If you look at both players’ age 22 and 23 seasons in AA their overall offensive profile was pretty similar. It’s not a perfect comp by any stretch and I’m going for more of a comparison in terms of setting expectations for overall value outcomes than particular style of play of specifics in underlying offensive stats. Tucker was a LH OF who became a 5th OF but if he’d had more defensive value he’d have likely had a long mlb career. Spence has more baserunning and defensive value but less power.
In addition to holding his own with the bat as a 22 year old in AA with a very good 10% swinging strike rate, and showcasing his speed with 32 SB in 63 games, one of the major things moving Yamal Encarnacion up my prospect list is the defensive ability he’s shown. He went from a prospect without a real defensive home to a guy who looks elite at 2B and LF and looks good in CF and solid in RF. He’s not a very big framed dude so he’s probably very limited in what he’ll offer in terms of power, but if he can just add enough to be a threat, he could be a very dynamic, valuable player.
I get where you're coming from, it's just kind of funny to comp guys who are such different profiles. My first instinct for a comp was Quincy Hamilton, but Spence was a better hitter at a younger age than Q. I'm not sure the Astros have had a ton of recent low-power LHH OF prospects. Lunhow seemed to take one a year there for a while, but I think Andrew Aplin was the best of that bunch. I've decided of recent Astros prospects, Cal Stevenson makes the most sense, but I'm not sure he was in the system long enough for people to make an impression on even the more hard-core Astros fans.
I came up with those comps by starting with stat filters on fangraphs that go back to 2006. Age, level, min bb %, max k %, position, max swinging strike rate, min ISO. Using those, you get down to a handful of prospects that comp to Spence and none of them are all that close in terms of defense or speed, it’s mostly power corner guys. If you ignore handedness then Laureano shows up.
Arturo Flores extended his hitting streak to 14 games with a two-run home run. He now has 11 homers on the year.
Caden Powell went 3-4 and hit his 9th home run of the season in Asheville’s 7-4 win in Greenville. He drove in another run in the 9th with an RBI single.
Albert Fermin hit his first grand slam yesterday, and he followed that up with a multi-RBI game without recording a hit. His first RBI came on a groundout and the other came on a bases-loaded walk, one of three walks he drew on the day.
Anderson Areinamo went 3-4 and drove in 5 for the FCL squad today; he had an RBI single in the 1st, a two-run single in the 2nd, and a two-run double in the 3rd. Areinamo's average is now above the Mendoza line (.218) and a respectable .728 OPS shows that his batted ball luck is starting to turn around.
He's only 17 so I get erring on the side of patience, but the competition on the island looks beneath Fermin. Considering he was our big bonus signing, I think he has to be top 3 on our prospect list right now...pretty easily IMO.
He is still in the Dominican, so it makes it hard to justify putting him in Neyens and Alvarez tier, but he is in that next tier which for me basically only includes Ethan Pecko since Frey and Janek have seen their stock fall. So I think I’d have him 4th. Fermin is benefiting from the fact that Alvarez charted a path for him last year (Int’l Top 30 stud rakes in DSL and then gets to full season ball stateside in less than a year). Hopefully after the draft he only ranks 6th or 7th if Houston gets 2-3 of the top 50 prospects in the draft.
Xavier Neyens hit his 11th homer of the season for Fayetteville. Nehomar Ochoa with his 9th homer of the year... he also has an RBI single tonight.
Lucas Spence's first AAA homer is a three-run home run. He now has six home runs this year (1 FCL, 4 Corpus, 1 Sugar Land).
Someone mark this and make fun of me in 3 years but I’m an Ochoa truther. I think he’s going to be an an aboveaverage MLB player.
Cameron Sisneros homered for Corpus, which was basically the only good baseball thing they could muster up tonight. Sisneros now has 8 home runs this season.
