Really good point on Yanier. That's what I think of Matthews. I really think he's going to put it together.
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/building-a-consensus-top-hitting-prospect-list-by-peak-projected-ops/ A fangraphs analyst compiled several projection systems to come up with a prediction for prospects’ peak OPS+ and ranked them. Cam Smith is the only Astro on the list, with a projected peak OPS+ of 119. Assuming that peak is pretty closely sustained over several seasons, that would make him a Yainer Diaz type of hitter. If he can play a good 3B or RF, that makes him a really really good player. Worth noting that Ryan Clifford (Astros prospect traded to NYM for Verlander) is the only former Astros prospect on the system, with a projected OPS+ peak of 120.
More great content from fangraphs for prospect week: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/picks-to-click-who-i-expect-to-make-the-2026-top-100/ 2 Astros prospects were mentioned in their article about prospects they think will make future top 100 lists: P Ethan Pecko and P Anderson Brito. I have really gotten optimistic about Pecko. I think the AA rotation will be very underrated. I was a bit surprised that Walker Janek wasn’t mentioned.
I believe Janek will need to start out very well this season to be taken seriously after what seemed like a less than stellar first season offensively. Do you know what is going on with RHP Parker Smith? Can't find anything on him since draft day. I really liked the pick but he seems to have vanished.
He threw 89 innings in his college season so they weren’t going to ramp him back up last year. Unless there’s an unannounced injury I expect him to start 2025 in Fayettevilles tandem rotation.
I hope he does - but I don’t like the bat and never have. Maybe he proves me wrong but just don’t trust his hit skill enough to be a starting big leaguer:
Highly recommend listening to the new Crush City Territory podcast. They brought in Astros legend Oz Ocampo to discuss his contributions to the international scouting department working under Lunhow. Very interesting to hear how we were one of the first front offices to discover a market inefficiency in how scouting, player development, and analytics operated in Latin America. Oz was able to bring it all together to help us identify numerous key players.
I look at things pretty similarly to ZiPs. The Astros don't have nearly as many guys who's stats pop in a way that gives more confidence that a player will translate to the majors well. There is roughly a $200M surplus value gap between the best farm and the worst farm. 2 garden variety Top 50 prospects is worth about $90M. Saying "They are 2 Top 50 prospects away from being an above average system" is about the nicest way of saying "We're not the absolute worst farm system." Caveat: These dollar numbers are a little dated, but inflation should hit them in similar ways.
At the end of the day, you only need one fielding prospect to pan out a year for you to be really good.
I am mostly highlighting 2 things: The difference between a poorly rated farm and a highly rated farm can come down to 1-2 prospects. The Astros have good depth, something that is not even considered by most of the sites/analysts when ranking farm systems (they tend to focus solely on the top 150-300 prospects in the league).
I don't care how well the farm is rated because we have turned out a lot of good players with a very poorly rated farm since 2019. I do think we need to do a better job at developing hitters. We can create diamonds out of coal on the pitching side but can't get seem to develop an above average major league hitter. Maybe we start taking the Morey route and trade our pitchers for hitters.
It is easier to develop a pitcher than a hitter. Pitching is more teachable as a skill. Those guys have natural muscle control and hand eye co ordination that is far beyond most peoples to start with. Then they have to learn a whole set of skills to become actual pitchers. That process is the difference between an athlete and a pitcher. A hitter needs to have natural muscle control and hand eye co ordination to a much greater degree and think geometrically naturally. They are much rarer in any draft class. What they can be taught is a smaller part of the total package of skills and the rest is mostly just repetition and conditioning. Line up 1000 guys with the natural abilities to become a useful player. Draft the 20 best pitchers and spend four or five years developing them and you will make a few pitchers. A hitter is required to learn to defend a position. That is the most teachable part of his job. The hitting is much more about natural abilities. Everyone has them to some degree. To have them at a level to be competitive is very rare. To become nuanced enough to stand out is very rare indeed. Take that same 1000 guys and draft the 20 best hitters and spend four or five years developing them. You can teach them to defend a position but will be lucky to find one with the natural ability to hit at an elite level. Those players are mostly gone in the first few picks. Drafting nearly last year after year gives you almost no chance at selecting one of those elite natural hitters. If you want some in your system you have to find some in other ways. Trading for them, looking for them on the international market, combing through undrafted players and investing in finding the very best talent still available when you draft. It is easy to draft well at the top of the draft. It takes a lot to draft well when you are drafting last.
Out of that good depth it's likely to have one above avg starting level player and one star level player emerge every 3 or so years. In the meantime you've got great depth to fill in when injuries hit.
Minor league Notes from today’s televised ST game against the Nats: Ryan Gusto looked great. Trey Dombroski looked good. Cam Smith looks destined for RF/1B but is still a good looking athlete and showed a good eye at the plate. Colin Barber had a good game at the plate and ripped a grounder up the 1B line for a hard hit double but misplayed a long hit to the wall in LF. Good to see IF Cristian Gonzalez playing. He was a rising prospect and in the org top 20 coming into 2022 before losing 2023 and 2024 to injury. At one point it looked like he might end up growing to like 6’6” and being an O’Neil Cruz level athlete, but he topped out at 6’4” and looks like now he’s fillled out quite a bit. He’s a deep sleeper at this point but still a big kid with good defensive value and lots of offensive potential. His brother Cristopfer Gonzalez is even bigger (legit 6’5” at 18 years old) and is a prospect to watch in the DSL.
He’s huge. Even though he’s clearly a good athlete for his size but at 230 lb at age 22 it seems to me very unlikely he maintains the lateral quickness to be a decent 3B. I hope I’m wrong.
For some context, of the 29 players who got 400+ pa at 3B in MLB last season, only 3 were as big as Smith is now: Rafael Devers (who is a bad defensive 3B and the Sox are trying to move to DH), Jake Burger (who was a bad defensive 3B who got traded to the Rangers to play 1B), and Austin Riley (a viable but below average defensive 3B). Now that I look at it, Riley might be a good realistic ceiling comp for Smith.
Alberto Hernandez was fangraphs org #2 prospect last year. He doesn’t strike out much so how much power he can generate will determine where he ends up in his range of outcomes between a AAA glove and an average everyday MLB SS. Brito has a lot of helium.
