Wilyer Abreu is coming off a 3 win season. Bryan De La Cruz would probably be a starting corner OF for Houston if he hadn’t been traded.
Congrats you've successfully identified one of the 2 international hitters that actually became something over the last 15 plus seasons. We actually traded both of them for rentals.
I would be interested in seeing an analysis of international signee production. The international amateur signing period in my estimation should only produce about 1/3 to 1/4 of the talent in the league. So back of the envelope if a team produces one big league position player a year, and really only one “good” position player every 3-4 years, they’re probably doing ok. Thats a total guess on my part; maybe most teams get way more than that. Houston has probably produced an average of 1 big league position player from their international signees per year, they just haven’t consistently produced “good” players (Teoscar Hernandez and Wilyer Abreu being the exceptions). Astros intl signees who got 50+ pa in the majors last season: Altuve Hernandez Abreu De La Cruz Enmanuel Valdez
I'm sure the average isn't particularly high, but we signed Altuve in March 2007, so it will be 18 years since then. Of course one, or even a few, of the kids currently in the system could be that guy, so maybe the worm has already turned for us. But 2 players (maybe I'm forgetting somebody) in 18 years has to be really bad by any standard. I wouldn't even uses the term good, we haven't even churned out many 5-7 year mediocre bench players. De La Cruz may be the next best and he's already a fringe MLB player with a negative WAR.
Could be awhile too. There are only 5 international signee position players slotted to start in the upper levels this season: Leon, Baez, Miguel Palma, Yamal Encarnacion, and Luis Encarnacion I was mildly surprised Gilberto Celestino wasn’t able to carve out a more robust big league career. I didn’t think he’d be a starting corner, but I did expect him to have a longer career as a reserve OF.
I went back and looked and yeah Houston hasn’t done a good job developing international position players. They have only graduated one guy every 2-3 years and since the start of the Luhnow era (~12 years) they have only produced 2-3 “good” players. Thats not gonna cut it.
Gomez has had a couple pretty big set backs but seems to have righted the ship. I am a believer in his ability to hit a baseball.
I suspect that the Astros also do not have a good track record with their domestic HS draft picks. 16-18 year old kids are exceptionally hard to project over a 4/5 year development period in the minor leagues.
Not 2 players 2 POSITION players When grading and evaluating the performance of the organization, you can't exclude the pitchers. Luhnow took over, the organization and completely changed it. 2012 forward is the best starting point to consider the current organization's success. It's also unfair to grade drafts for at least 3-4 years. Just a quick visual count with math in my head ( may be a bit off) Drafts 2012-2021 MLB (79) position (43) pitchers (36) Obviously what level of success those players had, where they were taken, expectations and how it relates to needs in the system, etc have an impact. Also, the fact that Luhnow understood the Astros had an advantage in Latin America in identifying overlooked/under valued pitching so likely put more resources into scouting pitching.
This has been an internal question through multiple regimes. It started with Luhnow putting a strong emphasis on arms, believing that they could find and mold more of these guys than hitters. It was the right call, and arguably no one in this generation of baseball has been better at identifying and developing international pitching from a bunch of guys 29 other teams passed on. When it comes to hitting - I have heard some speculate their isn't more success because there is such an emphasis on pitching - but I don't completely buy that. I know that the Astros have tried multiple people in decision making processes and it hasn't really gotten better. I am not the GM and obviously lack any qualifications, but if I were the GM I would look hard at bringing over some of the Padres guys to be involved.
The Astros spend more money on Pitching than Hitting in International Signings. Yankees spend all their International Money on Jasson Dominguez and it worked. Rarely it works, if the Prospect is very Confident and a Hard worker, High IQ.
Astros definitely need to spend more money in International Signings on Catchers, CenterFielders, Shortstops. CF and SS were mostly signed this Year. Hopefully they continue signings. Very surprised they don't sign LHP.
Seems like they mostly sign short stops every year. Freudis Nova, Dauri Lorenzo, Cristian Gonzalez, Camilo Diaz...all the big names I remember were short stops.
Freudis Nova was a Top prospect than a career ending knee surgery torn left ACL. That was a blow to the Astros. Retired at 25 yrs old. Signed for $1.2 million. That is sad.
