{"id":456947,"date":"2026-02-06T04:58:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T04:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/456947\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T04:58:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T04:58:07","slug":"astros-jack-winkler-agree-to-minor-league-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/456947\/","title":{"rendered":"Astros, Jack Winkler Agree To Minor League Contract"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Astros are in agreement with infielder\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/w\/winklja01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-02-05_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Jack Winkler<\/a> on a minor league contract, according to the MLB.com <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/player\/jack-winkler-676466\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">transaction log<\/a>. The 27-year-old elected minor league free agency after being outrighted by the Marlins at the end of last season.<\/p>\n<p>Winkler was a 10th-round draftee by the Athletics in 2021. The University of San Francisco product played four seasons in the A\u2019s system, peaking in Double-A. Miami grabbed him in the Triple-A phase of last offseason\u2019s Rule 5 draft. Winkler got a few looks as the final player on Clayton McCullough\u2019s bench over the course of the season.<\/p>\n<p>He appeared in 14 games, starting four of them in the middle infield. Winkler went 4-16 with a stolen base and committed two errors in 44 1\/3 innings of defensive work. He otherwise spent the season at Triple-A Jacksonville, where he hit .225\/.299\/.333 with a 28% strikeout rate in his first action at the level. Winkler was an asset on the bases in the minors, stealing 25 bags in 76 games without getting thrown out. He played mostly third base in Triple-A with sporadic action up the middle.<\/p>\n<p>Houston is likely to start Winkler back in Triple-A as a right-handed infield depth piece. He has been a below-average hitter throughout his minor league career, so it\u2019s unlikely he\u2019ll be in the running for an Opening Day roster spot even if the Astros trade an infielder during Spring Training. Winkler has options remaining and can bounce between Houston and Triple-A Sugar Land if he earns a 40-man roster spot at any point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Astros are in agreement with infielder\u00a0Jack Winkler on a minor league contract, according to the MLB.com transaction&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456948,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,187282,462,82],"class_list":["post-456947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-jack-winkler","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}