an 11th-round draft pick in 2024 out of James Madison<\/a>, became the first minor-league catcher to record a 30-30 season since 1981, according to MLB.com. There has never been a 30-30 season in the majors by a catcher, per Baseball Reference. Schiavone made 69 of his 122 starts at catcher this season.<\/p>\n\u201cIt was really cool to hit that last mark in Sugar Land,\u201d Schiavone said Sunday during a visit to Daikin Park. \u201cTo hit 30-30, it\u2019s really cool. I\u2019m really grateful and just beyond blessed.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Astros hosted five prospects who received organizational awards before their regular-season home finale Sunday against Atlanta. Along with Schiavone, they were Bryce Mayer (pitcher of the year), Max Holy (defender of the year), Anthony Huezo (baserunner of the year) and Yamal Encarnacion (Standard Award).<\/p>\n
Schiavone started the year at High-A Asheville, posting a 1.218 OPS over 35 games before a promotion to Double-A. He slashed .233\/.357\/.428 with 14 home runs and 20 steals in 79 games for Corpus Christi and received a late-season promotion to Sugar Land, where he played nine games.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat meant a new challenge for me every single day and I was all about that,\u201d Schiavone said. \u201cI want to get better for my team and my teammates and help this team win at the end of the day so whatever that takes I\u2019m all for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
This year marked a significant jump for Schiavone, who batted .180 with a .714 OPS in A-ball last season. He posted a .252\/.391\/.531 slash line and finished with 32 home runs, 32 stolen bases, 94 walks and 173 strikeouts across 123 total games this season. Baseball America rated Schiavone as the No. 7 prospect in the Astros\u2019 system in its midseason rankings, while MLB Pipeline put him at No. 6.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, Houston assistant general manager Gavin Dickey told the team\u2019s pregame radio show there were \u201csome loud signals in our internal metrics\u201d last season that Schiavone could make a leap and credited Schiavone with improving his strength and conditioning over the offseason.<\/p>\n
The next test for Schiavone will be playing in the Dominican Winter League, where he is slated to play for Leones del Escogido. Dickey told the radio show he views winter ball \u201cas a finishing school\u201d for Schiavone and \u201ca challenging atmosphere where he has to perform.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schiavone said Sunday that winter ball will be a chance to \u201cget some more at-bats and just try to develop myself as a player and hopefully come into next year and be able to make an impact on this team.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019ll be a challenge, that\u2019s for sure,\u201d Schiavone said. \u201cBut if I want to play at the highest level, I\u2019ve got to play with the highest talent. So that\u2019s the most thing I\u2019m looking forward to.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Schiavone stole his 30th base of the season across three minor-league levels Wednesday. With that, the 23-year-old attained…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":442250,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":["post-442249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=442249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/442250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}