Yeah that blurb about the 2019 draft was silly, considering the loss of draft picks and that the best player the farm produced since was a trade acquisition in Diaz.
He is not a big guy, but he is also very flexible and has some natural deception to him. If he gets stronger, he could move up quickly.
We had 4 draft picks in 2020 (the first being 72nd pick). Our 2nd pick decided to retire despite a promising last season at AA. There are 3 guys from that draft class drafted after the 72nd pick that have produced 1 WAR: Spencer Strider, Bryce Elder, and Colt Keith. Our current GM just happened to be in charge of drafting 2 of those 3. In 2021, our first pick was 87th. I'd bet in a re-draft today Arrighetti would be a 1st rounder, and Loperfido/Wagner wouldn't be far behind. It was a spectacular draft given our draft position (and then extra so when you factor in not signing our 2nd pick). What BS to say they haven't been good at drafting when they haven't had the chance to even be judged.
Exactly. Their top 2 picks in 2022 were Gilbert and Melton, two fringe Top 100 guys who have exceeded their draft slot so far. Matthews has raised his stock since being drafted and is a fringe top 100 guy as well. The loss of picks really hurt and was exacerbated by the shortened 2020 draft. This farm system is roughly average. It’s reasonable to say it’s below average but ranking them anything lower than about 20th is showing ignorance or just dismissing an org’s ability to identify and develop talent.
Ronel Blanco is in the mix as well. I bolded the pitchers that the Astros produced. Can anyone notice a trend? There will be a pitcher not on anyone's bingo card who will contribute next season.
First - the point of a farm system is to produce wins at the big league level. That can be drafting players in the typical US draft, that can be the international draft, signing or trading for minor leaguers that become big leaguers. So - drafting well in the US draft is only part of the equation and Law knows that - and he also knows that if you go back to 2019, the Astros have produced multiple good big league pitchers from the INTERNATIONAL draft.... so he decides to limit to the US draft. Second - Law started having an issue with the Astros when they got really deep in advanced stats and that type of scouting. People think of Law as a progressive evaluator, and he was 25 years ago but he isn't at this point and he relies very much on pure physical measures (speed, size, velocity) and then VERY simple non physical measures (walk rate/contact rate). He has decided to die on the hill that this is the proper way to evaluate players and the fact the Astros did not do that really caused issues. Third - Law is very politically liberal on social issues and causes. When Taubman for the Astros made comments to the female reporter, and the Astros signed Osuna --- that really upset Law and it caused bad blood between Law and the Astros ownership group.
Sportswriters are stuck in trying to justify their very flawed mock drafts. Almost like it’s an afront by teams to buck their system. Even Luhnow who fired blanks with the Aikens and Appel picks, admitted that they learned to measure more data. But admitted that their internal formulas had those guys at the front of the pack, they eventually tweaked their system after each pick. So they learned and added what they learned to help pick smarter next time. Aikens bailed out the Astros by not signing, gifting us Bregman. But the National sportswriters are losing their grip on the narrative, as most fans do not flock to read their opinions anymore.
Coming into the 22 season the Astros farm had Hunter Brown, Jeremy Pena, Yainer Diaz and Wilyer Abreu in it, all at advanced levels. It was as usual one of the "worst" in baseball. Coming into 23 it had Diaz, Arrighetti, Blanco and a few other guys who haven't gotten a long look in the majors yet, but should very soon. We'll see how "terrible" that one looks in a few years.
This is what pisses me off when assholes say we weren't punished of sign scandal. It hurt really bad. Those draft picks could have been trade deadline capital to improve the team these last few years.
Let’s check the Astros drafting prowess by analyzing their current 40 man roster: 15 members of their 40 man roster were players they drafted. 4 members of their 40 man roster were acquired via trade by Houston trading away a player they drafted (Diaz, Paredes, Wesneski, Dubon). 1 member of their 40 man roster were acquired thru the minor league Rule 5 draft (King). So 20 members of their 40 man roster is made up of players they drafted. 7 more were developed via international amateur signings (Altuve, Framber, Blanco, Javier, Garcia, Abreu, Leon). So the majority of their current team was the result of their farm system. For completeness, Houston has 3 true free agents (Walker, Hader, Caratini) and 9 players acquired via under the radar transactions like small trades, waiver claims, minor league free agents, etc. (Alvarez, Scott, Ort, Singleton, Trammell, Hummel, Sousa, Corona, Contreras). Of their top 20 projected players in terms of 2025 fwar, 17 of them were acquired via the farm system. They are currently rated the 9th best roster in MLB.
