Good opportunity for Deason and would stand to reason he will start out in Corpus next year, which would also be a great sign. I was hoping Ivey would be the guy too.
Reports Of The Astros’ Farm System’s Demise Are Greatly Exaggerated The minor league baseball season is essentially over, so we’ll discuss some of the best and worst farm systems in the game this week in this space. Today, let’s look at some of the former. No, the Houston Astros no longer have the game’s best system, but if you believe the mainstream minor league publications, they appear to have fallen off of the map. I’m here to tell you that this is far from the case. Not all that long ago, the Astros were by far the worst team at the major league level and by far the best organization in the minors. They incrementally graduated their best prospects to the MLB level, where they became the core of a championship club. As recently as early this season, the Baseball Americas, the MLB.coms, etc., thought pretty highly of them. Then they graduated stud power hitter Yordan Alvarez to the big leagues and traded a boatload of talent to the Diamondbacks for Zack Greinke. Exit top pitching prospects J.B. Bukauskas and Corbin Martin, power bat Seth Beer and late-blooming hitter Josh Rojas. When the dust cleared, MLB.com did not include the Astros among their top 15 minor league systems. Baseball America dropped them from seventh to 15th. Bleacher Report placed them all the way down at 25th. Pretty bizarre, in my humble opinion. Each season, I prepare my own minor league hitter and pitcher rankings, based on performance and age relative to league and level. Players must meet certain criteria in those areas to qualify for my list. The ranked order of my list isn’t the be-all and end-all. I use it primarily as a master follow document, a starting point from which to begin more traditional scouting analysis. A couple of caveats about my list: Players can qualify and then subsequently lose their rookie or prospect status by rising to the majors and accruing material service time, like Yordan Alvarez. In addition, it covers only the full-season leagues. Still, by examining the quantity and quality (via their ranking) of the players who qualify, one can get a pretty good feel for the relative strength or weakness of individual farm systems. The Astros ranked as the seventh-strongest farm system with regard to hitters and second-strongest with regard to pitching in 2019. Overall, they ranked as the second-strongest system. Now, the hitting rankings did include Alvarez, who placed seventh among all minor league hitting prospects. In 2017 and 2018, he ranked fourth and 11th, respectively. Players who fare so well almost always turn out to major league stars. The mainstream publications never really loved Alvarez, as he was seen as a bat-only, or at the very least a bat-first prospect. He might be bat-first, but it’s an absolutely can’t-miss bat. My pitching rankings also included lefty Framber Valdez at No. 36. He has since gone on to contribute to the major league staff as a swing-man. He posted an absolutely ridiculous 6.63 groundball/flyball ratio in the minors. That is orders of magnitude off the charts. He’s been uneven in the majors but has struck out about a batter per inning and maintained a very healthy 2.66 GB/FB ratio, among the best in the game. He, too, can no longer be considered a “prospect.” Lots of other players can, however. The Astros were able to go out and do major work at the trading deadline without moving the players generally accepted as their best hitting and pitching prospects: outfielder Kyle Tucker and pitcher Forrest Whitley. The system, however, goes far deeper than those guys. How about third baseman Abraham Toro? He’s in the majors now but is likely to maintain his rookie eligibility into 2020. The 2016 fifth-round pick has gradually grown into his power, tore up the upper minors this season and then achieved notoriety by hitting a homer in the top of the ninth of a 0-0 game during Justin Verlander’s recent no-hitter. Or Double-A shortstop Jonathan Arauz? He’s only 20 years old and has always been among the very youngest players in his league, holding his own in all facets of the game. He could be primed for a big step forward in the near term. Right behind him is 2018 third-rounder Jeremy Pena—son of Geronimo—who was recently a first-round Dominican Winter League draft pick. That’s a big deal. Or 2017 39th-rounder Colton Shaver, a burly power hitter who will work on