If all goes well, I think he could be up after the Super 2 deadline next year. Law said he has the talent and the polish to be up in September. There's no need for the Astros to do that, but I could see him up next year after delaying free agency and arbitration.
Cole was considered more raw than Appel (similar to Gray this year). History says, college pitchers taken high, make it to the majors quickly. They won't rush him, but they won't take it slowly either. So far we've seen some aggresive placements from Luhnow (Springer skipping A-ball, Fontana skipping Tri-City, Aplin skipping A-ball, Kenny Long already in AA, etc). At the same time, he's held off on promotions the fans have wanted to see, i.e. Springer, and I think that is because he is more concerned with the advanced stats, which show he isn't as good as his ridiculous slash line indicates. If he signs early, I think it bodes well for him getting to Houston quickly. If this were to drag out as long as possible (June of next year), that would change things.
I never liked Cole all that much. Great stuff, huge body, questionable results. Appel has produced better results in his past couple college seasons than Cole ever did.
Not being a consensus 1 isn't a reason for an "eh" reaction. Taking a "favorite" doesn't mean you didn't do your homework. I guess I feel like, had the Astros stated they were going for Gray since last year and then gone with Appel, everyone would have been pumped up about misdirection and how good Appel is going to be. But going with the expected, boring pick is met with a bunch of questions. You definitely have a reasonable concern, and I wasn't really responding to you with my post. But at the same time, each of the top 3 pitchers had reasonable concerns that you would have addressed in this thread. That there is a minor concern with a pitcher drafted is expected....worth discussing, but in this case not really a negative no matter what the responses are imo
Mike Elias, scouting director Spoiler <iframe width="658" height="371" scrolling="no" src="http://www.sports790.com/player/embed.html?autoStart=false&useFullScreen=true&mid=23314811&startButtonColor=0xA33335" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" ></iframe> http://www.sports790.com/player/?st...rogram_id=FeaturedInterviews.xml&mid=23314811 When you're picking 1-1, you're not only looking for a great player but also potentially an icon and face for the franchise, so you want the right human being. He's certainly that. He's very driven, intelligent, quality young man who had a tremendous career at Stanford. ... His pitching record goes without saying. As a baseball player, he also checks all the boxes. When you're drafting pitching high in the draft, there is a significant amount of risk involved. You want to make sure you're getting a top of the rotation pitcher and one that will stay healthy and stay effective for a long time. We're looking at performance, stuff, mechanics, work habits, body and all those components for Mark passed the test and more so. We had a long track record with him, dating back to the 2012 draft. We knew he was a top of the draft type talent, a candidate the year prior. Entering this new year, he had the inside track. There were people that maybe who had a chance to compete for that pick but by the end, Mark was out in front to begin with and stayed out in front the whole year and made the decision easy in the end. He doesn't have a lot specifically to work on. That's reflective of a number one quality talent. A very polished pitcher. Any pitcher will undergo a transition to professional baseball. Different schedule(4 days rest vs 6). Pitching vs wood bats instead of metal. New environments, new routines. The hitters are better. There will be a natural adjustment period. He made a lot of adjustments this spring. He raised his arm angle. More angle on his fastball. Added depth to his slider and changeup which were plus to begin with. Everything is moving in the right direction for him. We expect him to continue to get better. Excited to watch his development over the next several years. I don't anticipate much of an issue with it. We won't engage him on that until he graduates. I believe he graduates next week or the week after. He's in the process of winding down his life and career at Stanford. We want to give him time and that transition before we engage on when he'll begin his career as an Astro. We're confident it's going to happen. I don't believe it will be difficult or take long. ... We really believe now is the time he is ready to make his transition to his career as a major league player as a member of the Astros and start his minor league career soon. I think we'll see it fairly soon. You have to be mindful about sign-ability and bonus pool. We do our best to gauge a player's sign-ability. ... You do have to factor that into decisions when making picks in each round. You don't want to exceed the bonus pool because of the penalty. We're careful with that. We feel like we had success with it last year and we're continuing to learn and adapt as well. [...Talking about the college bats...] We're starting to get an exciting critical mass of arms in the system. That's important when talking about pitching. It's a strength in numbers thing, the more, the merrier. We don't have just quantity but quality guys too. They're performing this year. We just added 2 yesterday. We think we'll have them in the system soon. There is numbers coming. You can never have too many. We may try to grab a few more today. Not going to put a time table on any of these guys but I think you'll start seeing prospect arms in Houston, beginning next year, maybe even a couple later this fall. Thurman - we were thrilled to pick him up at the 40th pick. We thought he would go in the late first round, 25-30 area. He is a starting pitcher, we view him as a likely mid-rotation starter. That's what most of our scouts projected with him. He's always been a big pitch ability guy - always performed, always thrown strikes, always won games. This year his stuff took a big step up. So he had all those skills, the ability to mix more pitches, plus changeup, few breaking balls, fastball command but he was running his fastball up to 96 some nights. Works 92-93 mostly. Real good delivery. We think he is a starting pitcher and somebody that could see some success very quickly and consistently in the minor leagues and hopefully move at the pace you would expect a polished starting pitcher to move. Nolan Fontana - a real exciting prospect. A guy I think that was under-appreciated in college. A lot of scouts around the industry thought he would move to 2nd base. Our scouts think he is a SS. He can play 2nd. He can play 3rd if you want him to. We see him as a SS. We're going to allow him to develop there until he perhaps needs to move off, if there is someone else competing for that job. He has tremendous hand-eye coordination and tremendous feel for the strike zone. He is patient. He sees the ball very well and knows what he wants to do every at bat. He also has some pop and can hit. A really good baseball player and somebody I think was a steal at the top of the 2nd round last year.
Just added another couple of quality to great arms to a growing list of candidates. Astros now have 5-6 potential impact RHP pitching prospects.
Mark Appel, Mike Foltynewicz, Jarred Cosart, Nick Tropeano, Asher Wojiechowski and Lance McCullers. Thats some quality arms. Not to mention the A Ball pitchers who haven't even started the year yet and the 2 other pitchers we took. Astros are gonna have to make calls on a lot of pitchers over the next year and a half. Norris, Lyles, Keuchel, Harrell, Peacock, Olberholtzer. Alex White , John Ely and Rudy Owens are also still with the organiztation. Can never have too many pitchers, still gonna be curious what we do with them all.
You hope for 3 of that upper group to pan out as legitimate 1-3 pitchers, and the hope you can pull a couple of solid bullpen and 4-5 starters out of the rest.
Think that Appel, Folty, McCullers can be our 1-3 in the future with also Tropeano and Cosart having a chance to be in that range. Everyone else is good-great organizational depth.
So is Appel the top prospect for Astros now? I have Singleton as number one, Appel two, Correa three.
I see what you mean. For me, it's hard to get super pumped about someone drafted at #1 overall, unless it's one of those rare talents like Strasburg, Harper, or Joe Mauer. I think the same goes for the #1 pick of drafts in most sports these days. There's really only 3-4 years in a decade that have at least 1 of those guys. For Cole, Gray, Appel, etc.... at #1 slotted money my reaction will typically be, "Good pick, now let's wait and see." Last year was an exception. At first I thought Correa was a good upside pick, but when I found out that it allowed us to sign McCullers & Fontana.... THAT got me excited. Seeing our farm get 3 first round talents all at once just had that "wow" factor for me. You might be right about that.
