Revised to add them. Minorleagueball and KATOH still not out. Overall thoughts 1. Whitley's ranking is close to the level of pitching prospect that prospect analysts almost never get wrong. 2. Tucker is viewed in the second tier of hitters. He had a BABIP like McCann last couple months in AA. I'm guessing he was incredibly unlucky or playing banged up for a while. I could see him being viewed very similarly after about 4-6 weeks into the season to what Bregman was viewed just before being called up. 3. Alvarez has potential to jump way up the lists this year or disappear. 4. Bukauskas is highly thought of despite very limited action in pro ball. I'm interested to see how he handles the workload in pro ball (i.e., can he keep velocity up with starter innings).
There was a blurb in Keith Law’s write-up on Houston’s system about Myles Straw playing the infield this year. If he could handle 2B or SS, he’d be extremely valuable. A guy who can play 5+ positions, who has 70+ grade speed and takes walks has a lot of ways to contribute. That defensive versatility would mitigate his lack of power and greatly raise his floor.
2 months away from seeing the minor league rosters. 1 guy at each position who projects to full season ball I will be watching: C: Mike Papierski: Will he be in High A or Low A, and can he carry over the power (5 HR in 37 games) and walks (18%) he showed in his 37 game pro debut? Garrett Stubbs will also be one to watch. 1B: Jake Adams: he got some hype from Luhnow then laid an egg in TC with a 35% k rate. But he did keep a 30 HR pace, so that 70 grade power is real. 2B: JJ Matijevic: he played LF last season, but was announced as a 2B, so I am hopeful he will get time here. Being able to play the middle infield will improve his stock dramatically. One of the bigger breakout candidates in the system. SS: Jonathan Arauz: I am not a big fan of his but he seems to get an awful lot of scout hype and he did walk more than he struck out in full season A ball as a 19 year old. With the lack of SS in the system he’s one to watch. MiguelAngel Sierra will also be one to watch if he’s placed in QC. 3B: Abraham Toro-Hernandez: coming off a breakout year (15 HR in 69 games) he is in position to really get on the map if he’s able to repeat that level of performance. If he plays more catcher his value would go up even more, but for now I suspect he gets most of his time at 3B. I willl also be watching JD Davis. RF: Kyle Tucker: he will need to dominate AA to avoid slipping in the prospect lists, and if he does hit well he will be in the Top 10 by mid season and poised to get promoted if there’s an OF need in the second half. CF: Gilberto Celestino: This might be wishful thinking as he is probably destined for short season ball, but if he were slotted in QC in April it would be a great sign of what Houston thinks of him. He’s a 4.5 tool player, with double digit HR power, above average speed, a good arm, and ability to play a good CF. But he was a below average hitter in rookie ball last season, so it may be too much to ask for him to start in A ball. There are a handful of other OF guys worth watching; any one of Ronnie Dawson, Myles Straw, Stephen Wrenn, or Carmen Benedetti could break out. LF: Yordan Alvarez: one of the bigger breakout guys in recent memory, I can’t recall a prospect coming from unranked to Top 100 in just a couple months. He will either hit well and get hyped as the next David Ortiz, or not hit that great and tumble down everyone’s lists because he’s so big they assume he’ll be limited to 1B.
Besides for the Top 4 prospects, he's the guy I'm most interested in. Of the high ceiling international position prospects, he's probably closest to upper levels. Defense and speed gives him a good chance at being a 4th OF or up and down guy even if bat doesn't develop.
MLB Pipeline has Straw graded at plus or plus plus for all tools other than power. There, Straw is graded at 30. If Straw can add a leg kick, look to pull the ball occasionally &/or up his launch angle, he can increase that power grade. Straw with a 50 or 55 power grade becomes a top 100 prospect, easy. If Moran could do it, Straw can too. He is one of my favorites to breakout in 2018.
Have you seen Myles Straw? If he develops mlb gap power that will be a godsend. He's a linedrive hitter, not that there's anything wrong with that given his other attributes.
Adding power is really not necessary for Straw. By all accounts his plate discipline is great, and his speed is top flight. On top of that he is a true CF with a plus arm. If he can maintain at least a .340ish OBP to go with his other weapons, then he will be very valuable even with no power. The only question is can he hit enough to keep pitchers honest. This will be an important year to see how he deals with advanced pitching at AA. If he's still coming close to .300/.400 then we may have ourselves a player.
A few years ago, I would have said adding power was not necessary for Altuve. Yet it turned him from a valuable player into an MVP. Developing power has been shown to be a learnable skill. It is something the Astros development staff knows how to teach. If Myles Straw can develop power while maintaining his ability to make solid contact, watch out.
You can't "teach" power. You can teach someone to put the ball in the air, but a player without the talent will do nothing but hit lazy fly balls. Altuve hit 25 HR in the year and a half before he got called up, and was a dead pull hitter. A degree of pop has always been there for Tuve. They just worked on getting elevation under the rockets he was hitting. Straw on the other hand has (according to fangraphs) hit 162 fly balls so far...and 2 have left the yard. By all accounts he is a classic "let it get deep and slap it the other way" type hitter, not somebody that is barreling up missiles. If there is some latent ability to hit 25 HR, then he is a true 5 tool player and probably one the 5 best prospects in baseball. He literally would not have a single shortcoming. I should add, because of his seeming ability to know his skills, his BABIP has been a mind boggling .383 thus far in the minors. We'll see how he handles more advanced pitchers, but that's not an approach I would want to mess with.
Straw minor league career: AVG 308 OBP .401 SLG .388 OPS .789 OPS as is is respectable. I could easily see Straw's SLG to go north of .400 which would yield a .800 OPS. This does not need fixing. As sealclubber1016 said above, Straw will need to get better as he advances through AA to AAA to MLB, just to keep the numbers he currently has.
Straw’s approach is vulnerable to defensive shifts and pitchers who can induce weak contact, two things that you see a lot more of once you get to the upper levels and majors. If Straw is able to duplicate his High A numbers this season in AA, he will be a fringe Top 100 guy and have a decent chance to be a good everyday major league player. If he is able to somehow start using the whole field and possibly even generate some unforeseen power, he will be an elite prospect, even more so if he is able to play some infield. If he succumbs to better pitching and defense, he will top out as a groundout guy who may be able to outrun enough of them and be a good enough defensive outfielder to carve out a AAAA career.
Spoiler Cionel Perez, Hector Perez (lower-level Ps), Gilberto Celestino (lower-level OF), and Garrett Stubbs (as a utility player)
Better defenses will obviously hurt anyone that hits a bunch of grounders, but not sure about the shift. What is the spray like on his grounders? I know his good contact goes opposite field, but thought his grounders were more evenly hit. With his speed, I think it would be tough to shift against him and defend the bunt. I think he will compete for a 4th OF spot eventually, but will have a tough time to be a starter.
Interesting that they have Stubbs marked on the utility list even though he has only played catcher to this point and didn’t hit very well last season.
Bingo. If he can lay it down on both baselines with his speed, if you shift you're basically just walking the guy. Juan Pierre made a pretty good career out of those skills, and Straw is a much better glove.