Ivey is having quite a season so far, outside of getting tossed that one game. Good chance of hitting top 100 lists I would think if he keeps it up.
IF Osvaldo Duarte was 4-4 with a HR and 2 SB tonight. He appears to be breaking out, as he’s on pace for a 30/30 season while striking out <15% of the time as a 23 year old in his 1st taste of AA. Long touted as a speedster who can play 7 positions, the strikeouts have been his only real wart. If he is able to keep that rate <20% over a full season while also showing plus power...look out.
Any of you true prospect guys have any thoughts on Jamie Richie? I for one as ready for Stassi to move on, he had the hot start with the bat last year and that's about it. Although I've never heard any of the pitchers complain vocally about it, they sure do seem to have to shake him off a lot more than any other catchers we've had too. Even Miley who works as fast as anyone had to step off a few times last night, particularly in the 1st inning. Looks like Ritchie has always hit and been a good on base guy, but know nothing about the glove or any of that
Pitchers complained about Stassi last year. Stassi is good at presenting the ball, but he's losing the contact battle and losing the winning over the pitcher battle. Not a catcher prospect expert, but I think Astros try to add a catcher via trade.
I have seen varying reports on Ritchie’s defense, from “he is not a catcher” to “he’s a good framer and decent overall defender”. So who knows. On the one hand, I doubt they’d be giving him time at catcher in AAA if they didn’t think he could play there in the majors. On the other, he is the backup in AAA, which doesn’t bode well for him as a long term big leaguer. His offensive profile is very interesting. He’s always had monster walk rates and on base percentages. He has never hit for much power. I have likened his offense to Nolan Fontana. The main thing with him from my perspective is that he has not consistently caught a lot of games in the upper levels, so before he can project as a major league backstop, I’d like to see him get 400 PA as a AAA catcher. As for Stassi, he has shown potential with the bat and the metrics like his defense. I suspect that between Hinch and Luhnow they wouldn’t have much patience with a guy they didn’t think was a good catcher. There are plenty of Fedorowicz types out there they can add if they think Stassi wasn’t gonna cut it and they didn’t like any of their minor league options.
I think that was his projection going into last season. IIRC Fontana never hit much n AAA. I expected that Richie to suffer a similar fate, if he ever got to AAA, but ... Richie has hit well in AAA so far. To be truthful, I never expected Richie to make it to AAA. I thought AA would be his ceiling.
Ronnie Dawson hit his 4th HR of the season in the 1st inning of tonight’s game. He’s still striking out far too much at this point to profile as an everyday major leaguer, but a guy who can play a decent CF, provide speed on the basepaths, and 20+ HR power still has a lot of value.
Really heads-up play by Dawson. Wonder when the last game-ending triple play happened in professional baseball? Had an RBI 2B to RF earlier, iirc.
He also had his 3rd SB. As bad as he’s been, he’s still on pace for a 20/20 season. (Last season only 10 players in the majors had at least 20 HR and 20 SB).
His swinging strike % is still crazy high (17%) compared to last season. On the other hand, Alvarez' SwStr% is down to 8%.
