Of all the position players the Astros have developed internally who have posted at least one 3+ fwar season for them in the last decade, Altuve and McCormick are the only ones who weren’t on any Top 100 lists before they came up (unless you count Marwin, who was a Rule 5 guy). Correa, Pena, Bregman, Tucker, Springer, and Alvarez were all Top 100 prospects, with Correa, Bregman, and Tucker being Top 20 guys.
You can view rankings for players by viewing their Baseball-reference pages and clicking minor league stats. They show BA, MLB, & BP top 100 rankings. BP was very high on Pena, ranking him for 3 years, and as high as 16. TheBaseballCube will show you some more prospect rankings if you search a player on there including where they were ranked at the team level.
Why on earth would I explore these numbers when you already have them. that would be an outward display of initiative, which I like to keep close to the vest. The more people see you do. The more they expect. I have my wife trained to get excited when I put the toilet seat down at this point.
Between all the different rankings and then re-ranking after guys graduate and before the season is complete, so a lower pool of overall players...I think a better way to discuss this would be what astros players were consensus top 50 players. The list shrinks down drastically. Between all the lists, you are looking at 150 guys making one list or another, then after 15 or 20 guys graduate the pool of players are so low. Jeremy Pena was not a highly acclaimed prospecto. Yainer Diaz was not a highly acclaimed prospect. Springer and Correa were of course. Whitley was. Tucker was. Bregman was. Javier was not. Luis García was not.
The pandemic season created a weird stasis period for prospects. Maybe they wouldn't have been consensus top 50, but if the 2020 season had played out as scheduled Luis Garcia and Jeremy Pena would have been consensus top 75 players at some point. I think there's a good chance Javier and Meyers would have appeared on lists as well.
Melton's age/level numbers do compare favorably (only slightly) to Chas's, but Tucker as a 20 year old at AA was putting up better numbers across the board than Melton is as a 23 year old at AA. Tucker's age 20 AA numbers are more what I would expect from a MLB top 40 prospect than Melton's age 23 AA numbers.
I think Melton is somewhat similar to Springer in they were both power/speed guys with swing and miss concerns. Melton’s AA numbers match up pretty well with Springer’s; Melton may end up with less power but more speed, but still similar value.
As a 23 year old, Springer had a .978 OPS in AA in 323 PA then got promoted to AAA and put up a 1.050 OPS in 266 PA. So far this season Melton has a .788 OPS in 134 PA. Let's see if Melton heats up, but I think Springer's numbers put him a tier or two above Melton as a prospect.
Colin Barber (4) and Pascanel Ferreras both homered for Corpus Christi tonight. Ferreras has six home runs on the season, so he's hit three for Asheville and now three for Corpus.
The Astros believe he can play CF. They kept Melton over the two prospects the Mets got for Verlander - because they believed in Melton in CF and the other guy they felt was a corner guy. Melton is the classic very high ceiling but very low floor prospect. Blazing speed with tons of athleticism and power.
Pena and Alvarez were added to the top 100 lists late - after they had already broken out, and neither were valued close to their actual performance… I got into a full blown argument with Keith Law over Alvarez because he claimed he couldn’t put Alvarez in the top 50 because of his glove. Same with a lot of Astros prospects… Framber, Javier… Urquidy made some top 100 lists late… McCullers was top 75. Tucker was top 15-20 but that was an under estimate as well. Yanier Diaz even snuck in some top 100 lists.
