He hit a HR today. He is one of 4 players (along with Tyler Whitaker, Tim Borden II, and Scott Schreiber) who are posting massive slash lines propped up by power numbers and babip, but marred by pretty high k rates. But a guy like Dezenzo who hits the ball as hard as he does can probably sustain a high babip. Both he and Borden will be very exciting if they can carry over their production to AA.
Colin Barber hit his 2nd homer of the year for Corpus, but that's pretty much been the one good thing the Hooks have today as they got whacked 11-3 by Midland.
Looks like C Ryan Wrobleski hit for the cycle today. He has had a very very good year so far. He is an older prospect with no pedigree so we will have to see if he sustains this and once he gets to AA he can make some noise.
Another stat filter factoid: since 2006, 14 different Astros prospects age 21 or younger have posted a wRC+ of >130 (min 100 pa): Stars (6): Kyle Tucker, Jose Altuve, Ramon Laureano, Carlos Correa, Teoscar Hernandez, Jeremy Pena Replacement players (7): Jacob Nottingham, Brett Phillips, Domingo Santana, Jon Singleton, Jason Martin, Delino DeShields Jr, Abraham Toro Busts (1): Josh Flores TBD: Joe Perez, Miguel Palma, Colin Barber Palma could be a another pretty underrated prospect.
My Top 30 Astros Prospects updated for April: Spoiler: Snake's Astros Top 30 Prospects: April Update (December rank: 2) OF Drew Gilbert Grade 55: off to a great start, starting to project as a potential star, AA will tell the tale. (4) OF/2B Pedro Leon 50: his numbers really aren't that bad. He hasn't hit for as much power as I'd expect but I am still a believer and the ceiling is still huge. His next 150 pa will be very important for his stock. (9) OF Colin Barber 50: fantastic start and he's comping very well to some good MLB players for what he's doing in AA, and I expect his numbers to actually get better as the season goes on. (7) RHP Forrest Whitley 50: He's been a mixed bag, but he's healthy and throwing 100. I'm a believer that he'll be at worst a back end bullpen monster. (6) C Korey Lee 50: he's been awful offensively pretty much all around, but the defense has been there. I'm not giving up yet. Like Leon, his next 150 pa will tell me a lot. (13) OF/1B Ryan Clifford 50: in a breakout season and walking in some pretty high statistical cotton. His defensive limitations will always be a ding but he is looking like a potentially special corner bat. (HM) OF/2B Joey Loperfido 50: one of the biggest potential breakouts I've seen in the last 15 years and I'm buying early. He has an incredibly high ceiling. He's 150 pa of continued AA dominance away from being an MLB Top 50 prospect. (10) RHP Andrew Taylor 50: He's walked a few guys but I'm highly encouraged (5) OF Jacob Melton 45+: Mildly disappointed in the k rate but he's posted a monster walk rate so he may just not be being aggressive enough yet. Stock slightly down but I'm still in. (HM) IF Shay Whitcomb 45+: His breakout is overshadowed by Clifford, Loperfido, and Barber but SS who hit like he is in AA have a good track record. If he keeps this up for another 6 weeks he will start getting some serious hype. (31) IF Grae Kessinger 45+: He's been Sugar Land's most productive hitter and he's a 4.5 tool player. (11) RHP Jaime Melendez 45: I think he was poised for a further breakout before getting hurt. (25) RHP JP France 45: Looking more like a reliever than starter but still projects to be an effective big leaguer. (14) RHP Shawn Dubin 45: His velo is down from its peak and I thought about ranking him much lower. His next 30 innings will probably tell a lot. (29) RHP Angel Macuare 45: He's looked pretty dominant aside from giving up 3 HR. Only 23, I want to see him in AAA. Easy to see him as a solid BoR SP. (32) 2B/3B Will Wagner 45: looked great before he got hurt. (15) RHP Spencer Arrighetti 45: Off to a really awful start, not sure what's up. Stock down. (16) RHP Jayden Murray 45: Too many walks, looking like a MR. (8) 3B Joe Perez 45: off to a really rough AAA start but I'm not abandoning him yet. (17) OF/3B Tyler Whitaker 45: dramatic increase in production over last year and showing monster power but a 40% k rate in A ball won't fly. (19) OF Justin Dirden 45: big time disappointment, hitting below .200. Stock