More anecdotes: Hunter Brown is the 5th most productive pitcher from the 2019 draft (bWAR). Jeremy Pena is the 2nd most productive SS from the 2018 draft (bWAR). Chas McCormick and Jake Meyers are the 2nd and 3rd most productive OF from the 2017 draft (bWAR). Houston’s only real dud of a draft since 2011 was 2016, which still produced Jake Rogers (Verlander trade), Abraham Toro (Graveman trade), and Forrest Whitley (TBD).
Chris Creamer's SportsLogos story features the updated Corpus logos. I see the fauxback logo has essentially become a primary logo in this scheme. The "Sparkling City" unis refer to Corpus Christi's nickname, Sparkling City by the Sea. 7.75/10, will probably grow on me Unis: 3/10 because they look like giveaway night jerseys Also getting a throwback based on the 1836 Texas flag...
Dont forget about Blanco. I would say a system that produces Blanco and Arrighetti in the same year is a pretty good system. I take the National guys like Law's opinions with a grain of salt.
They were punished, but not enough to run the train off of the tracks and that's what pisses the National guys/fans of other teams off. The fact that they were still able to add 4 or 5 good prospects in those years without having rd 1-2 picks should've been expected. The Stros developmental system is what makes them so good and the national guys dont seem to understand this.
If evaluators had benefit of hindsight, Yanier Diaz and Hunter brown would’ve probably been top 5-15. I don’t believe either was ever much higher than 50. Every time these publications want to list us as bottom tier, they should be required to have an asterisks for the amount of times they underrated an Astros prospect.
A good example of this would be. Look at the Mets catcher Francisco Alvarez. He was i believe the top prospect in baseball or the #2. He came up around the same time as Yanier. Look who has become the better pro. You can't tell me that guy was best catching prospect and just 1 of the best overall prospects in baseball. And yet Yanier didn't crack any top 100 lists.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6109796/2025/02/05/astros-2025-top-20-prospects-keith-law/ “It’s just not a very good system, with nobody I would comfortably project as more than a fourth starter or a utility infielder/extra outfielder after Smith.” 1. Cam Smith, 3B (No. 43 on the top 100) Smith was a draft-eligible sophomore last year who reworked his swing and his body to surge to a .387/.488/.654 line in his sophomore year at Florida State, raising his average by over 100 points, and landing with the Cubs at the No. 13 pick. He then had the best pro debut of any prospect in the draft, hitting .313/.396/.609 across three levels and finishing up in Double A. That ended his Cubs career, as they traded him to Houston in the Tucker deal this offseason, immediately making him the Astros’ No. 1 prospect. Smith’s swing gets the bat to the zone quickly, and he makes a lot of very hard contact, topping out over 115 mph in the spring for Florida State, and the Cubs already managed to get him to lift the ball more often to turn that loud contact into more power. He’s only played third base since signing and that’s his best long-term outcome; that seemed like wishful thinking as recently as 2023, but his improved conditioning gives him a chance to stay there, with first base or right field also possibilities. He looks like he can flat-out hit, and might get to 25 homers too. If he does that as a third baseman, he might be able to fill Alex Bregman’s shoes in Houston and make a few All-Star teams. 2. Jacob Melton, OF Melton hit .253/.310/.426 combined between Double A and Triple A last year, and continued to fail to hit lefties at all, with a .235/.302/.296 line against them that only underscores his future as a platoon player. He’s a 70 defender in center and has real juice against righties, with a .479 slugging percentage off them last year and 14 of his 15 homers, although he is never going to be an on-base threat against righties or lefties. Houston took Melton in the second round in 2022, after the since-traded Drew Gilbert. He’s 24 now so further development is unlikely, but not impossible. 3. Brice Matthews, SS Houston’s 2023 first-round pick, Matthews got off to a misleadingly “hot” start in High-A Asheville, one of the best hitters’ parks in the minors, hitting .321/.423/.580 there for 21 games. It started to come apart in Double A, where he hit a respectable .252/.376/.497 but struck out 34 percent of the time, and then he didn’t hit at all in a dozen games in Triple A. He can’t hit breaking stuff at all right now, even missing a lot of sliders in the zone, and he didn’t do much with good velocity when he saw it. He’s a 55 defender at short and an easy plus runner who could probably handle center. The Astros moved him around the infield instead, giving him some time at third and a few games at second. He’s still very pull-oriented, with most of his fringy power out to left, which may be contributing to some of the trouble with breaking balls. It might be a 40 hit tool, with defense and speed enough to get him to the majors as a utility infielder. He did have a back injury early in the year that could have affected his game, so it’s possible we’ll see better results in 2025 once he’s had an offseason to reset. 