People conflate the baseball draft with the basketball and football drafts. Almost every baseball player drafted is at least three years away from The Bigs. That is three years of increasingly more difficult competition until they are ready. A casual fan may look at Conrad Gregor in AA and think that he is a draft failure. The truth is that he has been successful until this year. When Conrad looks back on his career (if this year is his last), he should view all of his successes that his fellow contemporaries failed to achieved, like being drafted and being promoted year after year in the minor leagues. For the NBA and NFL drafts, the draftees all have a stiff learning curve but most are able to contribute to their team in the first year.
We passed on Albert Pujols 13 times, just like most teams in what ended up being a terrible draft for us. Jason Lane & Chris Sampson were our 2 best hits in 99. Of course, the Cardinals who look like geniuses for drafting him, passed on him 15 times. Their other hit in that draft was Coco Crisp in the 7th round, who they traded as a PTBNL for a 39 year old Chuck Finley. They flopped on their first 9 picks that year. What a bunch of Morans.
Agreed, especially when they dismiss the hits like Carlos Correa and McCullers. Drafting Correa was not the popular choice at the time as there were 4 or so equally deserving candidates with Appel being one of them. The Astros refused to give in to Appel and brilliantly worked a deal for Correa which allowed them to get McCullers and Ruiz. That should buy them a little faith from the Monday morning QB's out there. Also, hopefully Bregman can become our starting 3B sooner rather than later and be at least as valuable a contributor as Kris Bryant is. Obviously that would be a tough task to ask of Bregman but if it happens then the sting of Appel over Bryant should wane. I think the whole body of work needs to be taken into account. Of course that draft decision stings but they could have flubbed the previous draft and didn't.
If the Appel draft were replayed in a scenario machine a 100 times, the Astros would have made their decision to draft him practically every time. The decision wasn't bad, it was the results that were poor. The problem is that people always put the two together when in the case of drafting, they are mutually exclusive. Most of their decision was based purely on timing. If Keuchel bursts onto the scene a year earlier, maybe they don't take Appel. His floor was supposed to be a number 3 starter with his ceiling an Ace. Either way, he was thought to be up permanently with the big league team within a year of being drafted. The Astros had no way of knowing he would go from being open to coaching to becoming someone who wouldn't listen to anyone once drafted. Appel thought he had it all figured out when it takes even more work to stay successful outside of college. The sad part of Appel flaming out is not losing Bryant but in the fact it's left a glaring hole in the rotation for a top of the line power pitcher. It's the prospect and monetary cost for that kind of pitcher this team still needs that's going to be the real pain point of the Appel pick.
That's the thing about these hindsight drafters - it's never as easy as 1+1=2. Had they not drafted Appel, it's likely their #2 choice was a pitcher; not Bryant. Or, had they drafted Bryant - does he develop the same? Who knows? To assume so is foolish. That's why this is so hard to get right, and pinning a lone mistake on the team - at the expense of a bounty of other not-mistakes - is such a waste of time.
Wait, so are you saying that changing the past would most likely change the present and future? You're crazy. We all know that when that guy gets thrown out attempting to steal second base and the batter hits a home run on the next pitch, that he would have hit that HR anyway. Sarcasm aside, chances are Bryant would have developed similarly, but for all we know having him in 2014 would have gained the Astros enough extra wins which would have precluded them from having the 5th pick in 2015 preventing them from drafting Tucker. It may have prevented them from making the Cosart trade since they wouldn't need Moran. They may have lost out on Martes. All that being said, I would certainly take the Cubs' version of today's Bryant over the uncertainty of everything else. But, dwelling on these kind of things doesn't change anything.
So they take Sonny Gray, and then maybe they take someone other than Aiken the next draft, and then they don't take Bregman the year after that, and...maybe Kyle Schwarber is our LF right now? Maybe Carlos Rodon is in our rotation and we never sign Fister? You can go down that rabbit hole all you want.
I don't know what the Astros do internally, none of us do. What I do know is that anyone suggesting they do something doesn't mean they don't it or something similar. That's not how opinions or suggestions work.
Every Nov-Dec there are myriad articles about every team reorganizing their scouting and development departments. They don't get a lot of publicity because it's standard and few people really care, and fewer understand, what goes on behind the scenes. The most glaring and publicized Houston example is the scout that sold Hunsicker on Chris Burke being a SS got his ass fired ~2 years (iirc) later.
I guess it's just weird that your only statements were that and That was an opinion, yes...but in general, companies, organizations, and teams hold people accountable for things integral to their jobs. That's how jobs work, generally. So you might understand how people were assuming that your statement, without anything additional, implied that you thought the Astros were somehow *not* holding their scouts/FO accountable.
I'm not responsible for others wrong assumptions but I can see who/why folks reached that conclusion.
They're hoping Whitley will be the guy that Appel was supposed to be. I've got faith that Whitley is going to be the next great pitcher from the state of Texas. Why because Ryan personally scouted him and Nolan was signed out of high school just like Whitley. Strange logic but I bet Whitley will become an ace. We will begin to know in 3-4 yrs. I see a similar path to the majors as McCullers. But you're right about where the Appel pick set this franchise back. Failing to pick Bryant over Appel not withstanding.
