Shay Whitcomb ranks 38th on the list of every major league Astro from 2024.
Welcome to the latest chapter of Houston’s Top 40 Astros of 2024.
Every player I write about had a slightly better season than the player I wrote about last.
55. Grae Kessinger
54. Cooper Hummel
53. Pedro Leon
52. Aledmys Diaz
51. Jacob Ayama
50. Wander Suero
49. Miguel Diaz
48. Dylan Coleman
47. Forrest Whitley
46. Blair Henley
45. Joel Kuhnel
44. Jose Abréu
43. Alex Speas
42. Luis Contreras
41. Nick Hernandez
40. Parker Mushinski
39. Jake Bloss
…and the number 38 most positively impactful member of the Houston Astros in 2024 was Shay Whitcomb.
Whitcomb was a fifth-round selection of the Astros back in 2020, with the 160th overall selection out of UC-San Diego, and signed a deal that included a $56,000 signing bonus. He’s a six-foot, 202 lb. infielder originally from Thousand Oaks, CA.
Shay spent the greater balance of the 2024 campaign in Houston’s minor league system, namely with the Sugar Land Space Cowboys over 108 contests. He was ranked as Houston’s number 23 prospect by Baseball America before the season, and responded with a .293/.378/.530 slashline with 25 home runs, 91 RBI, and 26 stolen bases in 34 attempts.
As a first-time major leaguer, Whitcomb appeared in 20 games in total, making eight starts at third base and two at second base. Despite that, he has spent most of his minor league professional career as a defensive shortstop. When he made his defensive plays at the hot corner in the majors, that unfamiliarity really showed. It became especially apparent in Houston’s 8-1 loss to the Seattle Mariners on September 25, when he made four errors in five chances.
As a major league hitter, Whitcomb was nine-for-41 with three doubles and five RBI. He scored one run, and drew five walks, striking out eight times. He managed a 73 OPS+ over 46 PA, with a .220/.304/.293 slashline.
Whitcomb’s advanced stats tell a slightly more optimistic story, with an expected slashline of .278/.343/.423. He scores highly on a lot of other advanced metrics as well, with a 39.4 percent rate of hitting the “sweet spot,” a 23.7 percent chase rate, and a nearly 11 percent walk-rate.
On August 17, in Whitcomb’s major league debut, he started at third base and collected a single and a double, to date it’s his only career multiple-hit game. On September 22, Shay hit an eighth-inning pinch go-ahead RBI-single, scoring Yainer Díaz to sport Houston a 6-5 lead over the Los Angeles Angels. The Astros eventually lost, 9-8.
With an OPS+ of 73 and 46 plate appearances, Whitcomb’s product of the two, 3,358, ranks him 38th out of all 2024 Astros. For context, Jake Bloss has 3,245 and Parker Mushinski clocks in at 3,100. (Jose Abreu, with 120 plate appearances, had an OPS+ of 4 for 480).