Chatter among Houston Astros fans huddled around workplace water coolers centers around the team’s much-ballyhooed prospect Yordan Alvarez. The anticipation for his MLB debut approaches the breathless fervor usually reserved for the arrival of royal babies or the announcement of a ‘Game of Thrones’ spin-off series.

UPDATE: The Astros have called up Alvarez, and he’ll make his MLB debut, Sunday, June 9, batting 5th in the lineup, DH-ing, and wearing #44.

On May 8, the massive, left-handed power-hitter was named the Astros’ Minor League Player of the Month for April for numbers so outrageous and bulbous, decimal points are scurrying for cover.

Doing his damage in the uniform of Houston’s Triple-A Round Rock Express, this award marks Alvarez’ third such recognition in as many days, as he was named the Pacific Coast League Player of the Week on May 6, and the Pacific Coast League Player of the Month the very next day.

Alvarez led all Astros farmhands with 11 home runs during April, nearly twice the number logged by the next closest hitter. He also led the organization with 29 RBIs and 20 runs scored in just 21 games during April.

“April was the best stretch I’ve ever had professionally,” Alvarez reflected recently, stretching understatement to its limits. “I think it’s because of the power that I’ve gained. This is the best power stretch I’ve ever had in my career.”

The 6’5″, 225-pound slugger’s .347 batting average during that stretch also finished second in the system to only Double-A Corpus Christi’s Lorenzo Quintana, who batted .349 in 11 games last month. Alvarez also finished second among all Astros minor leaguers with nine doubles.

Alvarez is listed as the third-best prospect in the Astros’ system and is currently slotted as the 26th overall prospect in baseball, according to MLB Pipeline, moving up from his previous #40 in their May 14 prospect ranking update.

Alvarez, 6’4″ and 190 pounds at age 18 when the Los Angeles Dodgers signed the Cuban outfielder for a $2 million bonus, was acquired by Houston in a trade with the Dodgers for reliever Josh Fields on August 1, 2016. Signed this spring by the Milwaukee Brewers as a free agent on March 20, Fields was released five weeks later.

Related: Yordan Alvarez Makes Powerful Case for Hitting Astros Soon

In The Company of MLB Superstars

Alvarez wrote his name into the Express franchise history books during his season-opening hot stretch, becoming the first player in the team’s 20-year history to hit double-digit home runs in April.

In fact, only two players in professional baseball smacked more home runs in the month of April than Alvarez: Dodgers’ Cody Bellinger and Milwaukee Brewers’ Christian Yelich, who each needed 30 games to hit 14 bombs.

Alvarez, 21, led the PCL in nearly every offensive category, through games of May 8, including home runs (14), RBIs (40), extra-base hits (25), and total bases (96), while ranking second in OBP (.481), SLG (.873), OPS (1.353), hits (43), and runs (31).

The Yordan Alvarez stat lines the last two years:

2018 (AA Corpus & AAA): .293 BA, 20 HR, 21 2B, .904 OPS, 42 BB, 92 K in 335 ABs.

2019 to date: .391 BA, 14 HR, 11 2B, 1.353 OPS, 18 BB, 26 K in 110 ABs.

Office Pool Fodder (Handicapping the Debut Date)

Many factors are in play with Alvarez regarding how and when he’ll be promoted to Houston. A stacked Astros lineup is one major hurdle; while a couple of spots are available on the 40-man roster, an unwelcome injury is the only foreseeable entry point for a possible addition of Alvarez to the team’s 25-man roster.

While DH seems like a simple solution, Houston manager AJ Hinch sees more value in rotating his regular players through that position, giving them occasional games to rest their legs, keeping them fresh throughout a long season.

Plus, the Astros see left field, with Minute Maid Park’s diminutive dimensions, as the ultimate home for the defensively deficient Alvarez.

For those who think Alvarez’ numbers are inflated because Triple-A is using the more tightly-wound MLB balls this season, Houston’s deep dive into sabermetrics for the slugger ought to reveal a high contact rate and exit velocity that would should play in the bigs using the same ball.

To that end, The Athletic‘s Jake Kaplan explained recently that “teams have extensive projection systems that can help them evaluate how much better a new acquisition — via trade or a call-up from Triple A — could improve their chances. And on a contending team like this one, those improvements are much more incremental than on a rebuilding team like the 2014 Astros [the year of George Springer‘s debut in mid-April].

“Then there’s the TrackMan data the Astros can study for signs of readiness. For Yordan Alvarez, they are probably looking at his exit velocities, launch angles, swing decisions, etc.”

Regardless, Astros’ GM Jeff Luhnow has offered conflicting views on the near-term but inevitable call-up of Alvarez: “It’s pretty clear he can hit right now in the big leagues,” Luhnow revealed to The Houston Chronicle, recently.

Conversely, “The same people who were clamoring for Kyle Tucker to come up [last year] because he was destroying AAA pitching,” Luhnow continued, “are the same people now clamoring for Yordan Alvarez to come up.

“If [Alvarez] is coming up, he’s coming up to play, and if he comes up and hits .210, that’s not going to help our team. I need to make sure he’s going to help our team.”

If Only It Was That Easy

Looks like Luhnow is searching for the impossible: The guarantee of a promised projected production. Littered throughout MLB history are the stories of sub-.200-hitting minor league players getting called up due to an emergency and never leaving the lineup thanks to unexpected progress.

Then there are the “surefire” prospects, deemed more than ready to make the leap who promptly fizzle. The recently-released Jon Singleton and the water-treading AJ Reed (Alvarez’ Express teammate hitting .170) are recent examples. Add top position prospect Kyle Tucker to that list for the moment for his disappointing 2018 debut, pending his eventual 2019 call-up and hopeful redemption.

Most Astros fans remember the seemingly ready Alex Bregman, who opened his MLB career in the summer of 2016 with alarming zero-for-17 and two-for-38 slumps. A move up in the lineup from sixth to second (and the resulting confidence shown him by Hinch) led to an eventual .333 average the following month. “This move reflects what our organization thinks of you,” he told Bregman at the time. Bregs, and the team, have never looked back.

As for the Super Two designation and how the Astros gaining one more year of player control effects Alvarez’ promotion, it’s not an issue. By virtue of the Astros keeping Alvarez on a minor league roster for the first couple weeks of the season, they’ve already gained that extra season of desired control.