Jancel Villarroel went 2-4 with a solo homer (1) and drove in another run by getting plunked with the bases loaded in Fayetteville's 10-2 win over Lynchburg. The homer and bases-loaded HBP both occurred in the 3rd inning; he led off the inning with the homer (which was the only Fayetteville hit in that frame) and got plunked his second time around. In between all of that, Lucas Spence got an RBI HBP, Max Holy walked in another run, and Caden Powell got hit with the bases loaded. After Villarroel got hit, Cesar Hernandez got hit to drive in another run and Kedaur Trujillo walked in one more run.
Brandon Walter closed out Sugar Land's 8-3 win in Tacoma with 5 excellent innings, allowing one hit and striking out two.
He played 2B last night; the few times I’ve seen him play infield (including 2B) he’s looked totally capable. Based on the fact that they brought in Rodgers it seems like the front office doesn’t view Whitcomb as a core piece or big league everyday 2B. But to me he’s got potential to be a 25HR/20SB bat with average 2B defense. I’d really like him to get a solid 150+ pa shot at everyday big league play to see how his bat does.
I know there's 3 days left but I went ahead and updated my list for the 1st month. Spoiler: Snake Diggit's Astros Top 30 Prospects: April 2025 Update Rank Position Name Grade Previous Rank Notes OF Cam Smith 60 (1): Couldn't have asked for a much better start; he's not leading the ROY race but he's clearly ready for the majors and his OF defense has been great in context. I would like to see him start hitting some more HR in May. He will graduate off this list in May. 2B Brice Matthews 50+ (2): Despite a high k rate (31%) and limited power numbers, I'm still relatively pleased with Matthews' early work in AAA. He may not be the elite prospect who usurps the everyday 2B job in the first half of the season, but he's a really good, high upside prospect who just needs more time. OF Jacob Melton 50 (4): He needs to get/stay healthy, but his small sample to start this season is good. Power, steals, defense, walks. OF Zach Dezenzo 50 (3): It's very hard to judge with such sporadic playing time, but he looks like a major league quality hitter. He needs to play. P AJ Blubaugh 50 (8): Has the looks of a mid-rotation SP. Ready. P Anderson Brito 50 (13): very healthy k rate in a hitters' league he is very young for. Stock up and could explode if he gets promoted to AA. P Ryan Gusto 50 (17): Stock way up as he's looked every bit the quality big league SP P Miguel Ullola 50 (7): k/bb numbers don't look great but it's early. P Ryan Forcucci 45+ (22): too much consistent buzz from insiders, moving him up C Walker Janek 45+ (6): Stock down on paltry walk and power numbers in a league where he should posting big numbers in those categories. He hasn't played much so it's possible he's nursing an injury. OF/IF Shay Whitcomb 45+ (9): recovered from a rough first half of april and has been on fire the last 2 weeks. Deserves an extended audition in the majors. P Ethan Pecko 45+ (5): Stock down on injury woes, could bounce back up quickly if he gets healthy and looks good; high ceiling OF Joseph Sullivan 45+ (15): Stock slightly up as he's hitting really well in High A. K rate slightly elevated but if that comes down and power maintains, he will explode up this list. OF Kevin Alvarez 45+ (16): Patience. P Jose Fleury 45+ (23): Stock up; ERA <1.00 in AA at age 23, looking good. Probably ready for AAA and wouldn't be embarrassed if he had to pitch in the majors. P Jackson Nezuh 45+ (12): He's in good shape, needs to avoid giving up HR IF Chase Jaworsky 45+ (11): a low walk rate and no power is pointing his arrow closer to future utility guy moreso than breakout star P Colton Gordon 45+ (19) OF Luis Baez 45+ (14): Stock down, hasn't played P James Hicks 45+ (18): middling k rate and homer prone in the early going, nothing to worry about yet P Bryce Mayer 45+ (40): stock way up, needs to move up to High A. Could explode if he's able to get to AA by the end of year P Cole Hertzler 45+ (HM): stock up, needs to move up to High A. Could explode if he's able to get to AA by the end of year C/IF Jancel Villarroel 45+ (25): stock up, excellent b/kk numbers and at 20 there's hope more power will show up. Defensive value unknown. OF Kenni Gomez 45+ (10): stock down, looking overmatched in early small sample but it could be an injury blip; still only 20 so could recover fast P Juan Bello 45 (20): walk rate out of control in early going, still time, but stock slightly down P Alex Santos II 45 (35): looked great in his first 2 appearances since coming off IL. I'm irrationally high on him OF Kenedy