way down but it probably never should have been that high to begin with. Don't buy spring training slash lines, example #1,344,333 (20) OF Kenni Gomez 45: Can't wait to see him in action. (HM) C Miguel Palma 45: He is underrated. He had a great year last year and is off to a similarly good start this season. Catches, walks, doesn't strike out, hits for power. Big time breakout candidate should he get a shot in AA. (27) LHP Colton Gordon 45: Given up a few dingers and a few too many walks but I think he'll look a lot better by the end of the year. (HM) OF Kenedy Corona 45: looks to be breaking out and off to a great start in the proving grounds of AA. Potential 5 tool player but carries quite a bit of risk. (HM) RHP Rhett Kouba 45: He's been dominant in AA at age 23 in his first taste of that level. That is very very encouraging. His stock could shoot up over the course of this year. I don't know much about his stuff. (NR) RHP Jairo Solis 45: hurt again, big ceiling when healthy which is never. (23) RHP Misael Tamarez 45: can't throw strikes. His next 30 innings will tell the tale. (12) RHP Alex Santos II 45: way too many walks but he's only 21. He could fall off entirely or shoot right back up the list month by month. (HM) OF Zach Daniels 45: Such a shame he got hurt because he looked like he had figured it out. Huge ceiling but needs to come back and pick up where he left off. Graduated: Hunter Brown (1), Yainer Diaz (3), Corey Julks (18) Honorable mention: C: JC Correa, Nerio Rodriguez, CJ Stubbs, Sandro Gaston, Ryan Wrobleski, John Garcia, Collin Price, Luke Berryhill, Juan Santander; Wrobleski and Garcia are off to monster starts to their season. Stubbs, Palma, and Price all have wRC+ >120 so far. Gaston and Berryhill have been terrible, while Nerio is hurt. Correa has not produced but he is not striking out at all which is great for a guy in his first stint in AA. Deep position on the farm, but aside from Gaston, all these guys will have to have success in AA before their stock can really go up. IF: Zach Dezenzo, Tim Borden II, Kobe Kato, Tommy Sacco Jr., Cristian Gonzalez, Freudis Nova, Dauri Lorenzo, Luis Encarnacion, Ricardo Balogh, Narbe Cruz, Hector Nieves, German Ramirez, Camilo Diaz; this area has taken a big step forward in the early going. Dezenzo and Borden are putting up huge slash lines driven by power and walks but hampered by high k rates; they're the infield version of Zach Daniels. Kato is Tony Kemp lite. I'm assuming Hector Nieves' assignment to Corpus is temporary until a more permanent spot opens up in Fayetteville. I am not sure why Lorenzo has not played more in Fayetteville but he's probably underrated. 1B may now be the weakest position on the farm. OF: Luis Baez, Esmil Valencia, Eduardo Perez, Quincy Hamilton, Logan Cerny, Scott Schreiber, Jordan Brewer, Ross Adolph, Alex McKenna, Michael Sandle, Marty Costes, Rolando Espinosa, Matthew Barefoot, Zach Cole, Roilan Machandy; wide range of reasons why these guys are interesting and why they aren't ranked higher. If Schreiber were 4 years younger he'd be a Top 100 prospect. Barefoot has huge power but strikes out and is apparently injury-prone. Brewer can't stay healthy either. Cerny is a 4 tool prospect who can't stop striking out. Hamilton and Cole are middling but worth tracking. Adolph, McKenna, Costes, and Sandle are on release watch but they all were prospects at one time. Espinosa is a plus athlete but has been moved around enough to make me think they don't really think too much of him. OF is incredibly deep in this system. P: All of them; every pitcher in the system has something to like. The 2022 draftees have come out of the gate very strong and any of those 6 guys could probably be justified in the back end of Houstons top 30 list. You never know which international arm will bust out although the ones who got hype recently have not started 2023 off on the right foot. Peyton Plumlee is starting to interest me a lot more; I want to see him in AA before really believing. Bummer Chaidez got hurt. Henley has been a mixed bag but may be knocking rust off while adapting to AA. Excited to see Gomez's baseball savant page once he gets into a handful of AAA appearances. I have full faith in this group's ability to continue the pipeline.
