A rare 2-time minor league home run champ, can Astros’ A.J. Reed regain his star power?

Houston Astros prospect A.J. Reed got off to a somewhat slow start in the power department in 2017, hitting just 12 home runs through the first three months of the Pacific Coast League season.

Then the weather warmed and so did Reed’s bat. Ten balls left the yard in July and there were another 11 homers in August. A final bomb in September gave him 34 for the season and the 2017 Joe Bauman Award as minor league baseball’s home run king.

It is the second time he has won the Bauman, a first in the history of the award that dates to 2002. For good measure, No. 34 in September also set the Triple-A Fresno Grizzlies franchise record.

“The 2017 season was a lot of fun,” Reed said in a news release, “and I appreciate all of the support from my teammates, coaches and the fans.”

Reed was once among the top two or three prospects throughout a stacked Astros farm system, a Golden Spikes winner at the University of Kentucky as the nation’s top amateur who was chosen in the second round of the 2014 First-Year Player Draft.

His professional credentials were burnished by a 2015 season in which he won the Bauman Award after hitting a combined 34 homers for Class-A Lancaster of the California League and 11 for Double-A Corpus Christi of the Texas League.

But the bullet train to major league stardom derailed during an ill-fated call-up to the majors in 2016. He hit just .164, with three homers, in 122 at-bats across 45 games with Houston.

Reed showed signs of a bounceback in 2017 when he slashed .275/.408/.600 in 40 spring-training at-bats with Houston.

But the Astros, who in three years went from a 92-game loser to likely American League West champs, had a stacked lineup of young stars such as Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa and George Springer and still-effective veterans including Josh Reddick and Carlos Beltran.

The good news for Reed is that he is still just 24. Cutting down his strikeouts likely will be critical – he fanned 146 times while slashing .261/.358/.525 for the Grizzlies this season and has 49 in his 128 total major league at-bats.

▪ Reed hit four home runs in his final 10 games with the Grizzlies this season to edge Bowie’s Austin Hays, Nashville’s Renato Núñez and Reno’s Christian Walker, who all hit 32 homers.

▪ There’s more to the Bauman than a trophy. Reed will receive a check for $6,800 – $200 for each of his homers – when he is honored in December at the Baseball Winter Meetings in Orlando, Florida.

▪ The award is named for Joe Bauman, who set a then-professional record with 72 home runs in 1954 while playing for the Roswell Rockets of the Class-C Longhorn League. It is sponsored by Musco Sports Lighting.

▪ Pedro Feliz was the Grizzlies previous single-season leader, hitting 33 home runs in 2000.

This story was originally published September 14, 2017 at 6:58 PM with the headline "A rare 2-time minor league home run champ, can Astros’ A.J. Reed regain his star power?."