Corona 45 (29): hasn't been as bad as his slash line indicates but he's probably a 5th OF OF Nehomar Ochoa Jr. 45 (21): stock down on injury woes OF Pedro Leon 45 (26): stock down on injury woes P Alimber Santa 45 (36): very pleased with how he's looked, walk rate way down, Rule 5 risk Honorable Mention: C: Will Bush, Collin Price, Kedaur Trujillo, Miguel Palma (30); Pretty pleased with how Will Bush looks so far this season; if he gets to AA and has some success his stock could skyrocket. Trujillo is worth watching. Price has cooled off after a very hot early April, and he's playing almost exclusively 1B. IF: Caden Powell, Pascanel Ferreras, Alberto Hernandez (27), Yamal Encarnacion, Jeron Williams, Tommy Sacco Jr., Alejandro Nunez, Max Holy; slim pickings here, but Nunez and Holy are off to nice starts in the lower levels. OF: Zach Cole (28), Colin Barber, Esmil Valencia, Lucas Spence, Drew Brutcher; more slim pickings, universal strikeout problems, but I still have pretty high hopes for Valencia. P: All of them but especially Alonzo Tredwell, Wilmy Sanchez, Hudson Leach, Logan VanWey (24), Trey Dombroski, Michael Knorr, Ramsey David, Amilcar Chirinos, Twine Palmer, Brett Gillis, Joey Mancini, Colby Langford; lots to like but impossible to know which ones will pan out and stay healthy. Overall a middling and moderately disappointing first month on the farm. I'm very excited about the A ball pitchers. I'm watching Melton, Matthews, and Sullivan very closely. Ullola, Janek, and Gomez need to rebound. And lots of guys need to get/stay healthy.
So a question. Are the Astros minor league teams games shown on tv? Their website? Anywhere? If not how are you (Snake) going about making your evaluations if you can't see these prospects play? Is it purely evaluating them on their stats?
Some of the games are on tv free. Most are on milb.tv for $10/yr. But honestly I dont spend much time watching minor league games on tv. I will watch a few, and I follow all the Astros minor league related twitter feeds and so see a lot of highlights. I usually attend several AAA and 1 AA game each season. I go down YouTube rabbit holes watching videos on Astros minor leaguers, a lot of them recent highlights. And of course I read every Astros-related minor leaguers nugget I can find on the internet. I have also built a statistical model in excel that I dump fangraphs advanced stats into. It is purely for fun of course and absolutely worthless relative to whatever analysis MLB teams are doing, but it does have a high correlation with which prospects end up panning out.
P Manuel Urias was promoted to AA yesterday. A huge 24 year old 6’6” 243 lb Mexican righty taken in the minor league rule 5 draft a couple years ago, he’s maintained pretty good k/bb ratios. Of interest, Urias was drafted in the 3rd round of that minor league rule 5 draft; the Astros 2nd round pick that year was Bryan King. It will be interesting to see if Urias is a starter in AA or if he’ll be moved into the pen.
Dana Brown doesn't like his glove and has been dismissive of him playing defense anywhere at the big-league level outside of the outfield. The horrendous defensive game he had in the infield after being called up last year probably still haunts him with Brown. If I were Shay, I would want to be out there at second base in AAA and see what I can do with lots of reps.
- Collin Price hit his 5th homer of the season for Sugar Land. - Joey Mancini @ San Antonio: 5.2 IP, H, BB, 5 K - Alejandro Nunez went 2-5 and scored twice for Asheville; he's had three consecutive two-hit games. - Max Holy had a bases-clearing triple in Fayetteville's 6-4 win over Delmarva. Joan Ogando allowed a hit, walked three, and struck out five over five scoreless innings to get the win. Ogando will finish the first month of the season with a .115 batting average against (6 hits allowed in 16.2 IP), but he's also walked 20 this month.
Fayetteville and Sugar Land in action early today... Caden Powell hit his second home run of the year for the Woodpeckers.
Man I don’t know what’s going on but Houston sure does seem to have a hard time keeping their best prospects on the field. Jacob Melton hasn’t played since 4/17 and has only played 6 games this season. Walker Janek has only played 9 games. Kenni Gomez 12. Zach Cole just got going. Luis Baez, Pedro Leon, and Nehomar Ochoa haven’t played at all. Of Houston’s 13 best position player prospects in the minors, 7 of them have been hurt the majority of the first month of the season.
Alain Pena had a tough first month for Asheville but he's closing it on a positive note in Greenville: 6 IP, 2 H (solo HR allowed), ER, BB, 7 K
