Shay Whitcomb hit his 9th home run of the season for Sugar Land. Joseph Sullivan hit his 7th for Asheville.
After hitting for the cycle yesterday, Brice Matthews got two more hits today and drove in a run with a sac fly.
Brice is insane- he career so far is literally feast or famine. He will not hit for a month and then go on an absolute tear for 2-3 weeks and then go like 3 for 50 and then go 17 for 20. At least he is walking now - that can go a long way.
After throwing five no-hit innings his last time out, Raimy Rodriguez turned in another excellent outing for Fayetteville: 4 IP, H, unearned run, 4 BB, 9 K
I don’t know anything about him really, but it looks like he just needs to find some consistency to have a really bright future.
Monday thoughts: German Ramirez is off to a good start in the FCL. I like what Esmil Valencia has done so far. I expect his numbers to steadily improve over the season. Chase Jaworsky is showing well. He is not posting the kind of power numbers to really be labeled as an elite prospect. He he’s showing he’s got a lot of value. I’m ready to see Alejandro Nunez in AA; elite bb/k ratio and seems to have added a bit of power (although some of that might be park/league related). Im ready to see Alimber Santa and Jose Fleury in AAA. With a solid dominant AAA sample over the next 2 months either of those guys could be meaningful trade chips or ready to contribute to the big league roster. I expect Kenedy Corona to have at least a mild breakout soon; his bb/k numbers are pretty good he just needs some luck. Rough last week for Blubaugh. Walk rate up to 14% in AAA.
Maybe? I would agree with the comparison if Matthews wasn't walking so often - he is basically Jalen Green that goes to the line 6-8 times a game. His strikeout rate is the real issue - if he cuts his strikeout rate down, his average will go up and he will be very productive. If he doesn't cut his strikeout rate, he may not get so many walks in the big leagues. At the end of the day we are kind of where we started with Matthews - low floor but very high ceiling.
I am actually fine with keeping true prospects in AA. I don't really see much, if any, additional development benefits since AAA is watered down with AAAA parent team insurance type guys. I would be fine with keeping true prospects in AA until they are ready for a shot in MLB. Stock AAA with injury replacement types and pull from there (unless there is a prospect in AA ready) to replace an injured player or one sent down for performance reasons. It would probably take a big staffing and organizational change though. As for Blubaugh, it wouldn't be surprising if he was a bit out of sorts after last week. He got shocked into learning that an MLB team can play minor league defense behind you, too. He needs to get it together though, because the Astros will need a 6th starter this week. He doesn't want it to go to Gordon (really the only other SP on the 40)
I like AAA as a finishing school for 2nd/3rd tier prospects. Because it’s “watered down” as you put it, there’s less variance and fewer developmental players, so you can get a better approximation of how players will perform against big league competition. That doesn’t make as much sense for elite prospects but it’s a good thing for lesser prospects. I assume they’ll call Blubaugh back up, but it also wouldn’t shock me if they gave a start to Ullola after how good he’s been the last 2 appearances. He is rule 5 eligible this fall so he will require a 40 man spot then anyway.
I actually just listened to Chandler Rome's podcast and he said its not official yet but it will be Gordon. He said the rotation/rest schedule is the only reason it wasn't Gordon last time.
I’ve been thinking about how the middle levels (AA and High A) really represent the bulk of a farm system’s health. AAA rosters are typically littered with post-hype and AAAA prospects; even the worst farm system can have a good AAA team just by mining cast-offs from other teams and signing AAAA free agents. And the complex and A ball rosters are in constant turnover between the influx of 40-50 new players per year between the annnual draft and international signing period. So it’s the High A and AA rosters where the real prospects are. Houston’s AA and High A position player rosters are terrible. Outside of 26 year old recent free agent signing Rowdey Jordan, no player on the current AA roster has produced above average offense. Only 3 players from Houston’s Top 30 prospects list were assigned there: Zach Cole (44% k rate), Luis Baez (has not played), and Pascanel Ferreras (20th round pick currently posting a 33% k rate and 88 wRC+). The High A roster has more talent and is performing better, but of the 14 players who have appeared at that level, 6 of them have strikeout rates over 33%, with only 1 player posting a k rate under 20%. I have been a strong defender of Houston’s farm over the last several years as they’ve been ranked near the bottom of the league (and have consistently outperformed that ranking in terms of players reaching the majors and producing), and I still think they will continue to outproduce their ranking, but the current heart of this system looks really bad. It would only take a few key prospects starting to perform well to change the outlook dramatically, but for now outside of Brice Matthews, I don’t see a single healthy prospect in full season ball who is on track to be an everyday major league position player.
Yup... all these outfielders have turned into almost nothing except for the guy we traded.... Wilyer Abreu.
Minor league Rule 5 pick Jean Pinto made his Astros organization debut in the FCL today; he pitched 1.2 innings and allowed a run, walked two, and struck out four in the first game of a doubleheader. He walked a batter who wound up scoring on a groundout after he left the game.
Matthews isn't even probably a coinflip to be a good MLB regular. He could be a star but it's just as likely he's a gadget player or never makes it. Whitcomb sets a decent floor I think- if you needed him to come up and play for a while I feel like his bat wouldn't disappoint. Basically what it all boils down to on the farm for the next 3 years, going into our next rebuild/reload is we have to keep cranking out pitchers and then trading the surplus for hitters, not having to sign any arms in free agency and deploying all the capital on the hitting side. Which- is perfectly possible and I like what I see from that perspective. I look at the Astros farm as having a decent likelihood to produce an Ace (Ullola, Fleury), a couple middle of rotation guys (blubaugh, Britto, Pecko, Santos), a back of rotation guy (Gordon), plus who the hell knows how many other guys that the Astros seem to find with Helium up their asses and turn into good players. That's on top of graduating a Cy Young guy in Brown, a couple MOR guys (maybe a little better) in Arrighetti, and Blanco, and basically an entire bullpen that's the best bullpen in the league outside of Hader and Abreu have all come up in that time. Do it again and you can trade excess for some good bats- hopefully starting with Framber.
What is your expectation for an average system? My baseline has always been five MLB potential position players at A ball, four at A+, three at AA, and two at AAA. One less at each level for poor systems, one more for good systems. Same numbers apply to pitchers. add another to each level for the very best systems in each league and take away another for the very worst. That means at A+ and AA together we should be able to identify seven potential MLB players and even in the very worst systems five. To be at zero is almost incomprehensible. My current top prospects at A+ and AA include these seven position players. W Janek P Ferreras C Jaworsky L Baez Z Cole PJ Sullivan K Gomez It does not follow that these seven players are all potential MLB players, just that they are the best we have. We can come to different conclusions as to who these players are but I suspect you are likely to come up with about the same numbers. There is almost always one or two players that we do not expect much from to over perform and occasionally they do so all the way to the major league team. They are most often canceled out by under performers.
