And just to add...people aren't necessarily mad at the front office. They have made some great picks. Just disappointed that they had a chance at two other consensus top 3 players that are doing well right now compared to the one they picked. The faith in the FO isn't gone, at least for me.
Meh.. The MLB draft is a crapshoot anyway, it is not uncommon for high draft picks to not pan out. The key is how the system as a whole does and the Astros system is loaded with pitching, and overall they have drafted very well and prepared their players very well the last 3-4 years. Appel can be a complete bust and it doesn't change how I feel about the front office... overall they have done well. Further, we don't know how Appel will turnout. He very well could still be an ace or #2 starter.
I'm with you... but you can't tell me it's been the "right" decision thus far to put him in the tandem system (which gets more appearances, but forces pitchers to pitch on shorter rest), and have him start at the launch-pad of Lancaster.
I think the fact that the front office and Appel himself expected to blaze through the minors is part of the problem.
To me, that's actually scarier than reassuring. Injuries are treatable. Mechanics can be tweaked. Having stuff that is just possibly not translatable, or having a shaky mental makeup are far harder obstacles to overcome. That being said, I believe he's been completely thrown off from the start thanks to abdominal surgery, a minimal spring training, a tandem system that is "harder" on pitchers (but better for managers/front office trying to get more opportunities for pitchers) and starting his career in a launch-pad environment. I thought he looked great against the Mexican team at MMP. Has been downhill since.
Pitching is about talent, confidence, and focus. I think what happened was that everyone started penciling in Appel into the Astros starting lineup as soon as this season!!! And Appel probably saw himself in the ML team in no time; at which point he didn't give enough credit to the Minor league professional baseball players. Appel got humbled big time by A ball hitters. He's got to settle down and make every pitch count the way he did at Stanford. He'll be alright. But Appel, might be in the Minor league's one or 2 seasons more. His ETA should probably be the middle of the 2016 season. He's healthy. He's talented. He just needs to settle down, and pitch.
Baseball America's take on Appel, fwiw. http://www.baseballamerica.com/minors/ask-ba-appels-rough-start-cant-be-ignored/ Some quotes
He isn't really struggling to strike people out, 8.3K/9 so far in his brief career. He's getting hit hard. Right now people are gonna pile on. Lots of he sucks and I told you so's, but I'm just not gonna panic this early like so many people want too. After a full season to get comfortable, and hopefully no more tandem nonsense, we will have a gauge on his situation. If a player of his age struggles in his first full season, it's highly unlikely he's ever gonna turn it around in a major way, but most of the season is still left so it isn't a failure yet. If can even string together 3 or 4 good starts, the Astros will graduate him to CC quickly, which frankly is where he should have been all along.
K/9 is a flawed stat. If you face 10 guys in an inning, and strike one out, your K/9 is 9.0, while the guy that faces 3 guys with one strikeout also posts a 9.0. K% would be better, which is at 20%. That isn't terrible, but it is disappointing given he's the #1 overall pick.
My silver lining is I'm just glad we didn't take him instead of Correa. Had we taken Appel that year then we likely wouldn't have gotten McCullers also. Sure, it might have meant we took Bryant last year instead of Appel who wouldn't have been available...but I still think we got the best collection of talent.
Actually, its Ruiz they probably would not have gotten. And I don't believe Appel was really going to be in their plans that year (and his full slot demand synched that)... it was likely Buxton vs. Correa.
I think the McCullers/Correa draft was brilliantly done. The pick of Appel may not have been the best move, though, but it's still early. While you'd like a college graduate pitcher to be able to transition quickly, it doesn't always happen. I have to hope his appendectomy and lack of fitness is affecting him more than he or the Astros are letting on, because Appel wasn't that bad his rookie season. He wasn't great, but he wasn't awful. If people expected Verlander/Strasburg/Prior, their expectations were too high, I'm afraid.
David Price, Gerrit Cole... If he was not going to be a top of the rotation-type pitcher, they should never have considered picking him. My gut instinct is that he pitched his ass off his senior year to "prove" that he should have been the #1 pick all along, and justified not signing with the Pirates at #7... and once he accomplished that and got that "security", he's lost something.
None of Verlander, Prior, Strasburg, Cole, or Price pitched in the year they were drafted - probably because it's a weird transition mid-season after a college baseball season, with no training camp/etc. So if you throw out last year for Appel as fluky (and really not that bad), we're judging him on 14 innings, much of which he hasn't been healthy. Seems a little ridiculous at this point.
But Appel was not the "talent" those above guys were to begin with. Most were saying likely #2 at best, but "could" be an ace if he develops a real out pitch. I agree that nobody should be giving up on him, but college pitchers (the ones that do go on to succeed) do dominate nearly right off the bat, while the ones that don't have starts a lot like this (which are compounded due to injury, which is in part due to some heavy college workloads). Guess it's "better" than having a guy like Prior who looked like the real deL, only to flame out in less than 5 years. But to say people should not be concerned about Appel's future is a little too narrow minded. There is concern... Especially within the Astros.
Wouldn't it make even more sense then to give him the time to see if he develops a real out pitch? It sounds like you're saying he wasn't ready to immediately dominate, while people are complaining that he's not immediately dominating.
He wasn't perceived as a sure-fire "ace"... but he was still expected to be very very good, and not take very long to get there. And he should still be able to "dominate" low A and A ball hitters, given that he's healthy...which is still iffy... I know nothing is wrong with his arm, but it looks like he has a long way to go in terms of strength/endurance training... and you always are weary of how many pitches he's already thrown up to this point, along with the mental strain he's put himself through in gambling away guaranteed top 10 slot money and backing it up with a huge year last year (he likely had potentially more "pressure" on him to perform well his senior year at Stanford than any other point in his career thus far, and in the years to come). Again, nobody should be writing him off for good... but to say that people should not be concerned at all by this start is equally foolish.
