Reed's big season

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Reed's big season

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Reed takes Minors' homer, RBI crowns


A.J. Reed's pursuit of the 2015 Minor League home run title is complete. The chase of his season's ultimate goal is just getting started.

The Astros' No. 5 prospect put the finishing touches on a breakthrough year, capping off his regular season with a Minor League-best 34 home runs and 127 RBIs as well as topping all systems in slugging percentage (.612), OPS (1.044) and runs scored (113). Reed singled twice and drove in his final run of the regular season Monday in Double-A Corpus Christi's 12-8 win over San Antonio.

"It's been a great year," Reed said. "I've had so much fun, especially playing with the guys I've gotten to play with in Lancaster and here in Corpus. For me, the best part about it is getting to share it with those guys and the coaches and the people around it who are involved. Having a great year is awesome and everything, but what I look back on is getting to celebrate with these guys."

Houston selected Reed in the second round of last year's First-Year Player Draft with the Kentucky product coming off of a Golden Spikes Award-winning season as college baseball's best player. After posting a .289/.375/.522 slash line in 68 evenly split games between Class A Short Season Tri-City and Class A Quad Cities a year ago, Reed rocketed into top prospect status in 2015.

The 22-year-old started his season with Class A Advanced Lancaster and flourished in the hitter-friendly California League, bashing 23 home runs, driving in 81, registering a .346/.449/.638 line and earning a midseason All-Star selection before being promoted to Corpus Christi after 82 contests.

With the Hooks, Reed didn't slow down. In 53 Double-A games, he batted .332/.405/.571 with 11 homers and 46 RBIs while holding down Corpus Christi's cleanup spot. Playing in his first full professional campaign, Reed didn't wilt as the season wore on. He posted an OPS of 1.001 in 28 August games, the final full month of the year.

"A big thing for me was not falling off at the end of the year, the last month or month-and-a-half," he said. "I just wanted to be able to prove with it being my first full year that I could play the whole year long, and they wouldn't have to worry about me getting tired at the end of the year."

The 6-foot-4, 220-pound slugger was consistent with his power as well. Reed bashed nine homers in July -- five after his promotion to the Texas League -- five more in August and one in September. All the while, he kept tabs on the race that saw him finish two long balls ahead of Triple-A Tacoma's Jabari Blash and Class A Advanced Bakersfield's Tyler O'Neill, both Seattle prospects.

"The last month, I followed it pretty closely just because I was up there all year towards the top," Reed said. "That's something that I like to do, hit home runs. It gives your team a chance to win a game. I followed it, and I knew the guys who were in it. It was fun to be able to be a part of that."

It wasn't just Reed keeping an eye on the homer leaderboard. His Hooks teammates had some fun at the Terre Haute, Indiana native's expense during the race.

"For the last week, week-and-a-half probably, it's just been, 'Hey, you better hit some home runs. They're catching you,'" Reed said with a laugh. "We're just trying to have fun with it. It's fun. It's baseball. You've got to do anything you can, especially at this time of year, to make it as fun as possible."

Now a full-time position player, Reed still gets a sporadic itch to return to the mound, where he went 12-2 with a 2.09 ERA in his junior season for Kentucky, but it's the continued development of life in the field and at the plate that keeps him centered.

"The transition [from college] wasn't too hard," he said. "There are times where I wish I could get out there for an inning or two or something like that, but it's just focusing on making what I'm doing now better. I'm just making improvements and making adjustments throughout the year and just becoming the best hitter I can."

Additionally, Reed finished second in the Minors with 178 hits, tied for third with 70 extra-base hits and fourth with a 1.044 OPS. With his individual accomplishments now in the books, Reed is focused on helping the Hooks' run at the Texas League title.

"We're really excited," he said. "We want to go win a championship. We're going to go out there and play hard and everything, and now we get to relax because you don't have 140 games weighing on stats or anything like that. You're not worrying about average or anything. We're just worrying about winning games now. Obviously, the ultimate goal is to get the ring and that's what we're going for."

Corpus Christi hosts Midland on Wednesday in the opener of their best-of-5 semifinal series.
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