance to be a key starter for the Astros in the future, and if he keeps this up, he could end up anchoring the rotation.

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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.