Arias, a 6-10 Dominican, was signed in September after the Padres released him. Ballard was a 31st-round pick in 2015 out of Oklahoma Baptist. He spent most of 2016 with Lancaster. Gregor was drafted in the 4th round out of Vanderbilt in 2013. He had that outstanding stint in Lancaster in 2014 but couldn't get over the Corpus hump. He's probably best known for swatting a home run with Quad Cities that his dad caught. Martir was drafted in the 18th round out of Maryland in 2015. He never advanced past short-season ball. Former Woodlands star Kevin McCanna was drafted in the 13th round out of Rice. He began 2016 in Quad Cities' rotation, then spent the rest of the year in Lancaster's bullpen. His overall numbers weren't bad but weren't great, and there are some more promising arms closing in on him. McDonald swatted 17 homers in Corpus but had a sub-.700 OPS. He was drafted in the 12th round out of East Carolina in 2013. Aside from a 5-game cameo with Quad Cities in 2014, Mejia spent his time in the Astros system in the short-season leagues after signing in 2012. Aaron Mizell was a 32nd-round pick out of Georgia Southern in 2015. He spent 2016 at both A clubs. Zac Person was a 9th-round senior sign out of LSU in 2015. He spent last season in Quad Cities' bullpen. Hector Roa signed for $110K in 2012. He spent 2016 with Quad Cities, where he slashed .211/.229/.390 with 6 homers and 22 RBI. Roa had good power and a lot of swing-and-miss. He walked 4 times (1.8% BB rate) and struck out 65 times (29.7 K rate) in 219 plate appearances. Juan Carlos Santos was a 39th-round pick in 2013 from Arlington Country Day School in Jacksonville. He put up some good strikeout numbers... and also walked nearly 7 batters per 9 innings. He spent most of 2016 with Quad Cities. Josue Uribe was signed in 2014 out of the Dominican Republic. He only made four appearances last season; 2 with Tri-City and one each with Greeneville and the GCL. http://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=wernes000bob]Bobby Wernes was drafted in the 30th round out of Arkansas in 2015. He led the New York-Penn League with a .346 average in 2015, but he crashed to the Mendoza Line in 2016 with Quad Cities, slashing .215/.297/.274.
Sad day for those kids. But there will probably be another 15-20 guys released before opening day. Only 7 players from the 2013 draft remain in the system: White, Kemp, Kemmer, Minnis, Martin, Emanuel, and Kessay. Looking like a pretty crummy draft, especially considering they picked first in every round. On the other hand, 23 players from the 2014 draft are still in the system and 17 of them will likely start this season in AA or higher.
Giles, Gattis, and Hoyt were acquired in deals including players from that draft. Granted, not the marquee players in those deals.
Right. So far, that draft has produced 2 AAAA guys (Kemp/White), part of Ken Giles (Appel), and 1/4 a season of a crummy version of Scott Kazmir (Nottingham). We will see what Hoyt ends up being before determining what Thurman contributed. But either way it's still looking like a pretty bad draft.
It looked like an unimpressive draft at the time and it didn't age well either. Bummer about Conrad Gregor. I spent a year at Vandy and got super excited about Gregor, particularly after his Lancaster stint. I remember arguing with someone on Sickel's blog about Gregor's possible outcomes and some Yankees fan gave a Shelly Duncan comp. That guyed got panned for giving a weak comp but he was totally right. Gregor wishes he had Shelly Duncan's bench bat career now. At the time I was sipping the Luhnow koolaid on hidden-breakout attributes. Gregor had hit for power in the Cape after never showing power in the college game and I thought we had someone on the verge of a breakout. After Gregor and Moran, I realized that those hidden-breakout attributes (late developing power, cold weather guy, etc...) aren't particularly reliable at all. Hopefully Luhnow did too.
I liked the Appel pick (gulp), but was baffled by them picking Thurman, Emanuel, and Gregor. Those guys were 7-10th rounders to me. I liked the Nottingham pick a lot, and I'm really surprised he's struggled to hit in AA and hasn't become a better defensive catcher.
I dunno if it's Luhnow or just drafting college players after the first round in general but his rounds 2-10 record with college draftees ain't particularly good. Of the college guys who've made it to the show, you have Brady Rodgers (backend starter at best), PTuck (admittedly a scouting win in the 7th but a platoon bat at best), Tony Kemp (utility-ish guy). There are so many that either busted or have below average ML upside: Fontana, Aplin, Heineman, Thurman, Emanual, etc... The 2014 group of Fisher, Reed, Davis and Mengden (traded) still could reach average MLer levels (maybe potentially more) but I'm not too rosy on Luhnow's college drafting skills.
In rounds 2-5 most of those guys were getting at or near slot. Emanuel and Thurmann got full slot. Fontana got slightly above slot. Most of the cost-savings guys are typically at the latter part of the first 10 rounds (i.e. 6-10); those are the ones they're really not expecting much from.
Considering amount of money saved for later in the draft on the first ten picks or so, signing for slot in second (or near it) would likely mean that there are more players drafted paid more than our seconds than there were players drafted (i.e. our college guys may not have been the best guy when picked as Astros used extra slot money elsewhere). I can't think of college players Astros saved slot money from first. Not saying it is great, but 2-4 drafts of bad college players outside the 1st round probably isn't that abnormal. Definitely not for Astros the decade preceding Luhnow. Overall, he's had a lot of near misses (AAA or guys that made majors but did not succeed). That said, I still think Reed and Kemp still have chance to be MLB players, of different calibers. Kemp needs a new team more than Moran. Cardinals have lived off low ceiling guys becoming depth with occasional hits and Astros are going to need some of these guys to be bad MLB players instead of near misses.
When it comes to Jeff Luhnow, he goes top heavy just like last year. I believe Forrest Whitley will become a stud ace in the future. But after him, we drafted a lot of easy signs, and still didn't sign all of ouyr 19 round players.
LHP Cionel Perez will start the season in Extended Spring Training. He's sat mid 90s and the staff has been very impressed with him. He will join High A or AA once he's ramped up. 1B Taylor Jones, IF Mott Hyde, and OF Myles Straw got into the big league game yesterday.
The MILB app has rosters for every affiliate except Buies Creek. Don't know how accurate they are, but they at least have something. I didn't see any super-obvious errors. I was trying to figure out where KTucker is starting.
That is interesting, how aggressive they want to be with him, but I'd bet he'll be in Corpus within a month if he doesn't start there.
Funny, the screen cap of milb app in Apple Store reads "Jio Mier strikes out on a foul tip." Also, those rosters are from last year. Tucker is not found since none of the High A players are on any roster because of the team change.
