Shawn Dubin struck out five of the six batters he faced in the first two innings for Sugar Land. Guessing he only went two innings because it's just his second appearance since coming off the IL and it was also 10 days since his last appearance.
I'm not sure of the Rule 5 and MiLFA status of a bunch of our AAAish OFers, but it seems like there could be a logjam there.
Brown and Leon are the only guys not on the 40-man and not eligible for Rule 5 this winter in Sugar Land at the moment.
Just leaving this game. Dubin looked badass. More 97s than 95s. He is pretty obviously a major league caliber pitcher. Whether that’s as a fringey reliever or a MoR SP I don’t know but he’s damn good. Papierski and Sierra continued to impress me. Papierski deserves to play in the majors soon. If he isn’t protected in the Rule 5 a smart team will grab him. I saw the same thing from Matijevic and Norel that I did on Thursday; hard hits, defensive limitations. Although I do think Matijevic showed some decent speed and an adequate arm for LF. Costes looked really bad in RF.
Also, Hunter Brown looked good to, although he was nowhere near as sharp or dominant as Dubin. I don’t know if his command was off or if he was just trying to pitch to contact more or what but after his 1st inning it appeared hitters were having a lot easier time making contact on him; he was still working easy mid 90s with his FB.
With his solo blast in game two of Asheville's doubleheader, Enmanuel Valdez is the first player in the farm system to hit 20 home runs this season. Through five seasons in the lower minors, Valdez has shown that he's not going to be hitting for a high average anywhere. He has definitely enjoyed his new surroundings in Asheville (14 HR at home, 6 on the road) but he's likely to get exposed badly in Corpus/Sugar Land. Since joining the Astros organization, Valdez has shown a fair amount of pop. He'll be 23 for all of next year, so he has some time on his side, and his power (which probably isn't all that great) should give him some chances. However, he will need to make significant strides with contact to even be a fringe guy in my book. He's probably shown enough this year to warrant a move up to Corpus. Whether he gets an end-of-season trial run or starts there next year remains to be seen.
Julks has a homer (7) while Adolph has an RBI single and an RBI double. Hooks lead San Antonio 3-1 in the 8th
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/daily-prospect-notes-8-9-2021/ Bermudez and Schreiber discussed. Short summary Bermudez: low 90s 4S, slider has more downward movement than typical Astros slider. Control has improved. AAA should be a good test with the way ball flies. Schreiber: Bat only guy that is hitting in AA.
Rainier Rivas went 2-4 with a walk-off two-run single to give the FCL Astros a 5-4 win over the Nationals. Rivas is now a .315/.400/.443 hitter through 87 career complex-league level games. He's definitely gotten hurt by the abolition of the short-season leagues because now that most draftees have Class A as their first pro stop, he's blocked.
I had excellent seats and they were $24 each. That is a lot more expensive than they were 10 years ago but those same seats in MMP would be over $100 each. I think you can still get OF seats for <$15 each. Parking is $10 and pretty much unavoidable. Dell Diamond is still a fantastic place to watch a game. Their food options kind of suck. But overall the experience is well worth it. Rehabbing players is always a treat. Bregman had >50 people waiting for his autograph, and my seats were on the Astros dugout so I was able to watch all the Skeeters (including Bregman) very closely. Pro tip: pay attention to the weather; don’t sit on the 3B side before 6pm at any game after Jun 1; the sun can be brutal over there.
Jonathan Bermudez, LHP, Houston Astros Level & Affiliate: Double-A Corpus Christi Age: 25 Org Rank: N/A Notes Bermudez has some of the best numbers of any Double-A starter and yet not much of a prospect pedigree. The 25-year-old was drafted in the 23rd round back in 2018. In his first year and a half of pro ball, the southpaw posted solid if unspectacular numbers, mostly at the lower levels. After a yearlong layoff, the Astros bumped him to Double-A in 2021, where he’s flourishing. He’s notched a 3.16 ERA and a career-high 12.28 K/9 across 74 innings. Alongside the highest strikeout rate of his career, he’s taken a real step forward with his control, and it all plays up because he hides the ball well in his delivery. That bump in control is key here, because he’s not a particularly firm thrower. Bermudez sits in the low-90s, his fastball has good carry, and he’s adept at slinging it to the upper part of the arm-side corner; he can also throw a sweeping cutter. His slider doesn’t feature quite the same shape as the usual Astros frisbee but it’s close, with less horizontal run and a little more drop at the end. He also works with a low-80s fading change that keeps hitters off balance, though to my eye it looks like he’s slowing his arm and delivery down. I think the command and arm strength are a little light for regular duty in a big league rotation, but he strikes me as an innings-eater of some sort. The thin air and Titleist-stamped baseballs of Triple-A West will provide an intriguing test of his command when the time comes for a promotion. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/daily-prospect-notes-8-9-2021/
The AAA team should have an insanely deep rotation next season: Brown, Dubin, Solomon, Ivey, Bielak, Bermudez, Conine, France, Mushinski, and Hansen all appear to deserve a spot. You could potentially add Bryan Abreu to that list as well, with Whitley and Solis on the IL. I would expect a trade or 2 this winter to alleviate some of that logjam prior to the Rule 5 draft.
The standards for ballpark food have gone WAY up in the last 10 years; stadium food has started to include well known chains (Whataburger at Whataburger field, Torchy's tacos at MMP and DKR, etc.) as well as food trucks and the like. As far as I saw, Dell Diamond was still pretty much limited to the standard fare (stadium standard burgers, hot dogs, nachos, with some crummy bbq options), and none of it looked very good. My wife got some nachos that were bloody awful. Edit: Also, I just realized I said don't sit on the 3B side when the suns out, That is wrong, its the 1B side that the sun punishes.
Oh, damn. I was hoping I could at least get some half decent chicken strips. Lol. Can you bring anything into the ballpark by chance?
https://www.baseballamerica.com/sto...cts-update/?amphtml&__twitter_impression=true Some interesting notes. BA has strayed pretty far from rankings of other sites and has usually been the site I disagree with most on rankings, and this is no different. In general I think they are way too low on Houston’s system.
