Is this something you've mentioned before because it's news to me. Internally i had Melton 3rd in the grouping but you're telling me Brown (and other organizations) have a significantly higher grade on him than the other two.
No update, Whitley lives in a state of perpetual injury. He'll come back at some point and have a great outing or 2 in AAA just to give the slightest smidge of hope for when he "gets healthy" before sucking and getting hurt again. Rinse and repeat
Yes - Brown at a minimum had and has a higher grade on Melton than Gilbert and Clifford combined. I cannot say if the Melton love is just from Brown or Brown and others. I have speculated as to why - and my best guess is because of the ceiling Melton has is VERY high if he makes enough contact. At the end of last season I had someone with the Astros say that Melton could steal 80 bases if he plays enough and raved about his bat speed and defense. I personally have seen Melton play and I was impressed with the speed on the bases and closing speed on balls in the outfield- however, I ALWAYS look at the bat first and with Melton I saw a lot of swing and miss with some weak contact mixed with a lot of power every 3rd or 4th swing… but I didn’t see immediate stardom with the swing like I did with Alvarez, Correa or Altuve…. He looked more like Tucker, but with less contact - and honestly Derrick Fisher…: who had all world athleticism but didn’t make enough contact.
You guys still believe that there's such a thing as a Forrest Whitley? LOL, what's next, are you going to try to tell me birds are real? GTFOH
Julks had a weird season last year where he initially got super lucky and the underlying numbers looked basic and then he began to improve at the same time that his luck ran out.
To add, it is incredibly hard to be an average MLB hitter. Julks's quality of contact stats show he was about 14% below average. I would not give up on a 14% below average hitter to be a bench player in which hitting average isn't the standard. Improving ones hitting by 15 percentage points is not some unheard of feat. I don't particularly think much of Julks. He was way overplayed last season. Having guys like Julks around will give the Astros better odds at not having a lot of below replacement level performance (some of these guys will suck hard, some won't, I don't know which category Julks will fall, but you play the ones that play better)
Playing at MMP tonight. Safe to say this is the planned OD lineup. Not sure if they normally do this, but they left some higher profile prospects on the MLB roster for the game.
This is wild to me. On so many levels. 1) that the commercial lists are so off, cuz Melton to my knowledge was getting the least hype of the three. 2) that Dana has that much faith in his own scouting ability and/or the Astros player development team (after only being in the org for one year) 3) that there's still a bunch left in the Astros scouting/PD bag of tricks because they can draft Gilbert in the first round and Melton in the second round (roughly in line with expected draft positions) but have a much higher internal grade on the latter pick. It's a huge reminder that having a top player development group is going to make your internal list look very different than the commercial lists. BTW, thanks again Nook. Your knowledge and insights are always greatly appreciated on the board.
I could write about this for hours, but I’ll try to keep it short. The prospect list internally being very different than the commercial and industry ones isn’t new - Luhnow was the same way. Yes - the obvious ones like Correa and Tucker and Bergman were no brainer… but consider that the year before McCormick made the big leagues, Luhnow was talking about him being an up and comer… same with Meyers. Astros internally had Pena as a top prospect a year before the industry did. Best example? I remember John Granato asking Luhnow about the international kids not breaking out or making top prospect lists and he said in 12 months multiple pitchers will have made leaps into the rotation long term - and he was right. For the most parts, the Astros haven’t had many busts outside of injury. Fisher and Appel are about it. Martes wasn’t a misreading of his talent, it was his personality. As for the Astros and Gilbert and Melton and Clifford. It could be the Astros DID value Gilbert over Melton at the time and soured some when he didn’t steal bases and looked like a corner outfielder. It could be the Astros intel was that Melton would be there in round two but Gilbert wouldn’t be. The stuff isn’t static… but clearly something happened from when Brown joined the Astros and was praising Gilbert, to when they traded him and Brown said he isn’t a CF and doesn’t steal bases. Also scouting and player development can bleed into each other. Brown and most his hires are elite long term scouts - more so than player development guys. There is a lot of crossover but differences too. I am skeptical of anyone that is a GM until they show they are good. Same with Brown- he needs to produce some over the next 12 months. My dark horse is Ochoa who has some amazing skills.
member when Dusty said their were offers for Julks I’m once again reminded how much I miss Luhnow. The man is a legend and architect of this historical run . Just bring him back already
Matthews, Tredwell, Jaworsky, Ochoa, and Huezo are Dana Brown’s babies. This was his first draft being fully in charge. Those guys each took outsized draft resources relative to their draft projections. He will get credit for any successes/failures out of that draft but those 5 guys are where he should be judged.
