Agreed, I think Presley is probably the last outfielder that was protected, and there's a good argument DDJ should have been protected in his place. But at the time, Luhnow hadn't signed Rasmus yet, so it's likely that he viewed Presley as a possible starter on opening day in 2015. He does have a BA of .260 with over a 1000 PAs. These decisions are always easier in hindsight. In hindsight, not protecting DDJ was a mistake.
Looking back, this does look kind of silly. Grossman/Hoes/Presley seems really redundant. Makes sense to protect 1 or 2 of them as fill-ins for the MLB roster as needed, but there doesn't seem to have been much need for all 3.
It only doesn't make sense because of some of the guys we protected instead. However I don't really feel like we're missing anything from a production standpoint when the outfield is already crowded. I don't like giving the Rangers free players however.
I said that I was surprised they didn't protect him, I just am not jumping to the conclusion that he is a major loss. No, players typically earn their reputation, especially when you hear level after level. He was working his way up the system but he had been somewhat of an under achiever. He had been in the system 5 seasons and his OPS the last two seasons in the system was .698..... he wasn't exactly doing well. Yes, he is pretty bad defensively.
Agreed, if DDJ was somewhat struggling this year in AA/AAA I don't see why you couldn't flip him to a team for a fringy AAAA player if you needed one. Surely another team would trade an Alex Presley doppleganger to us for DDJ if you needed major league ready depth. I am not that high on DDJ but this does look like a mistake and I am sure Luhnow knows it. With that said, I am not going to lose sleep over it unless DDJ starts developing some home run power or continues to get XBH's at a high clip. Would definitely sting if he can maintain a .750 OPS all season. I keep waiting for him to drop off but the Astros remedied that during these series.
Seemed like a different guy post face-ball.... but where are you getting that OPS? I'm seeing OPS' of .818, .856, and .703 (post face-ball). How bad is he really? Preston Tucker in LF bad, Biggio in CF bad, or just not elite GG caliber bad? Obviously, teams can withstand certain deficiencies if the overall talent is there.... but I don't see future DH bad when looking at him run down balls in the gap. In the end, I agree he's not a loss to the current Astros... just a lost potential asset that had some investment behind him that could possibly have become something else (all the guys they protected were once like that too). Just got to minimize future occurrences... Luhnow has said as much.
i hated that he was no longer on the team or Jd but that was at the time it happened. Sweatboxrangers excluded, we have a chance to beat any team we face. We still lead the division with one of our top everday players missing. if you want to be mad at anyone, it's the royals! f' the royals. obvious by now, it was not 'accidental'.
At the same time, look what has happened with fringe players with little trade value like JD Martinez. Marc Krauss has been thought of highly enough to play for 3 different major league teams this season (I don't get it either).
I was as high as anybody on him looking back at that thread, and I thought he was unlikely to stick, though I was in favor of protecting him because speed, and BB-rate were so good.
There will always be talented busts... and there will always be the out of nowhere exceptions. Hanging on to DDJr would not have fit either of those categories... which is what makes it so puzzling. I doubt Luhnow was hanging on to those guys for fear he'd be losing the next JD Martinez... but I will say he's likely becoming more open-minded to players that were scouted/drafted/signed by regimes that didn't use his tried/true method that he brought over by the Cardinals. Everybody says DDJr probably doesn't get unprotected if he's drafted by Luhnow... but the thing is, Luhnow would have never picked a guy like him in the first round anyways.
This will be difficult, but at the time do give me a couple of scouting reports on JD Martinez and Marc Krauss and Robbie Grossman and whoever. All of this DDJr stuff is revisionist b.s. Nobody knew that he would be remotely this good.
I recall you were pretty high on him at the time... touting the speed/OBP as enough to warrant to protect him. I agreed with you then, and I agree with you now. These things are going to happen from time to time.
No doubt. He always had crazy talent, he just never put it together. I (and most everybody else) am shocked that he has done as well as he has with Dallas. It's great for him, maybe he just needed a change of scenery, but damn....
Certainly not unprecedented for players of his skill-set to be "late bloomers" (even though he's still only 22). I thought your Kenny Lofton comparison was spot-on (even though he doesn't possess the defensive skills Lofton had).... somebody who just takes awhile to put it all together, but has the physical speed and OBP instincts to stick.
I guess this is paying it forward for Willy Taveras (who is playing for the Skeeters...weird). Even if we had protected him, he's probably not with the big league club this year. He's more likely in AAA, and I doubt he performs better than Tucker or Santana, who absolutely obliterated AAA before being called up. He might have been a better option than those great times with Alex Presley or LJ Hoes, but that's about it. Losing him as a trade chip sucks, but on this team, he's not playing over Springer (or Gomez at this point), and would generally be a worse option than Rasmus, Tucker, or Gattis. Doubtful he'd take that much time from Marisnick, either.
Lol you TOTALLY missing the question. Has not a darn thing to do with drafting. We DID draft DD, you do grasp that right? And we inexplicably traded. Stupid move, but blind followers will follow a person off a cliff.
We didn't trade him either. You do grasp that, right? And that's the nature of baseball. Every team lets people they drafted go, and sometimes they go on to shine elsewhere.
It was a bad decision, everybody acknowledges it. What exactly is there to do about it now? Luhnow's has had many more hits than misses. I really see no purpose in questioning every one he gets wrong, because it is inevitably gonna happen.
