Plenty of teams have 5+ years of top 10 picks in a row. We've only had one. It'll be tough to swallow but it's best total rebuild plan possible. I'm glad it's Luhnow at the helm.
Domingo Santana is another player quietly putting together a HUGE July. Like DDJ and Johnny Villar, Santana started extremely slow. Month by Month stats: April: .212/.317/.404 with 1hr May: .304/.362/.609 with 8hr June: .333/.402/.472 with 1hr July: .358/.436/.672 with 6hr (through 18 games) His season line is .307/.380/.556 with 16hr, 35bb, 5sb, 96k, 1cs He is the youngest player in the California league and suffers from the same Cali league strikeout problem that George Springer and Telvin Nash have. His two biggest problems right now are his strikeouts and his inconsistency (check the monthly stats). Lancaster has 42 games left in the season; a final line of .315/.390/.580 with 22 hr isn’t out of the question. Santana’s stats definitely merit promotion. Luhnow faces a tough decision on doing a mid-season promotion. Santana’s age and 27.7% K-rate are good reasons to keep in him Lancaster, but there’s not much more production-wise he can accomplish there. I expect him to start showing up in top prospect honorable mention lists soon. John Sickels mentioned that he looked at Santana for his mid-season top 120 list but had concerns about the strikeout rate and Lancaster effect. Look for Santana to make a major jump onto those lists if he keeps up his production at Corpus Christi and gets his strikeout rate out of the redzone (> 25%).
Domingo Santana’s buddy George Springer is also having a monster July. Jorge has been good all season but he’s taken it to another level in July, perhaps angry at the Futures Game snub. Month by Month stats: April: .278/.321/.454 with 2hr May: .324/.382/.622 with 8hr June: .314/.455/.547 with 5hr July: .452/.518/.658 with 3hr (in 18 games) Season line: .335/.413/.567 with 18hr, 24sb, 47bb, 103k, 5cs It’s not difficult to see his 5-tool repertoire. He’s flashing all of the skills that pre-draft pundits raved about. Springer is also showing the plate discipline that everyone red-flagged on him. He has actually made progress on his strikeout rate though. His k-rate floated as high as 28% earlier in the year but has since dropped out of the red zone to 24.3%. At this point it doesn’t look like he will reach the vaunted 30/30 season everyone was hoping for. He will settle for an excellent .335+ batting average with 25hr and 35 steals. Like Santana, his stats merit promotion. Luhnow has hinted Springer will be one of the first top prospects to get a promotion in early August. If Springer can continue to produce in Corpus Christi (AA) next season AND cut down his K-rate to a more reasonable 20%, he’d be in line for top 15 prospect status. Currently he’s in the mid 50’s and ranked behind Toronto CF prospects Anthony Gose (recently promoted to the show) and Jake Marisnick. I see him in Houston as early as late next season with aggressive promotion.
Time for a top prospect who did receive a ton of fanfare this month: Jonathan Singleton. Baseball minds all around raved about his advanced plate approach in the Futures game. He is having a strong month of July after a horrendous month of June. Month by Month stats: April: .350/.435/.600 with 3hr May: .281/.400/.531 with 7hr June: .148/.317/.235 with 1hr July: .339/.440/.581 with 2hr (in 17 games) Season line: .276/.394/.483 with 13hr, 62bb, 3sb, 90k, 2cs Singleton is a lot like Santana: young for the level (6th youngest), wildly inconsistent, and prone to strikeouts (23.5%). The difference is Singleton is putting up his solid numbers in the hitter neutral Texas league against more advanced pitching. I project his final line to be in the neighborhood of .280/.400/.590 with 18-20 hr: a great year for a 20 y/o in AA. Singleton has been good but not dominating at AA. Given his age and strikeout rate, Luhnow may be hesitant to promote him to Oklahoma City soon. Promotion could go either way. He will definitely start at OKC next spring. One more year like this at AAA and Singleton is potentially looking at top 10 prospect status. That’s not saying much because he’s already top 25 but things he can improve on/develop are his strikeout rate and power. He could be in Houston as early as mid-season next year. However, because of his age he is more likely to be brought along slowly; thus I see spring 2014 as a realistic goal for him.
Paredes 3-4 tonight with another HR. At this point, besides service time, what do the Astros have to lose by bringing him up and sticking him in RF? Ovando with a monster night too, with his first 2 HRs. Cosart pitching a gem. He has been strong 4 of his last 5 starts.
Cosart's night is over after throwing 7 2/3 shut out innings with 3h, 0r, 0er, 3bb, 4k (74 game score). Chappy is in the game to finish it off.
