If the goal was to find players with a never-say-die attitude to bring to spring training, the Houston Astros just hit a home run.
Riley Unroe, a 30-year-old infielder who was once a second-round pick for the Tampa Bay Rays, has played 12 seasons of minor-league baseball without making his major league debut. Heading into year 13, he is set to join a sixth major league organization in hopes that those will be his new lucky numbers.
According to the transactions log on his official roster page, Unroe signed a minor-league deal with the Astros on Monday. The deal did not appear on the log until Thursday.
Unroe elected free agency in November after playing Triple-A ball for the Detroit Tigers organization last year. He’s also spent time as a farmhand with the Los Angeles Angels, Atlanta Braves, and Seattle Mariners. And as if that wasn’t enough proof that he’s a baseball rat, he’s also played seven years of winter ball in Austrailia, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico.
With six seasons of Triple-A experience under his belt, Unroe has likely seen a good percentage of the pitchers he’s likely to face in spring training, both on the Astros and the other Cactus League teams. At the Triple-A level, he’s put up a slash line of .254/.372/.391 in 231 games.
Unroe is also a true super-utility player, as he’s spent time at every position at catcher in the minors. He’s logged over 4,000 innings at second base, over 2,000 innings at shortstop, and at least 300 each at third base, in left field, and in right field.
The Astros are getting an old-school ballplayer who will do anything to help the team win, but due to his lack of home run power, his prospect status has disappeared over the years. However, Houston lost its best super-utility player when it traded Mauricio Dubón to the Atlanta Braves this winter.
It may be unreasonable to expect Unroe to win a job on the major league roster out of spring training, but if one thing is for certain, it’s that he’ll play whatever role he’s asked to play to help the organization succeed this year.