So Urquidy likely has to miss a few starts (hopefully only a few). I imagine the they will call up Bielak and slide him in, but this gives the team a chance to be creative. I'd like to see the team call up France and use him as a tandem/opener with Bielak, who I don't think can be an effective starter for 5-6 innings. See if we can't get 6-7 good innings between them. It's not like Martinez had made himself irreplaceable.
Bielak is so meh. Other than his 2018 minor league season in A and AA ball, he has never been an outstanding pitcher, even in college. Yet he gets so many chances.
I love your list, but I don't know which level some of these are at the moment. I did notice a theme on many starting with "before he was injured." Which ones are most likely to jump to a level as possible October Playoff Roster candidates by the end of the year? And I'm fine with none if the best are still too many levels down to make that leap. I tuned in just too late to a conversation with Dusty or Brown about a prospect who was young, but tearing the cover off the ball and whether they were prone to hold them back for development or bring them along quickly. I assume it was Loperfido, but I can't say for sure. Also, how long does a hot streak have to last before it qualifies as having taken the next step?
My normal threshold for promotion for hitters is between 100 and 200 plate appearances, although this Org has shown they are willing to move faster (and slower) than that. The big league roster is pretty deep. Aside from the guys already on the 40 man roster (Whitley, France, Dubin, Bielak, Taylor, Mushinski, Gage, Lee, Perez) it is hard for me to envision any other prospects making the playoff roster. Drew Gilbert, Joey Loperfido, Colin Barber, and Shay Whitcomb had the type of starts that could result in reaching the big leagues this season if they sustain their current production and an opportunity comes up in Houston. Justin Dirden, Grae Kessinger, and Pedro Leon could also force their way into the mix. But if I was a betting man, I would not expect any of those guys to actually be on the playoff roster.
How good a base stealer is Leon? With the new bases and the new pickoff rules it just screams for a PR for late in I g playoff weapons. Especially when you can go to an 11 man staff.
I don't see Whitley contributing this season unless he almost completely abandons his fastball. It's a the biggest 96 mph meatball I've witnessed. It's the opposite of Javier's fastball. It looks 3-4 mph slower than it is.
Whitley is a bust to me until I physically see him getting outs in MLB. 10 walks and 5 hit by pitch in 21 innnings. The guy just can't get it done at AAA. The fact that he is still considered one of our top prospects is depressing to me. He's on his last option. I feel like he is getting talked about so much because we have so little starting pitching at the upper levels. There is no Hunter Brown in AAA or AA to gush over in this forum. Just a pile of meh and Whitley is the shiny object that has lost most of its luster, but we still want to hold onto it hoping it will become valuable one day.
The entire AAA roster has underperformed to start the season, but there is still quite a bit of talent there. Hunter Brown looks like a legit ToR arm and farms can't be expected to produce a talent like that every year. Despite Whitley's struggles, the ceiling is still there and it would not surprise me at all if he came up and had some success in a bullpen role this season. Bielak, France, Tamarez, Murray, Dubin, and Solis all have the stuff to pitch in the back of a big league rotation or in the bullpen, and Gage, Taylor, Paredes, and Buttrey are viable middle relief options. The situation is compounded by the fact that the highest touted arms in AA (Arrighetti, Melendez, and Gordon) had rough Aprils. But we are drawing a lot of conclusions from small samples. Let's give it another month. Whoever they call up to replace Urquidy will likely get rocked but Urquidy shouldn't be out long and McCullers will be back soon so this is hopefully all temporary.
I'm not drawing my conclusions based on just April. I was talking about this issue last season. It's why I was not surprised the Astros went crazy drafting college arms.
wRC+ thru April 29 for 2022 draftees: Clifford 187 Dezenzo 177 Gilbert 168 Wrobleski 125 (in high A) Borden II 149 Garcia 144 Sacco 135 Price 122 Cole 110 Melton 95 Loftin 15 k/9 thru April 29 for 2022 draftees: Knorr 15.1 DeVos 14.1 Taylor 13.9 Dombroski 13.8 Mancini 12.6 Guilfoil 10.9 Blubaugh 10.8