Beginning work on a recap momentarily, but I have some news regarding Asher Wojciechowski. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Per high-ranking sources, Asher Wojciechowski will start Tuesday in San Antonio for @<a href="https://twitter.com/cchooks">cchooks</a> ,with Jake Buchanan is moving to bullpen.</p>— Greg Rajan (@GregRajan) <a href="https://twitter.com/GregRajan/status/226878862242492416" data-datetime="2012-07-22T03:18:30+00:00">July 22, 2012</a></blockquote> <script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
A little late, I know. But, it's got to be Greeneville for me. Honestly though, I'm more excited about the hitters than the pitchers. -Ariel Ovando, for obvious reasons. -Terrell Joyce is my sleeper prospect pick. Look out for this guy in the coming years. I really love his power potential. -Brian Blasik's season has literally come out of the blue. But, he's no scrub. He was 1st-team All Atlantic-10 for 3 seasons at Dayton, was a 3rd-team All-American this season, is the single-season and career steals leader there, and he led them to their first NCAA tournament appearance ever this season. He led the A-10 in hits and was 3rd in batting average. I'm honestly a bit unsure as to how 30 teams passed on him 40 times. -Ernesto Genoves looks to be a sleeper C prospect. -Jean Carlos Batista, since I saw Pelotero this past weekend and really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, the film has ended its run here in Houston. He's been shuffled everywhere from 1B to SS, but he's hit very well all season. -D'Andre Toney hasn't flashed the power yet, but I imagine that he's going through an adjustment period. Maybe the power he showed was an illusion. I still think he has a fair amount of it, however. -Adrian Houser, again, for obvious reasons. -Lance McCullers joins the fold sometime in August. -Francis Ramirez may be on the verge of breaking out. -Jordan Jankowski should be promoted ASAP. 26 Ks in 15 2/3 innings. -Can't wait to see what Joe Musgrove can do, even though he hasn't pitched since June 24.
Three Stars coming later. Saturday Stories Another forgettable night for OKC... But a very nice start from Jarred Cosart! Lexington had a big 2nd inning, but was it enough for them to win? Tri-City still chugging along. Greeneville providing some fireworks. Plenty of fireworks. Recap OKC got clobbered by Memphis again, losing 6-2. Jimmy Paredes was 3-5 with a solo homer in the 5th, his 10th of the season. Travis Buck also had 3 hits. 2 of them were doubles, and one of them resulted in an RBI. Sergio Perez allowed 5 runs on 4 hits (grand slam), walked 2, and struck out 1 in his 3 innings. Aneury Rodriguez threw 3 scoreless, allowing 2 hits and striking out 1. Corpus blanked Frisco 3-0 behind a strong start from Jarred Cosart, who held the Roughriders to 3 hits over 7 2/3 shutout innings. He walked 3 and struck out 4. Kevin Chapman got the save by retiring all 4 batters he faced, striking out 2. Jonathan Singleton had a sac fly, while Andy Simunic and Adam Bailey had RBI singles. Simunic, Rene Garcia, and Jake Goebbert each had 2 hits. Lancaster knocked off Rancho Cucamonga 4-2, getting 3 runs in the top of the 1st. Erik Castro sent a 2-run shot out (15) and Telvin Nash added a solo shot (23). Domingo Santana had an RBI single. Alex Todd and Grant Hogue each had 2 hits. Tyson Perez had a nice start, as he allowed 2 runs (1 earned) on 4 hits, walked 1, and struck out 2 in 6 innings. Pat Urckfitz allowed 2 hits and fanned 1 in the 7th. Carlos Quevedo got his 2nd save with Lancaster (6 season) by retiring all 6 Quakes he faced, striking out 1. Lexington busted out for 5 runs in the top of the 2nd against Greenville, then hung on for the 7-5 victory. Delino DeShields is creeping even closer to .300, as he went 3-5 with 2 doubles and an RBI to bring his average to .297. He didn't attempt to steal, however. (C'mon man!) In the 2nd, Matt Duffy led off the inning with a double, then the Legends scored 4 of the 5 runs on RBI triples. Nolan Fontana hit the first one to send Duffy home, then he would come home when Justin Gominsky tripled. Jordan Scott singled him home, then DeShields doubled. Ruben Sosa then sent the two of them home with the 3rd triple of the inning. DeShields hit an RBI single in the 7th, and Brandon Meredith went solo in the 8th for his 9th homer of the season. Mike Foltynewicz went 6 innings and allowed 4 runs on 6 hits, walked 2, and struck out 5. Mitch Lambson allowed a hit, walked 1, and fanned 