Some thoughts with May virtually in the books: For now I would not bet against Jeremy Pena becoming an everyday SS. If he is promoted after the draft and hits well in High A, he should be a fringe Top 100 guy. Thank goodness for Tucker’s rebound. I was never seriously concerned but good to see he is still justifying his status as an MLB Top 20 prospect. Abraham Toro is the 3rd best position prospect in the system to me. He’s got defensive value with upside to be very good at 3B, he’s hitting, walking, hitting for power, all while being young for AA. The track record for guys his age hitting as well as he is in AA is really good. Jonathan Arauz has teased us before, but he might be finally making his move. Much like Pena, if he is promoted after the draft and holds his own in AA, he should be a fringe Top 100 prospect. It’s hard to label Seth Beer a disappointment given his slash line, but to me he’s still not getting on base enough to profile as a future everyday LF/1B. Josh Rojas is now firmly in my Top 30, he has consistently shown average or better speed, power, and discipline. At this point his only dings are for his age and low draft pedigree. He’s like a billionaire’s Tyler White. Houston needs big years from Nova and Santana. Super small sample but Nova’s HR in his first game was supposedly a moonshot. McKenna, Ronnie Dawson, and JJ Matijevic are the 3 most disappointing prospects so far. I can’t post without pimping Austin Dennis, Marty Costes, and Jacob Meyers as sleepers.
He has an OB% of .427 this season between A+/AA. Couple that with his increased power and I think that he has had a very good year. I would add that Bryan Abreu has flashed a lot this year in AA. Hitters are only hitting .158 against him, he is at 13.5/9 innings. He has walked too many hitters so he needs work, but the stuff is there to be high in a rotation pecking order. One think on Toro. He is progressing well, but at virtually every level he has had an adjustment period. That isn't all that unusual but there is a good chance he will have one in AAA and the majors as well.
No doubt, post wasn't meant to say we had done a poor job developing talent, was more along the lines of just because you hear about how good someone is in the minors, you are nuts if you are counting on them to be a productive major leaguer....it's just impossible to know who will and who won't. The game is played at a different speed at the mlb level, some can handle it, some can't...nothing you do in the minors will answer that particular question
Beer has a .464 BABIP. Even tho he may be able to keep a high rate due to how hard he hits, there’s no way that won’t regress. A player with very little defensive value who has a single digit walk rate and 26% k rate in AA doesn’t project to make a big impact in the majors. Very few corner bats sustained a k rate of >25% with a bb rate of <10% Last season. One of them was Giancarlo Stanton (so was Khris Davis and C.J. Cron), so there’s certainly hope. But the others are guys like Domingo Santana, Franmil Reyes, Lucas Duda, Avisail Garcia, and Ronald Guzman.
It is very tough to say player X will definitely be great, but odds are that the more untouchable prospects a team has, the more likely some of them will become great. For me, untouchable prospects are typically Top 25 hitting prospects and Top 10 pitching prospects with some leeway to add AA/AAA players that are very close to being Astros while the Astros are good. Right now for instance, I'd expect the Astros are very leery of trading AAA pitchers that are pitching well. Much like how players with a lot of GIDP are typically good players, teams with a lot highly valued prospects that are busts typically also have a lot highly valued prospects that didn't become busts. I like that the Astros typically keep their best prospects and deal from depth. Having AJ Reed bust is not nearly as tragic as if the Astros would have traded Bregman.
His BB% is close to 10% right now and he also hits for a high average. So His OB% in the big leagues should not be that big an issue unless you believe he will not hit for a high average in the big leagues. All of the guys you listed hit for a low average. We seldom see a sudden increase in walks by a player, unless we see power spikes but I do think that he will be able to maintain a 10-15% walk ratio in his prime. Obviously he could fall flat on his face, but I think that he has outperformed his draft position and is one of the Astros top 5-10 prospects.
It should also be pointed out that swinging strike rates stabilize quicker than K%, and he's at a very good 8.6% in AA, so the strikeout rate doesn't worry me yet.
Fangraphs prospect guys have the Astros as the 5th strongest Farm for a few more days (draft will probably cause them to drop a spot). Probably would be 3rd if they thought Alvarez would stick in LF. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/pre-draft-farm-system-rankings/
Jojanse Torres allowed one hit and struck out nine over four scoreless innings to seal Fayetteville's 5-2 win over Wilmington tonight.
Don't think you can make any legitimate observations off 54 plate appearances - that's way too small of a sample size for a player in his first AB after making the leap from A to AA ball, which is probably the greatest leap in the minors that there is. He had a .359 BABIP in his 150+ PA in A, which is still high but isn't unheard of especially in the minors. He hit .328/.414/.602 there and had a 9.2%/19.7% BB and K rate, which aren't bad. Edit: I just dug a little deeper into his splits so far in his minor league career and he's been really bad against lefties...if anything, he might end up having to play primarily against RHP only. In AA, he has 4 strike outs in 9 ABs against them.
Torres is old for his level but otherwise should be getting a lot of attention. One of only 3 prospects in the system who threw 100 mph last year. Could be in AA by year end which would set him up for a potentially huge jump in value next year.
Super small sample size, but in high A his FIP is 0.24! He's struck out over half of the batters he's faced! I'm sure he'll struggle at some point, but it would almost be a disappointment if he doesn't end the season in AA or higher at this point. He might even be an option in the major league pen late season.
By the end of the season Houston’s Top 6 pitching prospects might be Jose Urquidy, Jojanse Torres, Bryan Abreu, Willy Collado, and Brett Conine, and Tyler Ivey.