a conversion to catcher in the Arizona Fall League. Things are even brighter on the pitching side. Righty Jose Urquidy may lose his rookie eligibility; he has been quite effective of late in the major league rotation, posting a 34/6 K/BB ratio in 32 innings. Cristian Javier, 22, struck out 130 in 85 upper-minor-league innings this season. Nivaldo Rodriguez and Luis Garcia have also been dominant but haven’t yet made the key leap to Double-A. Garcia whiffed an amazing 108 batters in 65 2/3 High-A innings. The Triple- and Double-A pitching staffs were chock full of interesting arms like Brandon Bielak, Enoli Paredes, Bryan Abreu, Tyler Ivey and Brett Conine. I’ll go out on a limb and say that all of those guys will pitch in the big leagues. With the lively ball now being used at the Triple-A level, ERAs can be very misleading. Focus on the K rates. The present conventional wisdom is that the Padres and the Rays have the two best farm systems in the game. I agree with that take, in that order. The Padres have big-time pitching star power in MacKenzie Gore and Luis Patino, plus a dizzying array of position-player prospects who are very young for their level. The Rays have the best prospect in baseball, third baseman Wander Franco, leading an exceptionally deep group of position-player talent. The Astros, I would argue, are right in there with the next tier of teams, including the Dodgers (led by recent call-up Gavin Lux), the Twins and the Blue Jays. The Astros are a superb baseball team and will be one for the foreseeable future thanks in part to their perennially productive minor league system.
Thanks for sharing that article. With Tucker and Whitley Houston’s system should rank in the 8-12 range. Without them they should be in the 12-20 range depending on how much you weigh different elements. Their pitching depth is easily in the top 5, their position player depth is probably in the 8-12 range. But they lack top end talent on both sides, so without Tucker/Whitley their top-end talent probably ranks in the 17-24 range. Like I was coming into this year, I’m hopeful that several of the extremely large group of 2nd tier prospects (Lee, Perry, Pena, Nova, Arauz, Perez, Santana, Dawson, Matijevic, Brewer, Barber, Javier, Ivey, Bielak, Torres, etc etc etc) will break out and end 2020 as the Top 100 type of prospects that can anchor the system for a couple years.
Whitley leads the AFL in strikeouts with 14; next player is Shane Baz with 10. All stats are still below all meaningful thresholds but Im encouraged by him, Torres, and Sanabria, so far. The hitters aren’t doing so great, but again, small samples.
Big league position players produced by the farm each year during Luhnow era: 2019: Yordan Alvarez, Abraham Toro, Garrett Stubbs, Jack Mayfield 2018: Kyle Tucker, Myles Straw 2017: JD Davis, Brian McCann*, Derek Fisher 2016: Alex Bregman, Teoscar Hernandez, Colin Moran, Tyler White, Tony Kemp, AJ Reed 2015: Carlos Correa, Preston Tucker, Hank Conger*, Carlos Gomez*, Matt Duffy 2014: George Springer, Enrique Hernandez, Domingo Santana, Jon Singleton 2013: Jon Villar, Max Stassi, Robbie Grossman, Jake Elmore, Marc Krauss, Cody Clark 2012: Marwin Gonzalez, Brandon Barnes
Pitchers: 2019: Jose Urquidy, Bryan Abreu, Corbin Martin, Rogelio Armenteros, Cy Sneed, Zack Greinke* 2018: Josh James, Framber Valdez, Cionel Perez, Dean Deetz, Gerrit Cole*, Ryan Pressly* 2017: Frances Martes, Jordan Jankwoski, Reymin Guduan, Justin Verlander* 2016: Chris Devenski, Jandel Gustave, Brady Rodgers, David Paulino, James Hoyt, Ken Giles* 2015: Lance McCullers, Vince Velasquez, Michael Feliz, Asher Wojo, Mike Fiers*, Scott Kazmir* 2014: Mike Foltynewicz, Nick Tropeano, Jake Buchanan, Rudy Owens 2013: Josh Fields, Jarred Cosart, Brett Oberholtzer, Jose Cisnero, Paul Clemens, josh Zeid, Kevin Chapman, Jorge De Leon, David Martinez, CJ Lo 2012: Dallas Keuchel, Rainer Cruz, Mickey Storey
We have known for a while that the system was going to produce blue chippers, but also blue collar stars/rotation players. And the Astros have used the data at their disposal to sort through the guys they are going with. Guys they missed on were Villar, JD Martinez, JD Davis, Laureano, and a few others; but as Luhnow said, you can’t play ‘em all. Luhnow said he was going to use the minor league system to strengthen the ML club, either by graduation to the club or as trade chips. And the system still has intriguing talented players. It’s not as loaded with blue chips, but there is plenty of talent.
