Oh I agree. They did say the wind was blowing out 20mph to rf, but that doesn't excuse the performance totally. They say he was throwing 95ish fastballs the whole 1st inning and was not fooling anybody. Mixed in maybe 2 sliders. I truly do not know, but it's disconcerting, even though it's very, very early in his career. They say his arm is fine, I wonder if there's something else going on. (?)
Jeez, it only took you 1.1 innings to go from admonishing anybody who was concerned about Appel, to this??
It's like them knowns, and them known unknowns, or something something Rumsfeld. Hell, I dunno. He might be Mark Prior, he might be Luke Hochevar, he might be Max Scherzer, he might be a pterodactyl. After extra time in EST to get his **** together, this is definitely a disappointing outcome, and I understand the wailing and gnashing of teeth. It will be interesting to see what is said by the front office and the coaches and such tomorrow. But as Ian MacKaye said, "I am a patient boy, I wait I wait I wait I wait..."
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Linares on Appel: “I’m not concerned b/c his velo is there. He’s 100 % ... hopefully this was just a divot in the road.” <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23JetHawks&src=hash">#JetHawks</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23Astros&src=hash">#Astros</a></p>— Eric Smith (@Eric_L_Smith) <a href="https://twitter.com/Eric_L_Smith/statuses/472971467424952320">June 1, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Linares on Appel: “He looked a little jumpy out there. Even the umpire was saying (his pitches) were up." <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23JetHawks&src=hash">#JetHawks</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23Astros&src=hash">#Astros</a></p>— Eric Smith (@Eric_L_Smith) <a href="https://twitter.com/Eric_L_Smith/statuses/472971624011296768">June 1, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
I think we mismanaged the slot situation. Bryant wasn't going for anything less than full slot and if I had to guess Gray was off the board completely due to medical issues.
Success in the minors isn't success in the show, so we can't say we made a mistake in not taking Bryant or Grey...yet. Obviously this poor a performance is cause for concern, but he's still only thrown a few innings this year, so it's not time to panic....yet. You make evaluations in years, not weeks. Let's just let things play out before writing the obit.
Not saying Appel won't be fine, not saying he won't be best in draft, that is all tbd But damn if they thought Bryant was the best player but took Appel for "slot" concerns, that would be bad karma at its worst You get the top pick because you are terrible, take the best player (I know many will disagree with that, and that's cool)
It looks really bad right now, I'm not saying it will turn out this bad but as of now, I'm failing to see the silver lining. I wanted Bryant all along, I knew I should have applied for GM.
So yeah. The Dominican Summer League just kicked off, and the Astros went 1-1 in their games. The Blue team beat the Indians 7-2. Wander Franco went 3-5 with a 3-run homer in the 8th and finished with 4 RBI. The 4th came on a single in the 9th. Joan Mauricio, who got the largest bonus last year ($600,000), was 2-3 with a couple of triples and a run scored. Albert Abreu, who signed for $185K last August, threw 5 shutout innings and allowed a hit, walked 2, and struck out 5. The Orange team lost 12-3 to the Angels. Cristopher Luciano went 2-3 with an RBI single in the 1st and a solo homer in the 5th. Frankeny Fernandez was 2-3 with a run scored, and Osvaldo Duarte had an RBI single in the 5th inning.
At the point we are at I agree. In 2012 when our system was pretty barren I would say try and get more top end talent rather than the highest end talent. Now that our system is stacked we should we taking the best player on the board.
Roy only pitched a handful of games out of the bullpen. Was a starter for the majority of his rookie season (made 20 starts), and went 14-3.
Sure... but when you have a 4 year college pitcher who was the #1 pick in the draft, you have a little bit more of a sense of urgency (and a little more concern when he is having starts like THIS). Again, there have been more #1 pitching busts than success... and with Price, Strasburgh and Cole succeeding consecutively, stats/odds say that Appel could likely bust. I just wish the organization had done a better job of easing him back into the season after very little spring training, recovering from abdominal surgery, and then putting him in a gimmicky tandem system (that it seems like all the starters with talent don't embrace), and making him pitch in the best hitters park in the minors for his first full season. That's a lot to adjust to, in addition to the jump in talent level, and it certainly can derail whatever "comfort" zone Appel had coming out of college and his brief stint last year.
I'm really surprised that after his start to the year and going back to spring training....that they sent him to Lancaster again And I agree with what I think you are saying about the tandem system, at the very least trash it for the top prospects
That's some of the "rigid-ness" of Luhnow/front office's plan. They want everybody to conform, and meet certain milestones at each level... but at some point they may have players/situations that require a degree of flexibility and caution. McCullers has also had his struggles at Lancaster. The analytics side will put all these players in the same algorithms, and some will have more favorable projections than others.... but when you're paying certain guys an increased amount of money compared to the rest of the system, you may have to take just a little more caution/foresight in developing him. If Appel had taken time off, had a rehab/developmental program equivalent to his missed spring training, and possibly started the season at AA... I wouldn't be surprised if he would already have had better results.
