I don’t think any of the pitchers will be brought up, and certainly none of the HS draftees. The only guys who it might be worth taking a look at are the advanced college bats who the team doesn’t want to tinker with too much.
Solomon pitched another gem tonight - 6 IP, 1 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 9 K. As much as he’s struggled this season, I think he has some of the best stuff in SL (and better than Emanuel, Bielak, and Ivey) and could possibly become a pretty valuable player if he can tighten up his command.
I don’t know how good he will be. I haven’t seen enough to offer a strong opinion. What I can say is that I know for a fact that the Astros player development coaches and scouts think VERY highly of him and experience has shown that the Astros player development/scouting department know what they are doing… the Astros scouting director believes he is the best defensive player in the Astros system and has an elite glove… and on offense they love his power and approach after hardening up his body. I would be surprised if he is traded.
If Meyers glove is as good as people say, I would honestly like him up right now. Straw has had a good year, but I've always thought his best value is as a super sub given the aptitude for defensive flexibility that he's shown. Frankly I would have liked to see it earlier given how absolute dog s**t Garcia has been.
Carlos Machado and Zach Biermann were released from Asheville. Cesar Salazar was promoted to Corpus, though that may be for depth.
Looks like Tyler Krabbe was released from Corpus too. Still a LOT of releases coming in the next 12 days.
It is going to be very hard to pry Straw out of CF while Dusty is the manager without Dusty getting a star player for CF.
Yup... Plus, a terrible reminder that will stick out like a sore thumb when you look at a box score for the Skeeters..... Taylor Jones mashes in AAA with a .362 AVG and a 1.003 OPS this season. Dude can't touch MLB pitching. He has a .454 OPS, 27 OPS+, and is striking out over 27% of the time in MLB this season. Just because you can rake in AAA doesnt mean you can hit in MLB, and in such a tight race for the division I see no way in hell the Astros give Meyers the opportunity to find out.
There is a reason he isn't up, or they would have him up already. While Click basically pushed out Goldstein because of "noise" about his level of involvement in Trash Can gate, he has kept a number of others in high positions within the organization, so we are seeing very competent people making judgments on Meyers. Remember, these are the same people that plucked McCormick out of obscurity, someone that was viewed as a marginal prospect and had him available for the playoff roster; and it leaked that internally the organization viewed him as ready to contribute.... and the guy now has like a 500 slg%. These same people were comfortable not giving up on Straw and didn't panic when Bregman got hurt. From my perspective, they have earned my confidence based on track record, and talent evaluation of their own prospects. When someone involved with the player development side of the equation, in a position of power says Meyers has an elite glove and can play..... that carries a lot of weight to me. It is also part of why I take any commercial prospect ranking with a heavy dash of salt. No one on the planet knows the Astros minor league players abilities and weaknesses better than the Astros.
There is no question that a player raking in AAA (particularly an older player) is no guarantee that they will hit well in the big leagues. Honestly, the raw numbers me little to me....... what does mean something is what the Astros player development and scouting people think of Meyers.... because they have proven to be very good at what they do. Meyers likely doesn't get a chance this year because the Astros are winning and Straw is playing better and is confident. The Astros are not upsetting that dynamic unless they get someone that is clearly an upgrade.
At this point Jones’ AAA performance should carry way more weight in projections than his MLB performance. Jones has had a total of 84 pa across 2 seasons. His 62 pa this season have come from very sporadic playing time. Of course eyeball tests aren’t completely worthless, but until a player gets 200+ pa of consistent play, it’s hard to draw any meaningful conclusions. It will not surprise me at all if Jones ends up being a solid MLB bat (although that would likely have to happen with another team).
He's not up because Straw and Chaz are performing like good starting OFs. On Astros player development department, I doubt they hate his bat enough to think he's not capable of being at least a bench player. I would not have thought prior to the season that Straw and Chaz would be good enough to block someone. As it stands, Meyers seems to be a waste in AAA, but unlikely to be needed in the majors outside of as an injury replacement.
They think he can be better than a bench player. They think pretty highly of him. As for McCormick, there was no fan fare about him, no single tool stood out and his numbers in AA/AAA at 25 years old were not spectacular.... yet they organizationally valued him quite a bit relative to the general help valuation.
McCormick numbers were Matt Carpenter-like in AA/AAA. Low swinging strike rate and few grounders. He's scrapped the good contact swing to tap into his power in the majors. I keep hoping he can find a happy in-between between swinging out of his shoes and making a ton of contact with gap power as I fear he'll have a hard time keeping up his current home run rate.
Concerning his swing, time will tell. I still have a level of skepticism about his game but he has been good for a decent period of time now. There is also the possibility he ultimately is a platoon player as well. He really needs more at bats to know.
I have been wondering what other teams think of McCormick. He could be a good trade chip if other teams value him as an everyday controllable OF and if Houston thinks Meyers could step right in as the 4th OF.
He's never getting consistent play on this team because of Gurriel, Yordan, Diaz, Brantley, and even McCormick being on the team. His chances will be limited and either he produces or he doesn't. Chas has done it... Jones has not done it and this is the only role he has in Houston. Sure, maybe he leaves the organization and a crap team gives him a chance. Doesn't really matter to me at that point. Winning organizations can't give guys like him opportunities. We don't have the patience like we did with Dallas Keuchel when we stunk and could afford to keep rolling him out there.