The system produced a potential mvp caliber position player 4 out of the last 6 seasons (5 if you consider Tucker on that level). There’s no way they can keep that up. Trying to project out which position player prospects will graduate the next 4 seasons: 2020: Dawson, Ferguson, Jones 2021: Pena, Arauz, Matijevic, Stevenson 2022: Perry, Lee, Kessinger, Santana, Adolph, McKenna 2023: Freudis Nova, J Perez, Brewer, Barber The good news is that none of the current MvP caliber guys were projected to be that good. Springer was a back half Top 100 guy with projected strikeout problems. Altuve was a non-prospect, and even when he got noticed, the projection was he would never hit more than 10 HR. Bregman was a top guy but nobody thought he’d be hitting 40 HR. Nobody saw Alvarez being such a monster so soon. So that gives me hope that maybe 1-2 of the guys I listed above will totally blow away expectations. An even if that doesn’t happen, the depth should allow Houston to continue to acquire good big leaguers via trade. I do think the pitching forecast is a little stronger: 2020: Whitley, Bielak, Javier, Bailey, Paredes, Ferrell, Pinales 2021: Ivey, Donato, Torres, Conine, Dubin, Garcia, Sanabria, Collado, Mushinski 2022: Deason, Hansen, Solomon, Rivera, Henley, Battenfield 2023: Brown, Solis, Bellozo, Lopez, Gusto, Ramirez, Schroeder, Macuare
Not sure how Tucker can be considered an MVP candidate. Preston is going to have to do better than an .860 OPS to win the MVP in the Korean league..
MLB.com has updated a few of their blurbs for their Top 30. Interesting how many pitchers (11!) in that list they say can throw at least 96: Luis Garcia Jose Alberto Rivera Jayson Schroeder Shawn Dubin Hunter Brown Jairo Solis Peter Solomon Enoli Paredes Cristian Javier (had no idea he was topping at 96!) Bryan Abreu Forrest Whitley
I've kept track of the highest velo readings I've heard for pitchers in the Astros system, and there's a number of other prospects that can touch at least 96: Jojanse Torres (101) Cesar Rosado (99) Ronel Blanco (98) Manny Ramirez Yohan Ramirez Kyle Serrano Dean Deetz (97) Ryan Gusto Erasmo Pinales Elian Rodriguez Jose Urquidy Brandon Bielak (96) RJ Freure Austin Hansen Tyler Ivey Mark Moclair Some of the reports are fairly old or not super reliable like Freure and Hansen were from their reliever days in college, but there are also a bunch of players I have no idea about. I have no idea how this compares to other systems, but it seems like a solid group. 2019 was a near disaster for upper level pitching in the Astros system, so it'll be interesting to see if it bounces back any, and if the 2018 draft class will face as many struggles in their 2nd full season as the 2017 class did.
MLB guys sit in the mid 90s as a rule, so a guy throwing 96 in AAA isn’t a big deal. But guys throwing 98-99 are. And guys throwing 96-97 in A ball will usually end up throwing 98-99 in the upper levels, especially starters who transition to relief or super young guys entering their early/mid 20s. It would be interesting to see a comparison to other orgs as well. My guess is Houston would rank in the top 5 in both velocity and spin rate.
Urquidy and Bielak surprise me as I didn’t think they were getting that high. But literally every other one other than Elian Rodriguez has premium velocity and if they stay healthy will likely reach the majors (of course, for most it will be a Rhiner Cruz or Jandel Gustave type career).
