Tucker Bregman Cameron Phillips Fisher Appel Feliz Nottingham Pending their short season results of course. If Daz just comes in and rakes he could easily become the top guy. Same with the other 2.
By the way, sneakily Tyler Heineman has been raking this year. After playing injured last year he has bounced back in a big way. Like him quite a bit as a prospect.
The complete lack of power will probably keep him from the bigs unless he's a phenomenal defensive catcher, but if he can starter mustering an ISO above .100 in AAA then there's hope. He's still so young that there's reason for optimism, though.
He will be up in the big leagues before 2017. He projects well and college prospects this high up tend to hit the majors within two years.
Domingo Santana might be gone by the deadline. I'm thinking the Reds being a landing point mainly because I see them shedding some of their guys such as Jay Bruce and Brandon Phillips to other teams after all-star game. Maybe before. Domingo could easily start for them. I think a package of Domingo Santana and two B/C prospects (insert a pitcher or two) could net Cueto.
It would be nice if that happened but ... unlikely. 2015: A- 2016: A+/AA 2017: AA/AAA 2018: MLB and that is aggressive. As a point of reference, Tony Kemp drafted 2013 2013: Tri-City/A- 2014: A+/AA 2015: AA and likely AAA to end
Yeah its fast, but Luhnow is pretty high on him. He will be up unless we find our 3B and 1B before 2017. Could be dealt after this if no spot available, but I think with him being a SS he could play at 3B/1B (look at bagwell) or OF.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Astros?src=hash">#Astros</a> No. 16 prospect <a href="https://twitter.com/musgrove23Stros">@musgrove23Stros</a> promoted to <a href="https://twitter.com/cchooks">@cchooks</a>. He pitched six-one hit innings Saturday for <a href="https://twitter.com/JetHawks">@JetHawks</a>. <a href="http://t.co/Wut43sdkyC">http://t.co/Wut43sdkyC</a></p>— MiLB.com (@MiLB) <a href="https://twitter.com/MiLB/status/608421954299801600">June 9, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> Love it.
Mark Appel and Kyle Westwood were the Hooks' tag team in Midland tonight. Corpus won 5-2. Appel: 5 IP, 3 H (2 solo homers), 2 ER, 3 BB, 5 K Westwood: 4 IP, 2 H, BB, 6 K
Appel with one of his best stat lines of the year. 5 K's and only 3 Hits in 5 innings. 8 K's, 5 Hits, 3 BB's in 10 innings over his last 2 starts. First time since the beginning of the year he has put together 2 straight good outings. Still a long way to go before I even feel remotely good about him again, but it's a start. Frankly at this point Appel is a lottery ticket. He may develop, he may not, but that expectation isn't there anymore. Nor is his development essential to our future. Sure would help though.
Still hopeful he can put some good starts together. Not giving up a ton of hits his last 2 starts is a good sign even if 2 of the hits were HR's. His pitch count has been 62 and 70 respectively his last 2 outings in 5 IP's. Pretty solid. Hopefully something has clicked to where he is getting weak contact a majority of the time. Any advanced stat gurus see any trends that we can be optimistic about? Or should I not hold my breath with this guy?
At this point I've pretty much resigned myself to the probability that if Appel turns into something in the majors, it probably won't be for the Astros. I keep reading people saying his stuff is there, just the results aren't. That makes it feel like a personal thing to me. I'm thinking he may end up being like JD Martinez (who figures it out after given ample opportunity with the Stros but gets cut or traded) or like Scott Elarton (never really reaches his potential but flashes just enough on occasion to hang around with the big club for a few years before people get fed up with him not amounting to much).
Sounds to me like he's having trouble with his change up (or another pitch), but keeps throwing it because he needs to work on it to get to the majors as a starter. He's basically 30 consecutive innings of having his stuff work as a starter from the majors. If he never gets that, he'll come up as a reliever to not be a complete wasted pick.
Kemp would likely be a prime candidate for ML promotion this year if the team didn't already have Altuve. He may still push his way onto the roster if Gonzalez and Villar continue to play themselves off the team. But he's a terrific comp for Bregman: 4-year SEC senior, right? The only difference: Bregman was 2nd overall pick, so he might be accelerated.
I continue to think Altuve might not be in the Astros' long-term plans. He's virtually untradeable right now; he's the default face of the franchise and the team needs to promote stability. But I just have a hunch he's not a Luhnow guy; a one(ish)-dimensional hitter who's fairly worthless if he's not collecting hits, which is a difficult way to maintain a career.
Don't hold breathe. His BB% is up. His K% is down. Without seeing him this year, I suspect he is just working on a third pitch and it is not not going well. On the plus side, Astros seem to promote AA pitchers quickly when it comes together. McCullers put up some pretty bad stats last year working on his change up.
While I don't think Altuve is set in stone in long-term plans, I still think he's more in than out. Luhnow just wants value, IMO, and has shown that he'll take one-dimensional guys that have an MLB track record. Granted, Luhnow would seem less likely to bet much on a guy with Altuve's skill set without the MLB track record.
