I find it strange that Brown is listed as a SIRP (single inning relief pitcher) and ranked so high. I'm sure it reflects the possibility of starting long term, because you'd have to think Brown was a sure bet to be Edwin Diaz if you are ranking a reliever that high.
Mickey Storey, Wladimir Sutil, Luis Reynoso, Erick Abreu, Bryan Muniz, Starlyng Sanchez, and Brauly Mejia are all former Astros prospects.
Turns out it was a mistake in the box score. JC Correa was the 2B in yesterdays game, not Kenedy Corona.
Always a mistake to read anything into spring training rosters but Sandro Gaston is listed on the big league roster today. At a minimum it shows he is stateside but I do think it might be evidence that he might be in line for a full season assignment, which would be a huge positive indicator for him. I don’t recall seeing guys in big league spring games who ended up in the complexes but I could be wrong.
Can someone tell me about Justin Dirden? Looking at his stats, he's been raking at every level and has some decent pop. I know he's 25 years old, but Judge didn't make it to the big leagues until he was 24 and didn't put up silly stats until he was 25.
Opinions vary. But he has been a steady riser. No pedigree but you like said he has produced statistically at every level. I have seen him play in person 3 times and was not that impressed. He does not look great to me on defense and he strikes out quite a bit for a bat-only prospect who is old for his level. That said, he pretty clearly had above average power and isn’t worthless on defense, and there have been comments from insiders that he is a good prospect who might be an everyday player. I think on the upper end of his outcome he could be a Teoscar Hernandez level player which is pretty valuable.
I can see the strikeouts but he also walks a decent amount. A .939 OPS in the minors with a .389 OBP isn't anything to sneeze at. His numbers are better than JJ and JJ is a year older. Granted JJ can play utility infield which is pretty valuable.
That is a nice OPS and OBP but my opinion is that a good walk rate in the minors doesn't tell you that much. On the other hand, a bad walk rate in the minors is a red flag.
I have Gaston, Caldera, Guilamo on Fayetteville's 2023 rosters, but I did not expect to see him at spring training this year. There is no way he could be ready to defend home plate anytime soon.
He is older, over 20 at this point and he was dominating last year. I think it is very possible that he is in a full season assignment. That class is really strong. Kenni Gomez was on that same team at barely 17 and was really good last year, especially considering he was going through a growth spurt during the season. He could be stateside sooner than later, and Luis Baez had the highest exit velocity for any teenager in the minors for any one in the minors according to something I read a few weeks ago. There are also a couple smallish pitchers that had a lot of success.
Very interesting prospect. He has had a lot of misfortune. If I remember right he was hurt a lot in college, then he started to REALLY play well in college when there was a COVID shutdown. Played something like 60 games total in college. He has said that he really wasn't exposed to launch angles, exit velocity, etc. until he joined the Astros and has taken to it REALLY well. He has worked a lot on his swing and has progressively gotten better. A good amount of extra base hits last year in AA. Went to AAA and wasn't as good statistically but scouts for the Astros liked what they saw. I don't know if he is a good centerfielder in the big leagues, but he is better than a lot of critics have said. Slow first step but really fast once he gets going, and doesn't have to slow down near the wall or coming in. He is like White, McCormick, Meyers and a couple others that were not real prospects that started to really put it together once they were in the Astros system. Some find a home here and some don't.
Obviously the power he's exhibiting in ST has made lots of people notice, but looking at his numbers, it's weird that he has flown under the radar. It's not like Jake who showed almost no power until right before he was called up. Dirden seems to have always hit the snot out of the ball at every level. If he can adjust to major league pitching, he ahould be another gem from our farm and one that Click can take full credit for.
Dirden strikes out too much. The strikeouts to walk ratio got away from him more and more as he got to AA and then AAA. Jake Meyers, for example, the year he was playing well, went from 20% k rate in AAA to 30% in the majors. I would expect a similar progression for Dirden but he is already at 30% in AAA, so I would expect 40% k rate in the majors. Something like a poor man's Joey Gallo.
That AAA sample isn't particularly huge. He was at 23% in AA, and was at 24% for the whole season, which is high but certainly not crazy. His K rate actually came down from A ball, so it didn't get worse with better competition, if anything he showed impressive improvement in that regard. Thing with Dirden, while he is certainly older and has the physical benefits that come with that, his actual game experience with high level competition is fairly limited. He didn't play much in college in 2019 and 2020, and the games he did play were in the low level Ohio Valley conference. To go from barely playing against weak college competition in 19/20 to dominating AA in 22 is fairly impressive IMO.
It is because a lot of his measurables are middling. He was in the COVID draft and wasn't drafted.... and said the only team that wanted to sign him, was the Astros. At first blush he doesn't have a great body, and he doesn't have amazing bat speed, or obvious flood light type power. So it is easy for him to slip through the cracks. What makes him different is that he has REALLY done well with preparation and responding to coaches.... and while he isn't Jake Marisnick in the outfield, he isn't Kevin Mench either - he is a good fielder, and he is a sneaky athlete.
Nah. It is a small sample and it is heavily skewed because in 4 games he had a total of 14 strikeouts in a sample of only 32 games..... He had 21 games in AAA where he had 1 or less strikeout. So in 32 games, it only takes a few K's to distort his numbers. He had 40 K's in 32 games...... in his last 8 games he only had 6 strikeouts. It is possible strikeouts will be an issue in the majors, but his rate of about one a game isn't that off the MLB average.
