Astros Minor League Awards: 2015 Double A Most Valuable Pitcher Chris Devenski

The decision for the Cy Young for the Triple-A Fresno Grizzlies was more complex as was the decision for the MVP. Yet, I don't think the MVP was that difficult to choose for Corpus based on this article and I'm going to admit it was quite easy for Cy Young as well.

It's easily Chris Devenski.

Heck he was even an honorable mention for the MVP!

As I discussed in the season review article, only two pitchers spent enough time in Corpus to pitch over 100 innings, Devenski and Kyle Westwood. Aaron West pitched 80 innings and was used primarily as a reliever.

The Astros acquired him in 2012 from the White Sox trade that sent Brett Myers to Chicago. Matt Heidenreich and Blair Walters were the first two pitchers in that trade with Devenski being a PTBNL. He's the last remaining piece from that trade.

He caught the eyes of many prospect lovers soon after as he had a sixteen strikeout no-hitter that same season for Low-A Lexington Legends. He would spend the majority of the next season with the crazy winds of Lancaster that had significant effects on his results. It caused a late demotion to Quad Cities. In a return assignment to Lancaster in 2014, he showed big improvement most notably in ERA and strikeouts which earned him nearly half a season in CC where he pitched well.

Not nearly as well as 2015 though.

He started the 2015 with five straight appearances without giving up a run. He lowered his ERA nearly a full run from his 2014 stint.

He was second on the team in innings (119 2/3) and starts (17). This list of pitchers who started games and had lower ERA's is filled with very good prospects and others with extreme small samples.

Michael Feliz: 2.17 ERA in 78 2/3 IP

Joe Musgrove: 2.20 ERA in 45 IP

Aaron West: 2.77 ERA in 84 1/3 IP

Vincent Velasques: 1.91 ERA in 33 IP

Lance McCullers: 0.56 ERA in 32 IP

Brad Peacock: 0.00 ERA in 2 IP

He lead the team in strikeouts with 104. Kyle Westwood was the next closest with 71 strikeouts.

Westwood and West are really the only two challengers for this award. Westwood's ERA of 4.23 with much lower strikeout rate is just too much of down grade over Devenski to care about the 12 inning lead he had over Devenski. West pitched 36 innings less than Devenski and that's just too large of a gap. He did impact six more games, but Devenski's long term role in the rotation edges out West.