This 6-foot-4 prospect has two 4-game home run streaks ... this month!
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Avery Owusu-Asiedu has long been a tantalizing prospect. Standing 6-foot-4 and checking in around 245 pounds, he destroys the baseball when he hits it and can run like the wind. But until a few weeks ago, things hadn’t come together all at once on the diamond.
And then the calendar flipped to August.
The 23-year-old D-backs prospect homered in his fourth consecutive game for Double-A Amarillo during Wednesday night's 10-9 win over Corpus Christi at HODGETOWN, the second time this month he’s enjoyed a four-game streak of leaving the yard. Owusu-Asiedu finished the night with three hits and three RBIs, giving him a .491 average and 1.725 OPS in 14 contests since his promotion on Aug. 11.
Owusu-Asiedu earned his bump up the ladder after a flurry of production to close out his High-A Hillsboro tenure. Combined between the two levels, he has amassed 82 total bases this month, far and away the most in the Minors. The last time a player accrued that many total bases in a single month was Nick Schnell (82) last July, although the outfielder potentially has four more games to add to his total.
He also leads all of Minor League Baseball this month in:
Hits (35)
RBIs (31)
SLG (1.038)
OPS (1.543)
Owusu-Asiedu began the year ranked as the D-backs’ No. 29 prospect and appeared in eight Cactus League games as a non-roster invitee. He also was chosen for the club’s Spring Breakout contest, in which he slashed a 108 mph double, showing off his 70-grade wheels in the process.
Owusu-Asiedu has had quite the journey to pro ball geographically as well. Born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, he lived in England as a child before moving to Wisconsin. He played collegiately at Southern Illinois-Edwardsville and starred on the MLB-affiliated Appalachian League circuit en route to becoming a ninth-round pick of the Phillies in the 2023 Draft.
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While he consistently ripped off some of the highest exit velocities (112.7 mph max) and sprint speeds (43 “bolts” -- anything better than 30 ft/sec) in the Florida State League in 2024 and ‘25, he didn’t exactly thrive at the dish, hitting .220 with a .677 OPS at Single-A. His time in High-A (.218 average, .680 OPS) was markedly similar, and Philadelphia flipped him to Arizona in December in exchange for veteran left-hander reliever Kyle Backhus.
But while Owusu-Asiedu is swinging at almost the exact same percentage (46.9 percent, up from 46.6 at High-A) since his promotion, the ball is leaping off his bat with a line-drive rate just below 30 percent. The hitter-friendly environs of the Double-A Texas League haven’t hurt, but it’s difficult to pick holes in a 21-game hitting streak with 31 RBIs.
Overall, it’s been a month of extremes for a prospect whose profile has existed on the poles. There will undoubtedly be an adjustment period as he faces the advanced hurlers of the upper Minors, but raw tools like this are something for clubs to dream on. And this is what it looks like when everything comes together.