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<\/p>\nThe Astros have released outfielder\u00a0Justin Dirden, according to\u00a0his player page on MLB.com\u00a0(h\/t\u00a0Chandler Rome of The Athletic).<\/p>\n
Dirden signed with Houston as an undrafted free agent following the shortened 2020 draft. Already 23 when he debuted in the Astros system in 2021, the lefty batter quickly made an impact at the plate, putting up a .936 OPS in 58 games at Single-A\u00a0Fayetteville\u00a0and a .928 OPS in 25 games at High-A Asheville. He kept slugging the following season, producing a 1.027 OPS in 92 games at Double-A Corpus Christi. It wasn\u2019t until he was called up to Triple-A in August 2022 that Dirden finally looked overmatched, and even then, he had 12 extra-base hits in 32 games.<\/p>\n
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Following his strong 2022 season, Dirden made the Astros\u2019 top prospect lists at\u00a0Baseball America\u00a0(No. 9) and\u00a0MLB Pipeline\u00a0(No. 9). He also earned an invitation to spring training in 2023 and put on a show in the Grapefruit League. Over 19 games, he slashed .324\/.425\/.618, good for a 1.043 OPS and 171 wRC+.<\/p>\n
Asked in early March if Dirden was a candidate for the Opening Day roster, then-Astros manager Dusty Baker replied, \u201cWho knows? We\u2019ll see who\u2019s injured, who\u2019s not, who\u2019s playing well and what we need\u2026I\u2019m impressed with him. We\u2019re impressed with him. That\u2019s why he\u2019s here,\u201d per\u00a0Rome.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, Dirden was not selected to the Astros roster and continued to flounder at Triple-A. He posted a .709 OPS and 68 wRC+ while nagging injuries limited him to just 84 games. This past offseason, he dropped to No. 30 on Baseball America\u2019s organizational prospect list and fell off MLB Pipeline\u2019s list entirely. The Astros chose not to protect him in the Rule 5 draft, and he ultimately went unselected.<\/p>\n
Dirden\u2019s professional career has had its high highs and low lows. The 26-year-old is now eligible to sign with a new team, where he can hope to reach a new high \u2014 perhaps the major leagues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Astros have released outfielder\u00a0Justin Dirden, according to\u00a0his player page on MLB.com\u00a0(h\/t\u00a0Chandler Rome of The Athletic). Dirden signed with Houston as an undrafted free agent following the… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbiz.thongtinluat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbiz.thongtinluat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbiz.thongtinluat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbiz.thongtinluat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbiz.thongtinluat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sbiz.thongtinluat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35,"href":"https:\/\/sbiz.thongtinluat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions\/35"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbiz.thongtinluat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbiz.thongtinluat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbiz.thongtinluat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbiz.thongtinluat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}