Another player to add to the list is Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Starting pitcher for the Orix Buffaloes. Looks like he won back to back top pitcher award. Not sure how accurate the article was but I read that 10 teams are already keeping tabs on him. Maybe he gets posted next year or becomes a free agent the year after.
What's the realistic chance Astros would be inplay to get any of these asian players? They're more involve in central and South American players.
How bad is the farm system if the #12 prospect has UPSIDE of a 6-7th starter. MLB pipeline has him with 45 grade and says he has 4th starter upside. Fangraphs rated him 40+ with backend or multi inning bullpen downside and back of rotation upside.
I guess what I was thinking was that for the Astros he could be a 6/7 starter but I concede that for most teams he could be a 5th man. I have never been particularly impressed by him, and I have never given much weight to MLB pipeline's grading. My own estimation of any players value is always the one I go to first but fangraphs is one I look at.
Depends on a lot of things, but the biggest one is money https://www.mlb.com/glossary/transactions/japanese-posting-system
That sounds reasonable. Appollo is another one that I look at. He was ranked 13th there to with a comp to Merrill Kelly as a "potential backend of the rotation starter"
Just a list of top 30 Prospects projected to "ARRIVE" in 22 and 23 (at least at the time I made the list). These are also players in the system who will be pushed down or held back with every FA acquisition and unproductive "veteran" left on the active roster. 2022 2022 AAA 23 RHP BROWN, Hunter 2022 AAA 26 RHP DUBIN, Shawn 2022 AAA 26 OF JULKS, Corey 2022 AA 23 3B PEREZ, Joe 2023 2023 AAA 23 C DIAZ, Yanier 2023 AAA 24 OF LEON, Pedro 2023 AAA 24 RHP WHITLEY, Forrest 2023 AAA 25 OF DIRDEN, Justin 2023 AAA 26 IF HENSLEY, David 2023 AA 20 RHP MELENDEZ, Jaime 2023 AA 22 RHP TAMAREZ, Misael 2023 AA 24 OF HAMILTON, Quincy 2023 AA 25 RHP MURRAY, Jayden 2023 A+ 21 OF BARBER, Colin Some of these were on the Active Roster at the end of the year and some others have made an appearance and then sent back down. ps the dots are just the remnant of trying to create a list that looks like a list.
It's a couple of thousand miles closer, but not that great of a percentage higher. It really boils down to a longer travel day when you make those trips. It's not like you have to traverse the Rocky Mountains on foot. 5400 miles from California vs 6700 miles from Houston. ~an 11 hour flight vs a 14 1/2 hour flight.~
First prospect list I've seen this offseason from prospectlive. 1. Hunter Brown 2. Drew Gilbert 3. Yainer Diaz 4. Pedro Leon 5. Jacob Melton 6. Korey Lee 7. Colin Barber 8. Miguel Ullola 9. Joey Loperfido 10. Spencer Arrighetti Strangely high on Loperfido, though I think they were the ones who found him elite at hitting breaking balls. Ullola is also aggressively ranked, which is exciting. They have a write up for the first 5.
If Ullola can clean up his walks he could be top 100 by mid year. How many guys give up less than 5 hits per 9 and strike out 15 per 9?
I've said this 100x but I'll say it again. The national scouting types are comically bad at rating the Astros farm system and prospect ceilings. It's unthinkably bad with pitchers specifically. Javier, Garcia, Brown, none of these dudes were even top 100 prospects. Javier was an afterthought in the eyes of the national scouting types. So I wouldn't put much stock in any of that.
I would say these prospect lists aren’t necessarily good for predicting which prospects will succeed or how good they will be, but they probably do have some value in figuring out how other teams likely value Houston’s prospects. That is to say, they’re probably better for using them to do hypothetical trades than they are projecting future Astros rosters.
Excited to see the grown from Gilbert and Melton. Really hoping they do well and that our ML/scouting departments can keep churning out high quality players...if so, watch out. I don't know our prospects that well but I feel like this organization is in a great spot. Not like the 2016 Cubs or other oversaturated, soon to implode championship teams. Our ML depth doesn't seem depleted and should only get better with our picks returning. Would've liked to see more from Whitaker to date but hopefully a lot of our guys make strides this offseason. Everyone falls in love with the FA market, but maybe some of our solutions are already in the organization. Between Dierden, Diaz, and the rest of our young guys...we should have a good to decent crop of affordable guys to balance out some star salaries.
Think it’s a metaphorical closer to home as much as actual distance. Culturally, the west coast (and NE) have larger populations of Asian people and/or are perceived as more multicultural. That’s probably as important as physical distance. Darvish is the only big money Japanese player who I can remember that spend a lot of time with non-coastal teams (Cubs and Rangers).
Honestly, probably not gonna be a top 100 prospect. No shame in that but he’s probably gonna take the Javier/Garcia route of minimal prospect attention to big league production. I think Nook has mentioned him in the past. The last Fangraphs Stros prospects write-up shines more light as well. Basically think Javier invisiball type fastball without the additional polished slider. Longenhagen gave him a 50/60 grade on his slider, so there’s definitely potential there but also mentioned in the write-up that Ullola has a lot of work to do on his secondaries and command. Also gotta take a few other things into consideration: -He pitched at the A ball level, where production is less important than the scouting report. -His 15k/9 rate also went along with a 6.88k/9 rate. Great strike out stuff with crappy command. His K-BB% of 20.8% was good but not elite. I’m excited at his upside but he has a long way to go to being a fully formed pitcher.
The stros are uniquely positioned to contend in the next 3 years without needing impact prospect contributions in the present. IMHO, anything they get out of Yainer, Korey Lee, JJ and Meyers is gravy. Hopefully it’s enough time for the Gilberts and the Meltons to develop and be ready when Tucker, Bregman and Tuve are close to FA.