Hopefully. Luhnow did it regularly, with Yordan being the poster boy. Click did it with Yainer Diaz. Brown’s only trade like that so far was for an old DSL bat in Oliver Carrillo, but hopefully he is able to keep the trend going (or start it back up).
Those write ups seem a little better this year. 25+ HR potential: Jacob Melton, Brice Matthews, Luis Baez, Waner Luciano, Camilo Diaz, Cesar Hernandez, Zach Dezenzo, (Cam Fisher, Zach Cole and Joey Loperfido were inferred as well) 95+ mph FB: Miguel Ullola, Alimber Santa, Misael Tamarez, Michael Knorr, Alonzo Tredwell, Jake Bloss, AJ Blubaugh, Spencer Arrighetti They comped Cam Fisher to Kyle Schwarber and Miguel Ullola to Bryan Abreu. Luis Baez may end up at 1B. Dezenzo and Luciano will get work in the OF.
I'm not following the minors as much lately as guys aren't tripping the stats that get me excited enough to dig deeper on them. That said, the Astros top guys in general hit the smack out of the ball. If these guys also had FV50 hit tools along with their above average power, more of them should have been traded for pitching.
He wasn’t in their top 30. I was just making a list of the guys on the top 30 who had blurbs that mentioned their power potential of 25+ bombs.
My hope is that the FO isn’t just playing the numbers game of hoping if you compile enough speed/power/strikeout guys that one will figure it out and become a star, but that they have some secret sauce of how to cure the wart. If they can figure out to take a 25-30% k guy with 30/30 tools and make him a 20-25% k guy, all of a sudden they probably have 6-7 top 100 type prospects in their system. Thats probably a pipe dream. But 2024 will go a long way to seeing if it’s possible.
The test case to me is Gomez. From what I've read is he's got star level potential, but has a hole in his swing that they're trying to fix. If they can do this I will be a believer.
I don't know about secret sauce, but the Astros have been a little better than average in the development of hitters for a few years. Getting a lot of guys with potential for a numbers game seems a good match. Though most of their development successes has been squeezing out a little more power from contact guys than the power guys they currently have. I kind of expect it was just easier in the past for them to get contact guys with power potential, and recently it has been easier to get guys with power that have contact potential.
I have always wondered how George Springer developed the way he did. In his 2 minor league seasons and rookie year in the majors he struck out between 25% and 33% of the time, but since then has been between 16% and 24%. I’ve been too lazy to research it but hopefully whatever they did with him is what they can do with some of these other guys. Obviously not all those guys have the same issues. Strikeouts come from bad swing decisions, poor contact ability, and from having a particular weakness (I.e. hole in the swing). Not sure which was Springer’s problem and what each of their current guys is dealing with (although I am pretty sure Whitaker and Melton have holes in their swing).
You have remember that the Astros went from a homerun club to a no strikeout club in the same period. I think Springer always had the capability to be selective, he was probably told to be more aggressive in his early years. I really want Cabbage to work out because his tools look amazing. He just doesn't make good contact enough.
I think Springer just is swinging more under control. He's reduced his strikeouts, but he's still roughly been a 130 wRC+ hitter for his career regardless if he strikes out a lot or stikes out less. His best years are when has low Ks and high power numbers, but he has good years with moderate to high K, high power and good years with low K, moderate power. I would not say Springer ever had a problem hitting. It was more just a choice of going for more consistency than variance. Though, I did appreciate the hot streak in the 2017 World Series. When comparing wRC+ with K%, there's a small negative slope (considering K% is measuring percent and wRC+ is on average 130) with a near 0 R2 (i.e., reducing K% has had no significant effect on how good a hitter Springer is).
That is really interesting. Gives hope that maybe some of Houston’s prospects can at least work out to be about what Springer was his rookie year: a guy who strikes out a whole lot but hits for enough power to justify it. Could especially be possible for the guys with significant defensive value (Matthews, Melton, Cole, Daniels, Whitcomb, Leon).
Springer's wRC+ was 155 in AA and 177 in AAA. The moral of Springer's story is that if you are a beast with high strikeouts in the high minors and early MLB career, you can be a beast. I don't think any of the Houston prospects has the hitting (overall hitting and power) potential Springer had. Loperfido is probably the closest to Springer with a 125 wRC+ across AA and AAA. If Loperfido has a similar transition to the majors, that would be basically what Meyers has done despite only having one shoulder for most of his MLB career. I don't think Springer is a good comp to draw hope because he was always a great hitter (i.e., the Ks didn't hurt his production).
https://www.mlb.com/news/astros-spring-breakout-roster-2024?t=mlb-pipeline-coverage Spring breakout prospects rosters were released this morning. Here’s Houston: C: Miguel Palma, John Garcia, Collin Price IF: Brice Matthews, Zach Dezenzo, Waner Luciano, Camilo Diaz, Alberto Hernandez, Will Wagner OF: Jacob Melton, Luis Baez, Zach Cole, Joey Loperfido, Kenedy Corona, Kenni Gomez P: Spencer Arrighetti, AJ Blubaugh, Jose Fleury, Jake Bloss, Michael Knorr, Andrew Taylor, Rhett Kouba, Miguel Ullola, Trey Dombroski, Alimber Santa, Tyler Guilfoil Some interesting and surprising choices and omissions. But I don’t think it is worth reading too much into; I’m sure a lot of it is just who is healthy and which younger guys they think can play without getting embarrassed. The opening day roster assignments I think will tell us a lot more. Collin Barber, Tyler Whitaker, Colton Gordon, and Alex Santos seem like the biggest surprise omissions to me. John Garcia has risen firmly into deep sleeper status. He’s gotten a good amount of run this spring and had a pretty good year last year. My guess is the first half of the game will be upper level guys and the lineups will look like this: RF Melton SS Matthews/Diaz 1B Loperfido/Price CF Corona/Gomez 3B Dezenzo/Luciano 2B Wagner/Hernandez LF Cole DH Baez C Palma/Garcia
Yeah - I understand, if nothing obvious is jumping off the page, especially in the lower minors - it is easy to overlook what is going on. The one positive I can say that isn't discussed often is that the Astros in the minors have like 3 of the top 10 exit velocities in the lower minor leagues. Kenni Gomez and Luis Baez both have exit velocities in-line with good big leaguers - and Melton also had well above average MLB exit velocity. With these guys, it is a matter of maturity (Gomez) and making enough contact. The draft that Brown just had for the Astros is going to be very extreme in it's outcome.... he took several players with extreme outcomes that have superstar type upside, but are very raw or have injury concerns. Matthews has similar talent to Barry Larkin, but he is so incredibly raw.... Alonzo Tredwell has #1 starter upside if he can ever stay healthy and stabilize his delivery.... Chase Jaworsky is very young but was likely a first or second rounder had he gone to college... there are a couple of high variance high school outfielders as well.
Spring Breakout is a new addition to the Spring Training schedule. Every team fills out a roster consisting solely of prospects and they'll play each other. This showcase takes place next weekend; the Astros' Spring Breakout game is against the Cardinals on Sunday, March 17 at 9:05 AM Central. Unfortunately, it's an audio-only broadcast.
