
David Hensley made his major league debut for the Astros in 2022.
David Hensley is the 240th player we’ve reviewed this offseason in our quest to peek in at all 316 to appear in Houston’s system in 2022.
David Hensley is a six-foot-six, 190 lb. right-handed infielder from San Diego, CA. Born on March 28, 1996, he was a 26th round selection of the Astros in 2018, with the 792nd overall choice out of SDSU. Hensley is the first to make the majors after being drafted at that spot, and the 41st to get to the big leagues out of SDSU. That group is led by Tony Gwynn (69.2 WAR).
Hensley agreed to a deal to play with the Astros by signing a contract that included a $1,000 signing bonus. After he signed, he hit .209 in 63 games for the Low-A Quad Cities River Bandits to close out the 2018 season, with four homers and 20 RBI. In 2019, between the Bandits and the then-High-A Fayetteville Woodpeckers, he slashed .260/.319/.379 with six home runs and 46 RBI in 108 games.
In 2021, Hensley played the entire campaign with the Double-A Corpus Christi Hooks, and slashed .293/.369/.439 with nine homers and 51 RBI. With improvements to his slashline at each level of the minors, he entered the 2022 campaign with the Triple-A Sugar Land Space Cowboys.
In 104 games for the Cowboys, 31 of which were multiple hit games, Hensley slashed out a .298/.420/.478 line with 10 homers and 57 RBI. He also stole 20 bases in 27 attempt, and drew 80 walks against 103 strikeouts. On May 10, in a 20-1 win against the Albuquerque Isotopes, he came within a double of the cycle, adding a walk and three RBI. On August 19, he completed a doubleheader for the Cowboys, then got promoted to the majors.
It would be a week before Hensley made his first major league action, going 0-for-3 on August 27 in a 3-1 loss to the Baltimore Orioles. The following day, he collected his first big-league hit, a double in a 3-1 win over Baltimore. On August 31, he hit three singles and scored a run in a 5-3 win against the Texas Rangers.
Hensley played in 16 games at baseball’s top level for the Astros, going 10-for-29 with five RBI, five walks, six RBI, and a solid 1.027 OPS. Defensively, he was perfect in 43 combined innings between shortstop (18 innings), third base (12 innings), second base (10 innings), and left field (three innings).
In Houston’s rampage to their second World Championship, Hensley was two-for-eight in four appearances. He’s near the top of a very short list to provide Houston’s 2023 bench.