I admittedly don’t follow Astros prospects like y’all, but a friend of mine who lives and dies by following Astros farm system thinks Clifford is our best prospect, and the eventual Tucker replacement.
8th round pick Ryan Johnson is listed as a catcher on Fayetteville’s roster. He did play quite a bit of catcher at Pepperdine. If the org thinks he can stick there then that makes him a bit more interesting as a prospect.
1. OF Drew Gilbert 2. OF Colin Barber 3. OF/1B Ryan Clifford 4. OF Luis Baez 5. SS Brice Matthews 6. OF/IF Joey Loperfido 7. 3B Zach Dezenzo 8. RHP Spencer Arrighetti 9. OF Jacob Melton 10. OF/2B Pedro Leon 11. RHP Alonzo Tredwell I feel very comfortable those guys all belong firmly in Houston’s top 20. The system is very deep in guys that could justifiably be ranked in the 8-30+ range in the system. The guys I just ranked 2-7 I think are all vastly underrated by publications and I wouldn’t want to see them traded for anything other than a star player. Fwiw I think Korey Lee would have been between 4 and 8 on this list.
Excellent exit velos and hard hit rate, adequate defense at all 3 OF spots plus 2B and 1B. Speed. He’s held consistent double digit walk rates with a k rate between 20-23%. With the power he’s shown this season, even if his k rate ticks up a bit in the majors he’s still going to be an everyday player with value equivalent to somebody like Ryan McMahon or Daulton Varsho or Jared Kelenic. But a 25/15 season with good defense in RF is a borderline star player and I think that’s solidly in his range of potential outcomes. He will fall somewhere between Jon Kemmer and George Springer.
He understands cuts are coming and feels his potential career possibly going away? We all need wake up calls now and again. Either way its a good thing.
Cristian Gonzalez is 2-2 with a solo home run in the first game of a doubleheader in the FCL. This is also his first game of the season.
Damn shame there’s not more of the season left. He was a major breakout candidate before he got hurt; several places had him in the Org top 20 of their lists. If he were able to show enough at high A this year to warrant starting next season in AA, that would be a huge position sign, given his immense ceiling.
Just watched Brice Matthews get his first professional hit in first at-bat... Infield single... Then got thrown out trying to steal on a questionable call...
I think Clifford is at the very top of our prospect list as well. I'll be upset if we trade him... probably more than any other prospect. I like Gilbert and Barber as well. We may have to trade one of them, just given the potential logjam in the OF with existing and future players. I'm OK with trading any of the other prospects.
Couple more releases appeared: RHP Bryan Perez signed as an undrafted free agent in 2021 out of Glendale Community College. He was 0-1 with a 9.00 ERA in 20 appearances for Fayetteville this season. 1B Garrett McGowan was the 17th-round pick in 2021 out of Division II Pittsburg State. He hit 33 home runs in two seasons with the Gorillas but never got his bat going at the professional level. McGowan slashed .168/.263/.265 with 3 home runs and 11 RBI in 46 games with Fayetteville this season.
Jacob Melton went 4-5 with a double, 4 runs scored, and two stolen bases (39) for Asheville. Raimy Rodriguez allowed two hits, walked two, and struck out five over four scoreless innings in the second game of the FCL Astros' doubleheader, which they lost. Zach Dezenzo (7) and Kenedy Corona (18) homered for Corpus. Ryan Johnson hit his first home run as a pro and Luis Baez went 3-5 with a double for Fayetteville.
