The Houston Astros have activated six players from the 60-day injured list for their Dominican Summer League Orange affiliate, according to the official MiLB transaction log.
The moves clear the injured list for the lower-level club as the offseason begins following the conclusion of the 2026 DSL campaign.
Outfielder Freddy Ramos, catcher Esteban Castro, and right-handed pitchers Emilio Payro, Samil Valdivieso, Anthony Gantes, and Vismar Dagnino were all returned to active status with DSL Astros Orange.
None of the six appear on Houston’s 40-man roster, and all remain in the earliest stages of their professional careers as international signees based in the Dominican Republic.
These activations come after the DSL season has already ended.
The Orange club finished with a 33-20 record in 2026, an improvement from the prior year, though none of the six reinstated players were listed among the team’s statistical leaders in a season review published earlier in the fall.
Most of the group spent significant portions of the year sidelined, limiting their opportunities to accumulate meaningful innings or plate appearances at the complex level.
Among the pitchers, Vismar Dagnino, an 18-year-old right-hander signed by the Astros as a free agent on September 30, 2025, was placed on the 60-day injured list on June 2, 2026, after being assigned to the Orange squad in late May.
Anthony Gantes, a right-hander born in late 2005, had also spent the latter part of the season on the 60-day list. Emilio Payro and Samil Valdivieso round out the pitching contingent activated on the same day.
On the position-player side, Ramos, an outfielder born in May 2008, and Castro, a catcher born in February 2008, complete the group of six.
Such clusters of injured-list activations are common across minor-league systems once the regular season concludes.
With the DSL schedule finished and instructional or winter work not yet underway for most of these prospects, the transactions serve largely as roster housekeeping.
They free the players from injured-list status heading into the winter months, allowing the organization to evaluate them without formal IL designations and prepare them for potential assignments to the Florida Complex League or other domestic rookie levels in 2027.
The Astros have maintained two squads in the Dominican Summer League for years, using the Orange and Blue teams as the primary entry points for their international amateur signings.
While the moves do not alter Houston’s major-league or upper-minors picture, they restore depth at the very bottom of the system and signal that the organization has moved these six prospects off the injured list as part of its standard postseason administrative process.
No further details on the specific injuries or expected timelines were included in the transaction log.
