As Ricky Rivera walked through the team hotel lobby at midnight Thursday, his catcher opened a notebook and started journaling.
Jason Schiavone, the Astros' 11th-rounder in 2024, stayed up to prepare a game plan for Double-A Corpus Christi, studying the Frisco hitting approaches that night. Rivera, the Hooks' manager, recorded a video and sent it directly to the Astros' director of player development.
"He's just a baseball rat," Sam Niedorf said. "He's obsessed with the preparation, and if it's a rehab guy, if it's a Major League guy, I don't think anything will faze him. He just has that type of obsession and intellect behind the plate."
"Schiavone's a guy that is obsessed with the game, hates when he's not playing," added Rivera, who also coached the catcher at the end of the 2024 season at Single-A Fayetteville. "He's the first guy in the clubhouse every day."
Schiavone debuted at No. 3 on the updated Astros' Top 30 Prospects list ahead of the Trade Deadline. The 23-year-old catcher made the largest jump (28) of any prospect by five spots in the Minor Leagues. He's slashing .267/.417/.551 with 23 homers, 17 doubles and 22 stolen bases as the lone Houston prospect to eclipse 20 long balls so far this season.
"To expect this type of performance this year would have been a lie," Neidorf said. "But given the work ethic and the commitment of the player, I'm not surprised by the success he's having. … The work has never scared him, and that separates him from most guys at that position specifically."
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Schiavone arrived at Spring Training in January, a month early for workouts. As other prospects finished up offseason obligations, the backstop got a leg up on his offensive plan of improving his contact rate and being more aggressive in the strike zone.
The James Madison product showed his talent in spurts the previous two seasons, but before his breakout '26 campaign, he boasted a career batting average below the Mendoza Line. By being aggressive early into counts, he barreled up more pitches at High-A Asheville, slashing .289/.452/.766 with 27 extra-base hits and 13 stolen bases in 35 games.
"Jason, by nature, is more of a passive hitter at times, which is indicative by the higher walk rate (23.2% for the Tourists) that he's shown this year and years past," Niedorf said. "If you see that pitch early in count, when the pitcher might be a little bit more defensive in their pursuit to get into advantage counts, we want you to take advantage of that.
"To say that this was this whole revolutionary swing change would be a lie. A lot of it came to the approach and the mindset of giving Jason the confidence that, regardless of who's pitching, regardless of what park he's playing in, he has the ability to do damage on really any pitch type in his zone."
Schiavone's arm has been his calling card from a young age. It's his highest-graded tool (60), and Astros Minor League field coordinator Micheal Thomas has kept the focus on a consistent movement behind the plate.
The organization wondered about the return on Schiavone's arm as bases were being stolen at a higher rate across the lower levels. But in 2025, the righty threw out 33% of runners across two levels, while boasting a 35% clip (47% at Double-A) through 54 games at catcher this season.
"It's not surprising really at this point," Thomas said. "It's almost like, 'Alright, collectively, how do we get everybody else to do what Jason's doing?'
"This year, we spent a lot of time trying to restructure some of his positioning and his stances and let the glove be the glove to a lot of degree. And a lot of it was just to get the most out of it, but he dominates the bottom (of the zone), and he has historically through his career. And the goal is to see how can we continue to start to expand that across different parts of the zone?"
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Schiavone's preparation has stemmed from being a "servant leader behind the plate." The 6-foot-1, 200-pound catcher has done that to the nth degree and taken the process to heart, which became the defining trait the Astros saw in his development this season.
"He'll text me immediately after the game when he knows he's catching the next day. He's like, 'Ricky, can I get a lineup for the other team? Who's pitching for us?'" said Rivera, who has observed Schiavone arriving early to Whataburger Field to build game plans on the team computer. "He's prepping at the beginning of the week."
Houston has preached a pillar of healthy competition. Corpus Christi now has three catchers all ranked inside the Top 30 Prospects list, with 2024 first-rounder Walker Janek (HOU No. 9) and 2023 16th-rounder Will Bush (No. 16) in the fold. Bush and Schiavone have both stretched to first base as well.
It's a good problem to have.
"It's a meritocracy at the end of the day," Niedorf said. "Whoever continues to show that they're performing on both sides of the ball, they will play."