Jason Schiavone didn’t just climb the Astros’ prospect list ahead of the Trade Deadline. He blasted up it.
The 23-year-old catcher jumped five spots to No. 3 on Houston’s updated Top 30, the biggest rise of any prospect in the organization and one of the largest in the Minor Leagues overall. That surge comes with production that’s hard to ignore: Schiavone is hitting .267/.417/.551 with 23 homers, 17 doubles and 22 stolen bases, and he’s the only Houston prospect to clear 20 home runs this season.
What’s driving the breakout is the same thing people around the organization keep coming back to - obsession. Astros director of player development Sam Niedorf called him “a baseball rat,” while Hooks manager Ricky Rivera said, “Schiavone's a guy that is obsessed with the game, hates when he's not playing,” and added, “He's the first guy in the clubhouse every day.”
That appetite for the grind showed up long before the numbers did. Rivera watched Schiavone in a team hotel lobby at midnight Thursday, notebook open, building a game plan for Double-A Corpus Christi after studying Frisco’s hitting approaches. Rivera filmed it and sent it straight to the Astros’ director of player development.
Schiavone’s preparation has become part of his identity. Rivera said the catcher texts him right after games when he knows he’ll be behind the plate the next day, asking for a lineup and checking who’s pitching. He’s also been arriving early to Whataburger Field to work on game plans on the team computer, with Rivera saying, “He's prepping at the beginning of the week.”
The offensive jump didn’t come out of nowhere, even if the scale of it did. Schiavone showed flashes the previous two seasons, but before this breakout 2026 campaign, his career batting average was below the Mendoza Line. He got to Spring Training in January a month early for workouts, then focused on improving his contact rate and attacking the strike zone more aggressively.
That approach paid off at High-A Asheville, where he hit .289/.452/.766 with 27 extra-base hits and 13 stolen bases in 35 games. Niedorf said the change was less about a dramatic swing overhaul and more about conviction at the plate.
“Jason, by nature, is more of a passive hitter at times, which is indicative by the higher walk rate (23.2% for the Tourists) that he's shown this year and years past,” Niedorf said. “If you see that pitch early in count, when the pitcher might be a little bit more defensive in their pursuit to get into advantage counts, we want you to take advantage of that.
"To say that this was this whole revolutionary swing change would be a lie. A lot of it came to the approach and the mindset of giving Jason the confidence that, regardless of who's pitching, regardless of what park he's playing in, he has the ability to do damage on really any pitch type in his zone.”
Behind the plate, Schiavone’s arm has long been his calling card. It’s his highest-graded tool at 60, and Astros Minor League field coordinator Micheal Thomas said the organization has worked to keep his movement consistent and get the most out of his defensive package.
The concern was whether that arm would hold up as stolen bases rose across the lower levels. Schiavone answered that in 2025 by throwing out 33% of runners across two levels, and he’s at 35% this season through 54 games at catcher, including 47% at Double-A.
Thomas said the work this year has centered on his positioning and stances, with the goal of maximizing the glove and expanding his effectiveness across the zone.
“It’s not surprising really at this point,” Thomas said. “It's almost like, 'Alright, collectively, how do we get everybody else to do what Jason's doing?'”
For the Astros, that combination of production, preparation and defensive value has made Schiavone impossible to miss. Niedorf put it simply: “It's a meritocracy at the end of the day,” he said. “Whoever continues to show that they're performing on both sides of the ball, they will play.”
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One name that has surfaced is Logan Webb, a pitcher the Giants would love to keep around even as they work through other possible moves. San Francisco is also expected to shop Heliot Ramos, and there is at least some willingness to help with Robbie Rays salary in the right deal, which shows how active the Giants may be in the coming days. For Houston, the bigger question is whether this kind of check-in turns into something real before the deadline clock runs out. [Read more 🡒]