Was at the Skeeters game tonight. Solomon looked great although he did tend to get behind in the count towards the end of his outing. Still, only gave up one hit and one BB over 7 innings with 8 Ks. Pruitt started off a little shaky yielding some fairly hard contact but settled in and finished with 2 Ks. Have to assume he’ll be up before the end of the week. lineup was pretty quiet. DLC was robbed of a homerun and Meyers has a bloop single. From what I could observe Siri and Meyers both have plenty of speed and ability in the field.
Can we get Leon and Lee to SL already. LOL. Not much buzzing at Skeeters game talents wise. Meyers is intriguing. I’m not sold on Siri as a prospect. Solomon has been solid as a SP. Francis Martes is a mess. Does anyone know any thing about JP France? Strikeout a lot of hitters.
Sugar Land doesn’t have any top prospects but they have a lot of players who will play in the majors for awhile. Papierski projects to have a long career as a backup catcher. Matijevic has potential as a middle of the order bat. At this point Meyers will be at worst a long term 4th OF but has legit star potential. Stubbs, De Goti, and Dawson are all at least AAAA players. Bryan De La Cruz is someone the Astros think could be an everyday caliber OF. On the pitching side, every member of their staff is likely to see some time in the majors. Solomon, Dubin, Donato, and Conine have a chance to pan out into long term MoR/BoR SP. That said, next season’s AAA roster should have a lot more top end talent, with Lee, Leon, and Pena in the lineup and Whitley, Solis, and Hunter Brown in the rotation (at least later in the year).
I think Leon will get a lot more time at AA as he gets his K% down. He's made good progress so far. Here are his monthly rates: May 39% June 29% July 23% (small sample) I would like to see Leon get his K rate under 20% for a while before sending him up. Hopefully, it doesn't bottom out before then.
Ronnie Dawson has cooled off a lot since his hot May. He no longer looks like a prospect who has broken out and I would project him more as a 4th OF ceiling than an everyday guy. His power has just dropped off too much; that could be things normalizing, but he has also been hurt to its possible there's still potential there.
DSL transactions page show that Ayendy Ortiz and Jairo Jose were released. Ortiz signed for $240K back in 2018. Jose got $75K
4 guys added who weren’t previously announced (to my knowledge): IF Jesus Fernandez, P Jose Bolivar, P Chanderson Perez, OF Anderson Sanchez. Sanchez was a $350k bonus. Brief search for the others produced no bonus amounts, so safe to assume they were all <$200k.
I think there’s a distinct possibility that Lee would be more productive than our current primary catcher. Too bad he won’t be called up for another year or two.
Comparing Houston’s 2017 top 10 prospect list (when they were considered at top 10 farm) to now: 2017: 2021 Kyle Tucker : Tyler Whitaker; this is the biggest gap, as Whitaker is a poor man’s version of Tucker, with all the upside but a much bigger bust risk. Forrest Whitley : Whitley; obviously Whitleys stock is WAY down from 2017, but he still has the same ceiling, just a much higher bust risk. JB Bukauskas : Hunter Brown; Bukauskas was a fringe Top 100 prospect at that time, and I think Brown is pretty equal to that now. Yordan Alvarez : Pedro Leon; Alvarez was underrated, not even on most Top 100 lists. In terms of snapshot prospect value, I think Leon is on equal footing with 2017 Alvarez. David Paulino : Alex Santos; Santos has a much higher ceiling than Paulino and I would argue even a lower bust risk. Paulino was pretty touted at the time but I would still take 2021 Santos over 2017 Paulino. Cionel Perez : Jaime Melendez; Perez was also pretty highly thought-of, and it remains to be seen how much of Melendez’s breakout prospect evaluators are buying. From a stat/analytic perspective, Melendez wins out, but from a scout/hype perspective, Perez was probably a bit higher. Hector Perez : Jairo Solis; prior to Solis’ most recent injury this would have been an easy 2021 win, but now I think they’d be considered about equal, with Solis having higher upside but higher bust potential due to injury risk. Garrett Stubbs : Korey Lee; huge 2021 advantage here. Lee’s breakout makes him a likely top 100 guy and he has star ceiling. Stubbs was always a low ceiling/high floor type. JD Davis : Joe Perez; much like the Tucker/Whitaker comp, Perez is a kind of a poor mans version of Davis, although I think Perez has a higher ceiling due to more potential defensive value. All in all I would have them about equal. Freudis Nova : Jeremy Pena; Nova was a very high ceiling/high risk prospect who had considerable hype, whereas Pena is a relatively under-the-radar guy who has star potential combined with a pretty high floor. Nobody is comparing Pena to a guy like Hanley Ramirez like they were with Nova in 2017, but I think Pena is the more valuable prospect even if evaluating from a snapshot perspective. All that comparison to say, I think if you pull out Tucker/Whitley and Whitaker/Whitley from the comparison, the farms look to be on very equal footing, with 2021 possibly even having an advantage. Safe to say that Houston’s current farm has considerable upside and is at most only 2-3 good prospects/breakouts away from being rated as above average.
Great thing about the farm system is that it’s filling gaps when needed. The high end prospects aren’t consensus MLB elite prospects, but the minor league guys have some high floors. But there is hope some guys will have high ceilings too…. So far the prospect pipeline is looking good and healthy.
Longenhagen still compares Nova to Hanley Ramirez. He’s so much bigger and stronger now that some scouts who saw him both last fall and this spring think his ultimate destination may be first base, and that his body has already begun to look like that of late-career Hanley Ramirez.
