Also, Andy Piñeda, the one player in the system who is probably faster than Myles Straw, was released.
Surprised to see that. He was never given a full season of consistent playing time. Seemed like a very high ceiling player. 105 SB in 284 games with a .358 OBP. Looks like he just never developed the power required to keep moving up, which is disappointing because his size seemed to indicate power might come.
Yohan Ramirez allowed a hit, walked one, and struck out eight over 4.1 scoreless innings for Fayetteville. He now has 30 strikeouts in 20.1 innings; he's also allowed 8 hits and opponents are hitting .116 against him after the first month of the season. Ramirez is another pitcher in the system who signed extremely late; he made his pro debut in 2016 as a 21-year-old. He made one start with Corpus Christi in 2017 but was largely meh with Quad Cities that season; much of his troubles seemed to be control-based (12 hit batters, 46 BB in 75.1 innings). He still had a few issues with control/command last year (12 hit batters, 42 BB in 78 innings) but was significantly less hittable (56 hits allowed, .200 opponent average) because his groundball rate improved. It looks like he began to put things together in 2018 and now he's off to an outstanding start to his 2019 season.
April's in the books. Lots of disappointments due to high walk rates on the pitching side and high strikeout rates on the hitting side. My updated Top 30 (using Fangraphs' grading scale):
Yeah I don't think the system as a whole had a very good first month, if it wasn't for Alvarez I would say the first month was rather concerning. I agree with your list when following the guidelines of fangraphs. I just personally do not agree with their assertion that a player can be limited to 55 based on defensive shortcomings. There are hitters that are good enough to still be elite, even with a mediocre glove or lack of speed.
It’s not that it would be impossible for a defensively limited player to be above a 55, it’s just that the margin for error for those prospects is so narrow that the level of dominance/potential they’d have to show is hard to imagine. Ranking a bat only prospect as a 60 or 65 would mean projecting him to be a 3-4 WAR/yr player over his first 7 years as his MEDIAN outcome, not his ceiling. Projecting a guy to be peak JD Martinez, Goldy, Stanton, or Schwarber as his most likely (not best case) outcome is hard to justify.
I doubt anyone will ever throw an 80 grade on the best prospect at hitting and fielding ever while he is in the minors as he still has to prove it in majors. 70 is basically the max for a near perfect prospect from how Fangraphs grades. Maybe they would go with a 75 for a Trout or AROD. I can't see a bat-only prospect matching a bat and defense prospect. Whether the ceiling for a prospect grade for a bat-only prospect is 55 or 60 with a once in 20 years 60 or 65, I'm not sure, but would consider this a small, insignificant difference. Considering only 12 players have ever been a 70 (i.e. more than 5 WAR) in majors at the DH, 55 or 60 seems reasonable for max for DH prospects. Anything higher than 60 for a DH devalues defense/actually playing in majors too much in my opinion especially since prospect FV grades usually overestimate FV by a lot. The biggest question with Alvarez is defense. If he can play LF, he has a ton more value and wouldn't be limited by the bat-only ceiling prospect ceiling grade (whatever that number is). Astros have an OPS of 0.820 from their DH spot right now using the rotating carousel despite White and Kemp slumping. Alvarez is going to have to play on the field to really help the Astros.
I don't view Alvarez as a DH only, at least not for a number of years as long as he does not get injured. I believe he is fine in left or right field. He needs more discipline tracking balls, but he is deceptively fast at closing on balls and can throw runners out.
Speaking of Yordan Alvarez, he is currently 4-4 with 3 RBI in the first game of Round Rock's doubleheader in OKC. Somewhat surprised that none of the hits are home runs.
I think we should all be prepared for Houston’s farm system ranking to see a huge drop after this season. Whitley, Tucker, Alvarez, Martin, and Bukauskas are all likely to either graduate or be traded, and none of the prospects in the lower levels have the kind of hype to come anywhere close to reloading the list. They needed guys like Nova and Beer to make huge jumps, and so far it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. 2020 preseason org Top 10 may look something like: 1. RHP Bryan Abreu 2. TBD 1st round pick 3. RHP Tyler Ivey 4. SS Freudis Nova 5. 3B Abraham Toro 6. OF Seth Beer 7. RHP Jayson Schroeder 8. TBD 2nd round pick 9. OF Alex McKenna 10. SS Jonathan Arauz Ouch.
