He's had a great turnaround, speaks to his development and hard work. Stros knew he had huge upside, just needs to work on the strikeouts. Hope he can continue his growth next year. .280 hitter with 20/20 ability to go along with our two stud CF draft picks and Pedro Leon? Hoping next year our CF group will all take a big step
Who will be the kid on the playoff roster whose sole purpose is to fly around the bases in the shortest amount of time? It seems like a pattern. In other words, who is the fastest base running prospect in the Astros Organization? It's not always the fastest in a straight race.
Asheville Effect applies to Daniels, but his home/road splits aren't overly dramatic (.312/.379/.545 at home, .252/.356/.470 away) and his away line is good enough to demonstrate that he's not totally a product of an extreme hitter's park. With 552 plate appearances in High-A through Sunday's games, Daniels has done enough over that span in order to move up. A 32.5% K rate will have to be cut down significantly, but given how he turned himself around after returning from the IL, improvement on that front could happen too. Would probably be in the 25-30 range on an end-of-season top prospect list.
Seems like an unusually high number of interesting low minors guys are running high K rates, which is usually a red flag on future potential. wonder what the org thinks about it and what they’re doing about it. As I’ve posted before, fangraphs posted some pretty interesting info on Toronto’s swing decision development methods. Clearly Houston must have some good stuff, because Bergman is captain great swing decisions.
I have noticed the last few years the K% creeping up for the lower level guys. I think it's almost an organizational decisions that they don't want them swinging at any balls out of the zone, so these guys are just taking so many pitches and taking lots of strike threes probably. I wonder if that concept will swing back the other way at some point as it becomes less of s focus to out pitches in the starter since they aren't going to be around anyways. If you only swing at 10 pitches a game, do you want those to be on two strike counts four times against the starter and six times against guys throwing 100 out of the pen or on balls thrown earlier in the count? There is some good research on outcomes based off the pitching count that point towards swinging earlier in the count being advantageous for the hitter.
Seem like Click is attracted to high ceiling speed/power guys which lends itself to strikeout risk. What I don’t know is if it’s just because they think the risk reward is worthwhile on its own or if they think they have a secret sauce to help those guys reduce the risk/strikeouts.
Guys who have 20+ HR power with contact ability to realistically project a k rate <20% who can also play up the middle are unicorns. They usually get drafted high in the first round. The only other way they come is if they don’t project for power but then find it after turning pro, which usually means they were international signees that were scrawny at 17 and grow more than expected. Springer is a more realistic fantasy. An elite speed/power/defense guy who wasn’t drafted higher due to strikeout concerns. And Springer struck out a decent amount but got better as he aged which made him a star level player. That’s what the ceiling of guys like Daniels, Cerny, Gilbert, Melton, and Brewer would be.
George Springer had So Many Batting Stances during his Career with the Astros Upright Normal Batting Stance made him a Consistent Hitter
I would say Leon But one of the publications ( BA?) Rated Cerny the fastest baserunner in the system pre season.
Would you clarify whether Leon is injured or still playing? I thought his season was finished with a facial fracture and then a post about him hitting a HR.
Fangraphs has:Barber, Leon, Cerny, and Brewer with 60 grades on speed. MLB pipeline has Leon and Cerny at 70.
He's been playing since 08/28. You can see his stats and game logs here https://www.milb.com/player/pedro-leon-694175?stats=gamelogs-r-hitting-mlb&year=2022
I think I remember Fisher played that role in 17 and/or 18. I thought Tucker played that role before he was a fixture in RF. But I could be wrong. If Leon can run and catch, I wouldn't mind him replacing an IR candidate on the playoff roster as a PR and late inning defensive OF.
