This is my favorite baseball thing ever. People are like- oh it can’t get worse if so and so comes up from the minors. Baseball is hard and there’s no bigger gap in sports than Aaa and the show. It can always get worse.
Barefoot Only Fan here. My boy Matthew Barefoot is well rested and ready to contribute!!! Let's bring him up.
Yep, major pet peeve of mine as well. Not saying he can't help the Stros this season, just saying it won't be tomorrow.
Dezenzo is at 43 pa in AAA and his k rate is below 20%. K% often starts to stabilize at ~50 pa. For a player with Dezenzo’s demonstrated power, that is extremely encouraging. It really sucks he couldn’t have been healthy earlier this season because there’s a chance he could be a top 50 type prospect and have siezed the 1B job by now. As it stands we have to just trust the front office on him. But he is looking ****in legit so far. Hoping to see over the rest of this minor league season: Janek not be overmatched in High A Matthews cut his k rate in AA Baez dominate High A (and maybe start mixing in some time at 1B) Zach Cole break out in AA Melton and Dezenzo dominate AAA Those 6 guys combined with Whitcomb and Leon makes for 8 prospects who could be in the upper levels in early 2025 that project as everyday big leaguers, each with some chance of becoming a star level player.
Yep, and the narrative of the Stros having a poor farm system isn't true. They also have a top pitching prospect in Blubaugh, a wildcard in Ullola and a bunch of really good arms in the lower minors. Underrating the Stros minor league system seems to be a yearly thing by the pundits.
And 2024 season-ending AAA rotation of Blubaugh, Gusto, Ullola, Gordon, and Arrighetti (if JV and Garcia are healthy) would be on par with just about any in the last 10 seasons. The top of this farm carries more risk than the heyday farms of 2012-2019, but the ceiling is just as high.
If JV makes it back in the next couple of weeks do you think they put Arrighetti in the pen, or do they go with a 6 man rotation?
Agreed. I think our farm is radically underrated and is every year. Maybe because we bring up so many guys and trade off so many every year. Isn’t that what farm systems are supposed to do? We are second to none in our development program and it is a major reason we have had such a long run. Sign Tucker and we extend our window another 6 to 7 years. Luhow came in promising to model after the Cardinals who were rarely out of contention back then and he succeeded.
I’d personally go with a 6 man rotation. Blanco is already way past his career high in innings and JV is old and returning from injury. His last CY for us in 2022 was mostly pitching in a 6 man rotation so perhaps that helps performance wise too for him.
I think they start with a 6 man rotation, but that will change quickly if the division starts to get away from us. The playoffs don’t matter if you can’t get there. Framber, Brown, Fujiko (sic), Verlander, Blanco is really a good rotation and you don’t really need to pitch any of them more than 5 innings with Arrighetti, Scott, Martinez, Abreu, Presley, Hagar and maybe a called up Whitmore and/or Ort to handle the last 4 innings.
Both DSL teams lost today... the Blue team walked off with a 5-4 loss against the Rays, while the Orange team gave up 12 runs from the 5th-9th innings and lost 15-4 to the Brewers 2. Juan Sierra hit his 8th home run for the Blue team and Francisco Caldera hit his 2nd homer of the year for the Orange team.
Edinson Batista vs. Hickory: 5 IP, 3 H, 7 K Jackson Nezuh came on for the last four innings and allowed a run on a solo homer, one other hit, walked 2, and struck out six. Unfortunately, the homer Nezuh allowed was the only scoring play in Asheville's 1-0 loss.
