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The Houston Astros announced that they will be calling up top prospect Carlos Correa in time for Monday night’s game against the Chicago White Sox. Back on May 15, I argued that it was time to bring up Correa then, because the team was 4.5 games up on the struggling Los Angeles Angels and had the perfect opportunity to run and away and hide in the AL West with Correa in the mix. Instead, general manager Jeff Luhnow decided to wait until the Texas Rangers began nipping at their heels to finally bring Correa to the big league club.
Although he is only 20 years old, Correa is the best hitter in all of the minor leagues. Combining all four years of his professional career, Correa has a career .313/.392/.883 slash line to go along with 28 homers and 199 RBIs in only 1,104 at-bats. With numbers like that, the Astros can stick Correa anywhere in the lineup, although I believe he would fit best batting second and moving Joes Altuve to leadoff once again.
From the Astros’ perspective, calling up Correa is equal to making a deal for the best hitter at the trade deadline. Despite being ranked 14th in MLB averaging 4.22 runs per game, the Astros are 29th with a .236 team batting average and 24th with a measly .304 OBP. The club is built to score runs by hitting home runs, and they aren’t able to manufacture runs like the best teams in the league. Having Correa and Altuve atop the batting order will allow the Astros to do more things offensively with hit and runs and bunting.
The 2015 AL Rookie of the Year Award crop is extremely weak at this point, and there’s no true front-runner. Even though he will be starting 10 weeks behind the other candidates, if he hits around .300 and the Astros make the playoffs, Correa will walk away with the award at only 21 years old.
Jason Fletcher is a MLB Featured Writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @JasonFletcher25, “Like” him on Facebook, or add him to your network on Google+.
