Asheville Tourists catcher Jason Schiavone named Minor League Player of Month
Jason Schiavone mashed 11 homers in April and now sits near the top of MiLB’s leaderboards, giving Asheville fans a hot bat to watch at McCormick Field.
Jason Schiavone spent April forcing his name onto every Asheville baseball conversation that matters. The Houston Astros named the 23-year-old Asheville Tourists catcher their Minor League Player of the Month after he hit nine homers and three doubles in the opening month and posted a 1.050 OPS, a burst that made him one of the most dangerous bats in the High-A South Atlantic League.
By the next week, Schiavone had pushed even higher, tying for second across Minor League Baseball with 11 home runs. MiLB listed his April line at 84 at-bats, 19 hits, 27 RBIs, eight stolen bases, a .226 batting average, a .400 on-base percentage and a 1.055 OPS. For a catcher drafted just last year, those numbers are loud enough to turn heads in Buncombe County and beyond.
Schiavone, who bats and throws right-handed, was born March 19, 2003, in Baltimore and came to the Astros in the 11th round of the 2024 MLB Draft out of James Madison University. He was assigned to Asheville after time in the Astros system, and his production has become a central reason the Tourists have had one of the most talked-about starts in the county this spring.
The timing matters in Asheville. The Tourists are playing through the $38.5 million Centennial Restoration at McCormick Field, a major city-backed investment scheduled for completion by Opening Day 2026. In the middle of that rebuild, a player like Schiavone gives fans a reason to come see the ballpark as it is now, before the next wave of changes arrives. His power has become part of the atmosphere around the field, along with the sense that a hot stretch in High-A often does not stay local for long.
That is the other part of this story. Asheville is the Houston Astros’ High-A affiliate, and the club’s relationship with Houston stretches back to 1967, then again from 1982 through 1993, before the Astros invited Asheville back into the system beginning in 2021. Schiavone’s month fits that pipeline perfectly: a young player producing at a level where the next phone call could come quickly.
For Tourists fans in Asheville and the rest of Buncombe County, Schiavone’s breakout is more than a stat line. It is a snapshot of a player who has already changed the shape of the season, and possibly one whose time at McCormick Field may be measured in weeks, not months.
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