3 in his 2 innings of relief. Murilo Gouvea worked around a run in the 9th to pick up the save, his 2nd of the season. Tri-City just continues to win. There's really no other way to put it. They beat Vermont 7-3 and will be looking for the sweep on Sunday. Brian Holmes allowed a homer to Chris Bostick to lead off the game, then he shut down the Lake Monsters the rest of the way. In 7 innings, he scattered 3 more hits, with Bostick's homer being the only run that he allowed, and struck out 8. Jeremiah Meiners pitched a scoreless 8th, then allowed 2 in the 9th. No matter, Juan Minaya finished it out as he worked around a walk to strike out 2. Dan Gulbransen went 2-4 with a 2-run homer in the 1st (2). Jesse Wierzbicki had an RBI triple and stole a base (6). Yeah, I didn't know he was that fast. Austin Elkins, M.P. Cokinos, and Joe Sclafani also drove in a run. Greeneville demolished Kingsport in a 13-4 laugher on the strength of 5 home runs. Ernesto Genoves (2, inside the park) kicked things off in the 2nd, then Mike Martinez (3) followed suit. Ariel Ovando joined in on the action with a 2-run shot in the 3rd, and Terrell Joyce got in on it too in the 4th with a solo homer (5). Then it was deja vu in the 4th, as Ovando sent his 2nd 2-run homer out (2). Everyone had a hit except for Marc Wik and Angel Ibanez, and everyone scored at least once except for Wik, Ibanez, and Brian Blasik, who went 3-5 with an RBI single. Jean Carlos Batista went 3-5 with 3 doubles, 2 of them resulting in an RBI, and 2 runs scored. Genoves went 3-5 and scored 3 times. Joyce was 2-5 and scored twice. Ovando finished 3-4 and scored 4 times. Martinez finished 3-5 and added an RBI single. Jose Monzon was 1-4 with an RBI groundout. Oh, and Adrian Houser pitched pretty well, too. He allowed 2 runs on 4 hits in 5 2/3 innings, walked 2, and fanned 7. The GCLstros topped the Nationals 4-3. 4 guys (Yonathan Mejia, Darwin Rivera, Teoscar Hernandez, and Wallace Gonzalez) drove in 1 run. Mejia went 3-3, Rivera was 1-5, and Hernandez was 1-2 with 2 walks. Gonzalez hit his first professional homer, a solo shot in the 4th. The River was 2-5, and Brett Phillips was 3-3 with a run scored. Jandel Gustave went 4 innings and allowed 2 runs (1 earned) on 4 hits, walked 1, and struck out 3. Reymin Guduan got the victory with 2 2/3 scoreless in relief. He allowed 4 hits, walked 2, and struck out 3. Erick Gonzalez notched his 7th save, but made it interesting by allowing a run in the 9th to make it a 4-3 game. In a game that was called after 6 1/2 innings, the Academy blanked someone for a change, shutting down the A's 4-0. Tomas De La Cruz went 0-2 but drove in 2. Frederick Serrano had an RBI single. Cristian Murillo is hitting .117, but has a .391 OBP. Rayderson Chevalier has looked better since starting, and he got the win with 5 shutout innings. He allowed 2 hits, walked 3, and struck out 8. Javier Saucedo finished it out with 2 shutout innings, allowing 1 hit.
Looking forward to George Springer getting promoted to Corpus. Luhnow said quite a few moves will be made at the beginning of August and Springer coming to the Texas Leauge should definitely be one of them. Here is his line for the last ten games: AVG: .459 AB: 37 R: 10 H: 17 2B: 0 3B: 1 HR: 1 RBI: 10 BB: 6 SO: 5 SB: 4 CS: 2 OBP: .523 SLG: .595 OPS: 1.117
that's cool. i had heard about the movie, but had no idea that we had one of the players who were featured. i guess i'll have to netflix it.
They just need to let him play right field exclusively. I got bored and crunched the numbers on his by-position stats. They're ridiculous. C: .196/.235/.268 with 2hr in 97ab DH: .172/.234/.345 with 3hr in 87ab RF: .282/.309/.530 with 7hr in 117 ab That's before today's 2hr in RF. He's a decent hitter at RF and not at DH for some reason.
BTW, DDJ went 3 for 5 today with 2 steals to bump his season average to .302/.402/.435 with 71 steals. He's absolutely destroying Billy Hamilton's season from last year.
Paul Clemens was killed again today. Wonder if a demotion is in order, especially with the way Cisnero and Costart area dominating their last 6-10 starts.
I'm glad the Astros are building this thing the right way. The key, though, is making those picks count. As one of Olney's @mentions brings up below that tweet, the Pirates have been drafting at the top of the draft for a long time now. Granted, they have consistently made some horrific decisions at the major league level as well, but they have also whiffed on a lot of their top draft choices.