4. Zach Dezenzo, 3B/1B Dezenzo dealt with a wrist injury much of 2024 but hit well in the minors when he played, and showed some hard contact in his very short time in the majors. He even played a bit in the Puerto Rican Winter League this offseason to get more at-bats, something I wish more teams would encourage players to do to help both those players and that league in general. He kept his contact rate up through his time in Triple A without losing any of that contact quality, with a hard-hit rate of 53 percent on the 70 balls he hit into play. He’s an above-average defender at third who played a little left field in San Juan and looked good enough to make that an option as well. It wasn’t a great year between the injuries and the tough look in the majors, but Dezenzo should be an average regular somewhere for the Astros this year if they give him another shot. 5. Walker Janek, C Janek had a reputation as the best defensive catcher in the 2024 draft class, which is why the Astros took him in the first round with the No. 28 pick last July. He has a plus arm and is an above-average receiver when he’s at full strength, which is the key question about him after he looked bad in his pro debut. Scouts who saw him in A-ball were surprised how slow everything looked, both on defense and at the plate. He struck out 30 times in 103 PA in Asheville, an aggressive assignment for a kid from a mid-major program but also a tremendous place to hit. He had just four walks there and a line of .175/.214/.289. He’s diabetic, so the question is whether he was showing normal fatigue after a long spring, or the effects of the illness. If he can handle the workload at a very physically demanding position, he has power and the potential for plus defense, which would make him a potential everyday catcher or better. 6. A.J. Blubaugh, RHP Blubaugh was primarily a reliever at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee when the Astros took him in the seventh round in 2022, so 2023 was his first full year as a starter, making his rapid gains in 2024 a little easier to understand. He held his stuff well over the course of the year and spent most of the season in Triple A, striking out 24.5 percent of batters he faced, using a whole kitchen sink to do it — four-seamer, sweeper, cutter, changeup, and occasionally a curveball. He used the changeup a lot more and got chases on it, but it’s maybe a 45 and he needs to keep working on his feel for it or just try to use the cutter for lefties. It’s a high slot and command might always limit his ceiling to that of a fourth starter. His probability of sticking in the rotation has gone up substantially since last offseason. 7. Chase Jaworsky, SS Jaworsky was Houston’s fifth-round pick in 2023, a hard-nosed shortstop who should stick at the position, runs above average to plus, and makes a ton of contact. He hit .233/.335/.346 last year as a 19-year-old in Low A, striking out only 20.7 percent of the time, lacking power or hard contact for now. It was a big jump from Colorado high school competition to Low A and he hit better than I would have guessed — especially since he played through a broken finger for the last month of the season. He may take three to four more years to develop, and it will depend a lot on strength, but he has the ceiling of an everyday shortstop. 8. Jose Fleury, RHP 9. Luis Baez, OF Baez has some big tools, but I’m worried that “hit” might not be one of them, not after a .263/.300/.479 line in one of the best hitter’s parks in the minors, Asheville. He hit .214/.267/.375 on the road last year, including a few games in Double A, and his approach in any park leaves a lot to be desired, with a 34 percent chase rate and huge whiff rates on breaking stuff. Data from Synergy Sports show him seeing more sliders than fastballs last year, probably because, as the Stereophonics said, word gets around. He does have at least 60 power with the exit velocities to back that up, and he still hit 21 homers last year even with all of his holes at the plate. He’s big already for 21, not needing projection, but almost certain to end up in right field (thanks to a plus arm), so he really has to hit. He should return to Double A, since Asheville isn’t a great spot for developing a hitter; just keep your expectations low in the early going. 10. Ethan Pecko, RHP Drafted in the sixth round in 2023 out of Towson, Pecko blew through Houston’s system last year en route to winning their minor league pitcher of the year award. He started in Low A and missed a ton of bats (33 percent) with a few too many walks, but the Astros moved him up, and he performed better in High A, so they moved him up again, and he just kept rolling even as the Astros had him take some turns in long relief to manage his innings. Pecko worked on his conditioning last offseason and showed up in 2024 in better shape, along with bringing another 3+ mph on his high-spin fastball. That’s his best pitch, with huge carry and run, and the highest whiff rate among his arsenal; his slider and curve also have high spin rates but they’re short and the slider is slow, in the low 80s, so neither misses many bats. He’s already come a long way and should be able to make some further adjustments, like altering the slider (I hate to say it, but maybe a sweeper would be better) to try to find a second above-average pitch. His delivery works and he throws strikes to start if he can get something else beyond the heater.
