Avery Owusu-Asiedu has spent plenty of time looking like the kind of prospect scouts dream on. At 6-foot-4 and about 245 pounds, he brings big-time power, real speed and the sort of physical tools that jump off the page.
In August, though, those traits have stopped living in separate buckets. They’ve shown up together, game after game.
That was on display again Wednesday night, when the 23-year-old D-backs prospect went deep for the fourth straight game in Double-A Amarillo’s 10-9 win over Corpus Christi at HODGETOWN. It marked the second time this month he’s put together a four-game homer streak. He also chipped in three hits and three RBIs, pushing his numbers since his Aug. 11 promotion to a .491 average and a 1.725 OPS over 14 games.
The production has been relentless. Across his time in High-A Hillsboro and now Double-A, Owusu-Asiedu has piled up 82 total bases this month, more than anyone else in the Minors by a wide margin.
The last player to reach that number in a single month was Nick Schnell, who had 82 last July, though he still had four games left to add to it. Owusu-Asiedu also leads Minor League Baseball this month in hits with 35, RBIs with 31, slugging at 1.038 and OPS at 1.543.
For a player who started the year as Arizona’s No. 29 prospect, this has been a sharp turn from intriguing to overwhelming. He appeared in eight Cactus League games as a non-roster invitee and was also part of the club’s Spring Breakout game, where he ripped a 108 mph double and flashed his 70-grade speed.
His path to this point has been anything but ordinary. Born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, Owusu-Asiedu spent part of his childhood in England before moving to Wisconsin. He played college ball at Southern Illinois-Edwardsville, then made his name on the MLB-affiliated Appalachian League circuit before the Phillies grabbed him in the ninth round of the 2023 Draft.
The tools were always there, even if the results lagged behind. In the Florida State League in 2024 and ’25, he posted some of the loudest exit velocities around, topping out at 112.7 mph, and logged sprint speeds of 43 “bolts” -- anything better than 30 ft/sec -- but the bat-to-ball production didn’t fully match.
He hit .220 with a .677 OPS at Single-A and followed that with a .218 average and .680 OPS in High-A. Philadelphia traded him to Arizona in December for veteran left-hander reliever Kyle Backhus.
Since moving up, the swing decisions haven’t changed much. His swing rate is nearly identical to what it was in High-A, sitting at 46.9 percent compared with 46.6 there.
The difference is in the quality of contact. The ball is jumping off his bat, his line-drive rate is just below 30 percent, and the Texas League’s hitter-friendly setup has only added to the damage.
Even with the advanced pitching still waiting at higher levels, a 21-game hitting streak and 31 RBIs are hard to ignore.
This has been a month defined by extremes for a player whose profile has always lived at the edges. The adjustment test is still coming, but right now Owusu-Asiedu is showing exactly why clubs keep betting on raw tools.
In Other News...
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For Arizona, the move is more about roster flexibility than headlines, but those can matter when September pressure starts to build. Espinal has already appeared for the Diamondbacks minor league club, giving the organization another experienced option to evaluate if the big league bench or infield depth gets tested down the stretch. [Read more 🡒]
D-Backs Lars Nootbaar Trade Comes Down To One Huge Pitching Question
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Eagen is the name that makes this trade more than a simple player swap, especially after the former Arizona No. 5 prospect has performed well in the Cardinals Double-A system. St. Louis has been leaning into a broader effort to strengthen its farm under president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom, and this deal fits that approach, even if the final evaluation will depend on what the Cardinals ultimately get from the pitching side. [Read more 🡒]
Diamondbacks Put On The Spot By Ketel Marte Situation
Ketel Martes absence quickly became a much bigger topic around the Diamondbacks than a single missed game. Arizona first put him on the restricted list, then later shifted him to the injured list, and the organizations president and manager both wound up addressing the situation publicly as the questions kept building. With photos of Marte at a casino circulating, the story moved beyond a routine roster move and into the kind of off-field cloud that can follow a club for days.
Torey Lovullo has defended Marte amid the speculation, trying to keep the focus on the player and not the noise around him. Former MLB pitcher Heath Bell also weighed in, saying the reaction around Marte reflects a disparity in how players from Latin America are treated compared with American players, adding another layer to a story the Diamondbacks would probably have preferred to handle quietly. [Read more 🡒]