Christian Vazquezis preparing for an astronomical change…
The Houston Astros have acquired the 31-year-old Puerto Rican professional baseball catcher from the Boston Red Sox.
The Red Sox received infielder/outfielder Enmanuel Valdez and minor league outfielder Wilyer Abreu from the Astros in exchange for Vazquez.
Vazquez has a .759 OPS with 8 home runs and 42 RBIs this season and will provide an immediate upgrade over the Astros current starting catcher, Martin Maldonado.
Vazquez, who will be a free agent next season, had been with the Red Sox since 2014 and was the longest tenured player in the organization.
Valdez, 23, is batting .327 with a 1.016 OPS in 82 games for Double-A Corpus Christi and Triple-A Sugar Land. He is ranked as the Astros’ No. 12 prospect by Baseball America.
Abreu, 23, is batting .249 with a .858 OPS in 89 games with Corpus Christi. He is ranked as the Astros’ No. 21 prospect by Baseball America.
The 19-year-old Dominican professional baseball player’s named has been added tothe Tampa Bay Rays ‘60-man player pool.
Sunday was the deadline for teams to submit player pools, although additions can be made later. Many teams announced pools well below the 60-player limit.
Franco, who plays shortstop, is ranked as the No. 1 prospect in baseball by MLB Pipeline. He spent last season at Class A, so it would be quite a jump for him to contribute in the majors in the immediate future, but putting him in the player pool makes him an option for the Rays — and could help his development in a year when the coronavirus shut down the minor leagues.
Pitcher Brendan McKay and infielder Vidal Brujan, two other top Tampa Bay prospects, also made the pool.
“They are some of our more advanced prospects,” says Rays general manager Erik Neander. “Certainly on the position player side that’s where things went and why Wander was a leading candidate for a spot.”
Franco signed with the Rays in July 2017. He made his professional debut in 2018 with the Princeton Rays. In 2018, at only 17 years old, Franco was named the 2018 Appalachian LeaguePlayer of the Year after hitting .374/.445/.636 with 11 home runs and 57 RBIs over 245 plate appearances for Princeton .
Prior to the 2019 season, Franco was ranked as the fourth best prospect in baseball by Baseball America. He began the season with the Bowling Green Hot Rods. He was promoted to the Charlotte Stone Crabs on June 25. He was named to the 2019 All-Star Futures Game.
The 22-year-old Cuban Major League Baseball player and Houston Astros slugger has capped off his meteoric rise by becoming the franchise’s third Rookie of the Year winner and second since the club moved to the American League.
Alvarez was a unanimous selection of the award’s 30 voters. Baltimore Orioles pitcher John Means finished second, with Tampa Bay Rays second baseman Brandon Lowe third, Chicago White Sox outfielder Eloy Jimenez fourth and Toronto Blue Jays second baseman Cavan Biggio fifth.
Alvarez began the past season with Triple-A Round Rock after entering the year ranked as the 34th-best prospect by Baseball America and Houston’s eighth-best prospect by ESPN‘s Keith Law. He provided an early glimpse of things to come by hitting three homers for Round Rock in his second game of the season. By the end of April, Alvarez had mashed 12 homers, hit .354 and driven in 30 runs in just 22 games, spurring calls for a promotion to the big league club.
That call finally came in early June. In his big league debut against the Baltimore Orioles on June 9, Alvarez homered off of Dylan Bundy. He never stopped hitting, finishing with 27 home runs in 87 games, tying the mark for most home runs by a rookie who played in 100 games or fewer. He served as Houston’s designated hitter in 74 of his 87 outings and helped the Astros win the ALpennant.
Across two levels this season, Alvarez hit .324 with a .690 slugging percentage, 50 home runs and 149 RBIs in 143 games. His 1.067 OPS in the MLB was the highest ever for a rookie with at least 350 plate appearances.
Alvarez’s consistency was remarkable: He had an OPS of 1.140 at home and .985 away, 1.083 against righties and 1.038 against lefties and at least .999 in each of the four months in which he appeared in the majors.
“The humility he has in handling success at this level, and the coverage that he’s getting and all the attention, he’s just been very humble,” Astros manager AJ Hinch told ESPN during the season. “He’s also hungry to learn. He’s a quiet man by nature, and his demeanor is very low-key. But he’s always in tune with other players and other people and the information.”
Hinch also tweeted congratulations to Alvarez after he was announced as the winner on Monday.
An imposing 6-foot-5, Alvarez hit a 474-foot homer off Texas Rangers‘ Mike Minor on July 19. In early September, he homered into the third deck at Minute Maid Park, a shot so prodigious that the Astros wrapped the seat in vinyl to commemorate it.
After going just 1-for-22 during Houston’s six-game win over the New York Yankeesin the AL Championship Series, Alvarez rebounded to hit .412 with a home run during the Astros’ seven-game loss to the Washington Nationals in the World Series.
The Los Angeles Dodgers signed Alvarez out of Las Tunas, Cuba, on June 15, 2016. The Astros acquired him six weeks later in exchange for reliever Josh Fields. As Alvarez began to make his way through the Houston organization, his offensive reputation began to spread through one of baseball’s most bountiful farm systems.
“When he was brought over to the States, we started to hear some chatter from the backfields that, at one point, I think he hit a car with one of his home runs,” Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow told ESPN this season. “It was one of those things where if you’re around and you have a half day to go watch the back field, find this guy and watch him hit. Because it’s pretty special. It snowballed from there.”
Shortstop Carlos Correa was the Astros’ last AL Rookie of the Year winner, taking the honors in 2015. The only other Rookie of the Year recipient in franchise history was Hall of Famefirst baseman Jeff Bagwell, who won the award in 1991, when the Astros were in the National League.
Yasiel Puig’s escape to America is headed to the big screen…
Brett Ratner and his RatPac Entertainment have acquired the rights to Jesse Katz’ article Escape From Cuba: Yasiel Puig’s Untold Journey to the Dodgers, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Ratner will produce the film adaptation of the Los Angeles Times article with Beau Flynn via his FlynnPictureCo. banner.
The article, which appeared in the newspaper earlier this, chronicles the 23-year-old Cuban professional baseball outfielder and Los Angeles Dodgers superstar’s repeated attempts to flee his native Cuba.
Puig finally succeeded when a wealthy but shady sponsor arranged for smugglers working for one of Mexico’s murderous drug cartels to pick Puig up in a speedboat and take him to the Yucatan Peninsula. But when his backer allegedly did not immediately pay the agreed-upon fee, the smugglers held Puig captive for almost three weeks.
His trek to America ultimately ended successfully with a lucrative deal with the Major League Baseball team – but the piece also highlighted the dangers other Cubans face when trying to find a better life in the U.S.
Puig played for the Cuban national baseball team in the 2008 World Junior Baseball Championship, winning a bronze medal. He defected from Cuba in 2012, and signed a seven-year, $42 million contract with the Dodgers. He made his MLB debut on June 3, 2013. In 2013, Puig hit .319 in 104 games with 19 home runs, and was selected by Baseball America to its annual All-Rookie team.
The Red Sox received infielder/outfielder Enmanuel Valdez and minor league outfielder Wilyer Abreu from the Astros in exchange for Vazquez.
