Amazing how at one point a lot of Astros fans had the future rotation tabbed as, 1. Aikens 2. Appel 3. Velazquez 4. Folty 5. McCullers Now 4 out of the 5 are now distant memories for Astro fans.
i'm really impressed with JA Happ and Mark Melancon.... actually just saw MM in the all star game, can't believe we kept him for only a season or so.
I was just going to mention Melancon if nobody else had. If memory serves, he was really struggling while he was here and even into his first season elsewhere. Obviously, he found his game later on. There are probably a host of guys that if we had 3-5 years to let them hang around, would have turned out real well. I suppose the way the game is today, if your not showing reliable stuff by age 24 or 25, your on the chopping block. Guys who find their game and peak in their later 20's nearly always will have a history of being moved around a lot.
OK, just refreshed my memory at Baseball Reference http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/melanma01.shtml He was good here, traded, did badly his 1st year at Boston, traded again to Pit, and then became a bad ass. In essence, he had one bad year. If there is a team that should be kicking themselves, its Boston.
He was pretty solid when he was here. In 2011, he had a 2.78 era and 20 saves on a pretty s***ty team. He tanked when we traded him to Boston as part of the deal for Jed Lowrie.
Visiting some fam in Mississippi, plan on going to a Biloxi Shuckers game sometime this weekend. Get a live look at Brett Phillips & Nottingham
Point of Order: The American Association is an independent league and is not the same as Double-A ball. They've been around forever, but as far as I can tell the record you're talking about is only from 2006-onward. Some interesting history and stuff on their site: http://www.americanassociationbaseball.com/league/history/ I think the Lincoln Saltdogs is my favorite team name. Are there a lot of Lemurs near Laredo? Also, former 2nd round massive disappointment Ralphie Henriquez had a double in the same game.
He's crushing the ball to the tune of a .660. And Daniel Mengden got lit up again yesterday. Both of them could still end up being quality MLB players, but there's no real reason to feel any sense of loss with that Kazmir trade.
Definitely not. Wasn't saying that, I just thought it was cool to be able to see these guys in person. Only the second time I've been to a milb game but man, these teams weren't very good. Biloxi was playing the White Sox AA team. Saw maybe 4 guys total that maybe could become big leaguers. Was rare to see a batting average over 240. Makes me very thankful for what we've built
He better start crushing the ball because he's a total liability behind the plate: 17 passed balls and 12 errors in 66 starts at C.
