Carlos Sanabria appears nowhere in the Houston Astros’ current top 30 Prospects list as compiled by MLB.com. But, in March, the right-handed Venezuelan native popped up at #31 on FanGraphs’ collection of top 39 prospects.

While the site’s projection of a 2020 MLB debut for the 22-year-old Sanabria might seem a tad ambitious, the slender slinger has been moving through Houston’s system with a smoothness that may prompt a September call-up for just a taste of life at the top.

Meanwhile, though, he joins fellow Houston prospect pitchers Forrest Whitley, Cody Deason, and Jojanse Torres, and position players Colton Shaver, JJ Matijevic, and Jeremy Pena on the Arizona Fall League’s (AFL) Peoria Javelinas through late October.

Location > Stuff

Carlos Miguel Sanabria (suh-NAH-bria) was born in January 1997 and grew up in La Victoria, Aragua, in the north-central region of Venezuela.

Signed as an international free agent by Houston on March 7, 2014, the 6’3″, 165-pounder spent his first pro season at the Astros’ Dominican Summer League, mostly out of the bullpen, but starting three games.

Sanabria’s first taste of pro ball yielded a host of missed bats to the tune of 18 walks in 38.1 IP versus only 25 strikeouts. When his pitches did hit bats, the opposition gathered a .289 average against him, while he managed a respectable 2.82 ERA.

Florida and the Gulf Coast League beckoned in 2015, and he started seven of his 15 games. Twenty walks against 31 Ks in 49.2 innings (3.62 BB/9) disclosed an early control concern for the young pitcher.

Immediate improvement followed in 2016, as his BB/9 sank to 2.13 in his 52 innings in the Astros’ rookie Appalachian League, and 11.1 IP for the Class A short-season New York-Penn League’s Tri-City ValleyCats. As in the previous year, he started about half his 15 appearances (eight).

A Brush With Perfection

Sanabria finally got a chance to settle into a comfort zone in 2017, spending the entire season at Houston’s full season Class A Quad Cities River Bandits, starting 12 of his 19 games. In 80.2 innings, he pitched to a 4.46 ERA but yielded 47 walks to 78 strikeouts for a 5.24 BB/9 and an 8.70 K/9, with a 0.60 BB/K ratio.

A highlight for Sanabria for the eventual Midwest League champs was his performance in late May 2017, as he carried a perfect game into the seventh inning against the Minnesota Twins’ Cedar Rapids Kernels affiliate. Sanabria ended up retiring the first 18 hitters, allowing two runs on three hits and a walk with seven strikeouts over a career-high 6.2 innings.

As Kelsie Heneghan of MiLB.com reported at the time, Sanabria, pursuant to baseball superstition during a no-no or perfect game, was successful in finding a secluded spot in the dugout. But, curiously, unlike many pitchers in the same situation, he found time to socialize with other players.

“You just have to find with every guy what they need to do in order to stay physically ready and mentally focused to go back out there,” Quad Cities’ pitching coach Drew French told Heneghan.

“He would get up and walk and congratulate teammates when they scored, but for the most part he just sat there by himself and channeled his focus and his attack plans for the next three hitters he was going to face.” A native of Austin, Texas and a rising star in the Astros’ firmament, French just finished his fourth year in the organization, his first as pitching coach with the nearby Round Rock Express, the Astros’ Triple-A affiliate. He’s also currently coaching Sanabria, Whitley, et al for Peoria in the AFL.

“[Sanabria] was able to get some early contact and in the at-bats that went a little deeper in terms of pitch counts, he was able to be really unpredictable, especially 2-2 and 3-2 counts,” French told reporters in dissecting the pitcher’s work.

“We just focused on fastball command,” French continued. “We just really tried to have a quality, clean delivery and be able to repeat that delivery with all his pitches and having confidence in lining all those pitches up in the strike zone, and just trusting that the movement and his ability to use them in different counts was going to breed some success for him.

“They had a lefty-heavy lineup, so his changeup was really, really effective versus those guys,” French said, adding more insight. “And [he] just made quality pitches, located fastballs early in the count, had command of his fastball pretty much all night.”

Intelligence & Coachability

Sanabria can muster a fastball in the 93-96 mph range with a slider that comes in routinely in the mid-80s.

In what may be the most revealing peek into the prospect’s personality and work ethic, French disclosed that Sanabria did a “really great job in executing what our plan was and being able to take his practice this week and do that in the game, which is a lot more difficult than people understand. It just speaks to his intelligence and his ability to take coaching and to take it out there and execute it at a high level.”

Summing up, French said what Astros manager AJ Hinch will, most likely, be happiest to hear: “I think [Sanabria’s] mentality is, ‘I’m just going to take the ball and go until they tell me I’m not going back out there.'”

Curiously, Sanabria was moved exclusively to the bullpen in 2018 (back at Quad Cities, where he was named a Midwest League All-Star, and Advanced-A ball), but a lot of scouts and team officials think he has the repertoire depth and command to start, assuming he retains the same quality stuff for multiple innings, FanGraphs contends.

“The sizable strikeout totals (73 in 55.1 innings in 2018 vs 23 walks) Sanabria has posted come from his ability to locate his slider and changeup rather than from high-quality stuff, and he’d likely max out as a fifth starter if re-introduced to the rotation,” the site concludes. Sanabria’s 2018 produced 3.74 BB/9 and 11.9 K/9 numbers with an 0.32 BB/K ratio.

He starred out of the bullpen again, briefly back at High-A Fayetteville, and for 55 innings at Houston’s Double-A Corpus Christi, for whom he posted a 3.11 ERA. Sanabria held opposing batters to a career-low .185 average (with more than 12 innings pitched on a team) and logged a career-high 5.89 BB/9, an 11.62 K/9, with an 0.51 BB/K ratio for the Hooks.

For the second straight year, Sanabria enjoyed All-Star status, throwing for the Texas League’s best South Division players.

All Eyes on 2020

Houston brass will have their eyes peeled on Sanabria’s growth and production in the AFL, where he’s tossed three bullpen innings through September 24, and given up a hit and walk with three Ks.

You’ll see the eager youngster in Spring Training at the Ballpark of the Palm Beaches to provide a bridge between Sanabria’s AFL and his 2020 start, probably back at Corpus for a month, before being promoted to AAA Round Rock.

The Sanabria emergence continues out of the bullpen, ideally with that ultimate promotion for his MLB debut a year after he toiled in the AFL.

Here’s hoping his stuff and control will play in Peoria… and beyond.