8:11pm: Houston is also planning to bring up a catcher Yainer Diazreports Mark Berman of Fox 26 (Twitter link). It isn’t clear whether Diaz’s promotion will be immediate or also held off until Thursday’s roster expansion.
7:59pm: The Astros plan to promote a top pitching prospect Hunter Brown when active rosters expand from 26 to 28 players on Thursday, reports Brian McTaggart of MLB.com (Twitter link). Baseball America recently placed the right-hander as the sport’s #40 overall minor league talent.
It’s a fantastic birthday present for Brown, who turned 24 today. A fifth-round pick out of Wayne State University in 2019, Brown has outperformed that relatively modest draft status. He struggled with his control late in his draft year, and his first full professional season was wiped out by the pandemic. The Detroit native began the 2021 campaign in Double-A and generally overpowered upper level hitters. He fanned 35% of opponents and induced ground-balls at a quality 47.7% clip to earn a midseason bump to Triple-A Sugar Land.
Brown returned to the Space Cowboys to open the 2022 campaign. He’s spent the whole year there, working 106 innings over 23 outings (14 starts). He’s posted a 2.55 ERA that is the lowest mark among the 50 Pacific Coast League hurlers with at least 60 frames. Brown has punched out an impressive 31.5% of batters faced and racked up grounders at a huge 54.2% clip. His 10.6% walk rate is a couple points higher than average, but the combination of strikeouts and grounders hints at the elite stuff he brandishes.
More to come.
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