Astros first baseman Yuli Gurriel is a Cuban baseball legend, so Pedro Leon called it a dream come true when met him for the first time last week at Astros spring training.
"There's something that we say in Cuba, that we all have a little bit of Yuli inside of us," Leon said through a translator on Wednesday. "That's what the young kids say, when we play in Cuba, so it's, it's a dream come true to be here and to be around him."
The Astros signed Leon, 22, for $4 million in January and he's rated as the Astros third best prospect by Keith Law of the Athletic.
"Pedro Leon projects to be an everyday center fielder and rapid mover to the big leagues," Astros senior scouting advisor Charlie Gonzalez said in a press release when Leon signed with the team. "Pedro has a compact build, tremendous strength and is an extreme quick-twitch athlete. He possesses five plus baseball tools on the 20-80 scouting scale, including an 80-grade arm with throws between 96 and 100 miles per hour."
Leon will start the 2021 season at one of the Astros four full-season minor league affiliates where he will also see some time in the infield.
"I actually had a chance to play some third, short, and second when I first was playing and then they had me, when I started with the organization, play more in the outfield, but it's not something that affects me. I'm available to play wherever it is that they need me to play."
Growing up in Cuba, Leon says he didn't get to watch many Major League games, but when he did the Astros were the team he saw the most, making them his favorite with Jose Altuve serving as his favorite player.
"It was an incredible opportunity to meet him," Leon said of Altuve. "The truth is you don't even really need to go seek him out, he's the kind of person that will come close to you and be around to give you a couple words of advice to help you feel comfortable and be able to develop, so it's been a great opportunity to meet him and be around him."
Due to the visa process, Leon was a late arrival to Astros camp, so he has yet to appear in the Astros first three spring training contests, but along with his work in the field, he's labored in the batting cages with Astros hitting coaches.
"They just been helping me in general just to get my routine right and adapt my routine for what I was doing before to the way that we do things here, so that's where we've been to begin with and I think just dealing with the results that I have, they'll be able to know the best way to help me out going forward."
Leon asserted on Wednesday that his two biggest goals for 2021 are to stay healthy and play to the best of his abilities, not play in the big leagues.
"Just focus on going out there and having fun honestly over everything else, and just maintain my focus on the physical and on the mental so that I'm ready to go when the moment is ready, and just let everything flow."