11. Anderson Brito, RHP 12. Kenni Gomez, OF 13. Shay Whitcomb, SS Whitcomb is best known for his work on “Boardwalk Empire” and in several of the “Fast & Furious” movies, although I especially enjoyed his turn as a sodden detective in “See How They Run” … wait, I’m being told I have the wrong guy. Let’s try again: Whitcomb reached the majors last year, four years after the Astros took him with the final pick in the 2020 draft, making him that year’s Mr. Irrelevant (in the fifth round, of course). He’s a true shortstop with surprising power, hitting 35 homers in 2023 between Double A and Triple A, then 25 last year in Triple A before the Astros called him up to play some third and second. That last bit didn’t go so well, but he hit the ball hard, and often, and he could probably hit 20 homers with a low .300s or even .290ish OBP if someone let him play every day. He’s 26, so what you see is what you get. 14. Miguel Ullola, RHP Ullola threw 130 1/3 innings last year, all but three in Double A, striking out 171 batters (31.1 percent) but walking 77 (14 percent), finishing third in all of the minors in both categories — the only pitcher to appear in the top 10 in both categories. It’s a huge fastball that’s been up to 98, although it was 93-95 last year, coming from a low slot with big extension, so hitters hate it. He’s messed around with several other pitches, including a slider/cutter thing (they call it a slider, Statcast tagged it as a cutter), a sinker, a changeup that’s functional, and a curveball with a surprisingly low spin rate but huge 12/6 break. None of them are plus, and he mixes them all, even throwing the breaking stuff to lefties, without running into much trouble except that of his own making. I don’t even see why he’s so wild — the delivery is fine, I think he’s getting to a consistent enough release point, maybe it’s too many types of pitches? — but at some point the evidence wins out. You can’t be a big-league starter walking one of every seven hitters; only one major-league starter qualified for the ERA title last year and walked even 10 percent of hitters, let alone 14 percent. Put him in the bullpen, get him to stick to three pitches, and let ‘er rip. 15. Ryan Forcucci, RHP 16. Cole Hertzler, RHP 17. Zach Cole, OF 18. James Hicks, RHP 19. Jackson Nezuh, RHP 20. Alonzo Tredwell, RHP 2025 impact Dezenzo and Whitcomb should get significant time in the majors this year, even if it’s only in backup roles. Blubaugh is in the queue of arms to make a few starts when there’s an inevitable injury, especially with several Astros pitchers trying to come back from surgeries. The fallen The Astros didn’t have a first- or second-round pick in 2021 due to the sign-stealing scandal, so their first pick was Las Vegas-area high school outfielder Tyler Whitaker, who has never hit at all in the minors. He started 2024 in Asheville, which as I’ve mentioned is a great place to hit, and posted a .205/.316/.311 line in two months before an injury ended his season. Sleeper Janek is by far the most likely guy after Smith to end up on the top 100 a year from now — he’s a catcher, he has power, he can defend, it’s a low bar back there. ________________________________ Thirty ROY candidates to watch in spring training 18. Cam Smith, 3B/LF, Astros Age: 21 Bats: R Throws: R Height 6-3 Weight: 224 Smith was the prospect headliner in the four-player trade that sent Kyle Tucker to the Cubs. He was the 14th-overall player selected in last year’s draft. Houston GM Dana Brown, like Minasian of the Angels, is not afraid to push talented young prospects and the Astros believe Smith is close to being able to contribute in the majors. With Isaac Paredes at third base, Smith will most likely end up in left field for Houston. The Astros believe he’s a future .300 hitter with 20-plus-home run power.
