Honorable Mentions Go to the Houston Astros Among Baseball’s Top Rookies
With seven American League Championship Series appearances in a row and counting, the Houston Astros are one of the most experienced, veteran-laden teams in baseball.
With their sights set on making another run to the World Series, it should come as no surprise that they don’t have too many young players contributing in 2024.
By no means are the Astros an old team. Only three players who have qualified for leaderboards this season, Jon Singleton, Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman, are in their 30s.
But, their pitching staff is relying on some older arms. Nine of their key pitchers have already reached 30 years old. Luckily for Houston, they do have some emerging young arms that they will be able to rely on.
Over at Bleacher Report, Joel Reuter compiled a list of the top rookies in baseball in 2024. While the Astros didn’t have any players crack his top 25, they did have two pitchers that were listed among his honorable mentions.
One of them is starting pitcher Spencer Arrighetti. He has made 24 starts for Joe Espada this season with a record of 7-11 and ERA of 4.63.
Arrighetti has really found his form as of late. In August, he made five starts and looked like the ace of the staff. He has thrown 32.1 innings, allowing only 19 hits with 10 walks, resulting in only seven earned runs.
That comes out to a minuscule 1.95 ERA to go along with the 47 strikeouts he has recorded. This has been an unexpected, but welcomed turnaround from what Arrighetti was providing the first four months of the season.
Joining him on Reuter’s list is relief pitcher Bryan King. He didn’t make his debut until July 23rd but he has been excellent since getting called up from Triple-A Sugar Land.
In the Minor Leagues, King had a stellar 1.87 ERA through 33.2 innings. He has carried that dominance over into the Major Leagues, recording a 2.05 ERA through his first 22 career innings.
King adds to the plethora of electric arms that Espada has to turn to late in games. Houston has one of the best bullpen groups in baseball as their top five relievers in terms of games pitched all have an ERA of 3.78 or lower.
Former Astros outfielder Joey Loperfido was also among the honorable mentions. He was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays ahead of the deadline in the deal that brought back Yusei Kikuchi.
