Oops! All Astros: Luis Perez & Jose Siri

We’re taking a brief look at each player to appear in Houston’s system in 2022.

Luis Perez is a five-foot-10, 193 lb. right-handed outfielder from Cotui, DR. Born on October 24, 2002, he signed with the Astros to his first professional deal on July 2, 2019. The Baseball Cube has him listed as signing in 2009, which I can only assume is a typo. No one is immune to them, it seems, unless Perez was truly a six-year-old prodigy. I shouldn’t throw rocks in glass houses, either.

Perez joined the DSL Astros in the Rookie-level Dominican Summer League after signing. He appeared in 52 games and just blistered the baseball, hitting .346/.479/.491 with three home runs, 18 RBI, and 16 stolen bases in 20 attempts. Solid. Good enough even to merit a lateral promotion to the stateside rookie league in 2022.

The 2022 campaign would open for Perez with the FCL Astros Blue squad. In his second game, he hit a double and a home run, accounting for all of Blue’s offense in a 6-2 loss to the FCL Marlins.

Unfortunately, Perez only accounted for more than one hit in five games for the Blues in 2022. He appeared in 49 games for them (plus one with the Orange), and hit .206/.346/.343, a sharp step down from what he had accomplished in his prior season. He hit three homers with 18 RBI for the second year in a row, and stole 17 bases in 19 attempts.

Defensively, Perez played 298 ¹⁄₃ innings in center field, making two assists and four errors to land on a .947 fielding percentage. He also played 26 ²⁄₃ innings in right field and 21 frames in left without an error. Look for him to open 2023 with the rookie squad once more.

Jose Siri is a six-foot-two, 175 lb. right-handed centerfielder from Sabana Grande de Goya, DR. Born on July 22, 1995, he was initially signed through free agency by the Cincinnati Reds on September 21, 2012. For nine years, he bounced around the minor leagues, first with the Reds, then with the Seattle Mariners and finally as part of the San Francisco Giants. At the end of the 2020 season, the Astros signed Siri to a minor league deal.

Siri made his major league debut with Houston in 2021, appearing in 21 games and hitting .304/.347/.609 in 49 plate appearances. He was good for four home runs and nine RBI, also stealing three bases in four attempts. Most of his season, however, was at the Triple-A level with the Sugar Land Skeeters, where in 94 games he hit .318/.369/.552 with another 16 jacks and 72 RBI. He also had 24 stolen bases in 27 attempts.

The 2022 season would see Siri open the season at the top level, and started the year with a four-game hitting streak. That includes his two-hit game on April 12, when he hit a double and a home run in a 2-1 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks.

From the start of the campaign until June 23, Siri remained with the parent club, getting into 45 games but only hitting .185 with 45 K’s in 141 PA, a 32 percent whiff-rate. For two weeks starting near the end of June, he rejoined Sugar Land, by now called the Space Cowboys, and hit 14-for-45 with six homers in 10 games.

Siri’s newly awoken bat got him recalled to the Astros once more, but after going 0-for-5 in three games, he again joined the Cowboys. At the trade deadline, Siri joined the Tampa Bay Rays as part of a three-team deal. The Astros also lost Chayce McDermott to the Baltimore Orioles, and gained Trey Mancini from the same place. They also netted Rays prospect Jayden Murray.

Siri remained with the Rays at the big-league level for the rest of the season, hitting .241 and producing league-average defense. This, after being worth 38 zone fielding runs better than average (divided by a 1200 inning season in the field) in center for the Astros. In rough terms, that means Siri was providing defense for the Astros that was so good it was worth four wins above replacement, without accounting for his offense whatsoever.