Guy was sent to extended spring training mid-season....first game back (last night), gets lit up for 10 runs in 1.2 innings. Has anyone seen him play lately? Why the horrific start to the year?
not sure anybody knows. calling the 2013 draft a failure is an understatement... appel, thurman, kent... ouch
Let's not go all 'the sky is falling' and call it a failure already. Disappointing? Sure. But no players from the 2013 draft have made their ML debut or contributed any WAR so you couldn't really call Bryant a success either. As hard as this is to watch Appel disappoint early on, his total 52.1 minor league innings doesn't change his career potential in my opinion. Big picture, I could still see Appel making as many all-star games as Bryant.
what else can you call it when your soon to be 23 y/o 1.1 draft pick is getting crushed by players significantly younger & inexperienced than him?
By all means jump, that's what people do. 29 runs on 38 hits were given up in that game. When the wind is blowing out Lancaster can be an impossible place to pitch. Now that's not to fully excuse Appel, he pitched very poorly. We should be concerned, I'm concerned, but I just don't understand the panic after 5 freaking starts.
It's disappointing; no question about that. His biggest appeal as a 1.1 was being a polished starter who would blaze through the minors and make it to Houston in maybe 2 years or less. Throw that idea out the window. He's gonna take some time to get back on track and currently has no time frame for Houston. Yet at the end of the day, he's had no serious mechanical injury that's suddenly lowered his upside.
Exactly... He did not have the highest ceiling, but he was supposed to be the most MLB ready. Clearly, that's not the case. If you take that away from Appel his appeal is minimal.
Yeah...I'm not panicing. Appel had a large workload in college and last year was a transition year. This year started off with an injury? A hernia or something I believe. But he has no excuse NOT to be mowing down hitters in a month. If that's not happening in 3 or so weeks...then I'll be more panicked. I REALLY liked Kris out of college, but I see the rationale in not drafting him. We have Matty D, who's still young and could be a 30-hr, .250 hitter. That's not shabby, and our rotation certainly needs a #1 type starter a la Appel, if he figures things out.
By all means, keep acting like this front office can't win. Y'all would be flying off the handle if the Astros picked Kris Bryant and he was slashing .205/.310/.370. You'd probably go nuts if they picked Jonathan Gray, and he ended up going through what Appel's going right now. And guess what? You'll probably do this again next June with the players who went 2nd/3rd against whoever the Astros will pick 1st on Thursday.
But that is not what is happening in reality. Appeal has been bad so far, Gray has been good, and Bryant has been dominant. No what ifs there.
