A bunch of guys reached minor league free agency this week: OF Colin Barber (former top prospect) C Miguel Palma (has been on the org top 30) 1B Jon Singleton P Matt Bowman P Tyler Ivey (former 3rd rd pick) P Luis Contreras OF Orlando Martinez P John Rooney OF Chas McCormick C Joe Hudson OF Kenedy Corona IF Greg Jones P Patrick Halligan (part of the Montero trade) P Jean Pinto (minor league rule 5 pick) P Anderson Bido (minor league rule 5 pick) Barber is probably the biggest miss I’ve had evaluating Astros prospects. A couple of years ago I rated him #1 in the system and was very confident he’d end up being at least a fringe regular OF. There are a handful of players in the upper minors still on rosters who have 7+ years of service time so I am not sure why they didn’t also elect free agency. Glenn Otto, Edwin Diaz, etc.
Houston is going to have to bring in some players to fill out the AAA position player roster. They just saw 4 OF who would’ve projected to AAA leave the organization in Pedro Leon, Kenedy Corona, Colin Barber, and Orlando Martinez, and they will very likely have to use at least one of their remaining young optionable OF (Melton, Dezenzo, Cole) to trade for a SP. Trades of guys like Urias or Sanchez may address that.
Anderson Brito, RHP, Astros (No. 7) Brito features some of the best stuff in the Fall League and showcased it during a scoreless third inning. He matched Karson Milbrandt (MIA No. 18) for the hardest fastball of the day at 99.0 mph, delivered another at 98.9 mph and averaged 98.1 mph with his heater. He also produced three of the five best spin rates on curveballs, ranging from 2,646 to 2,686 rpm. Won’t surprise me if Brito shows up on the back end of some top 100 lists next spring.
Going through my top prospect list and re-assessing some players. My current assessment of him is that his floor is that of a 7th inning set up man. Do you believe that he will remain in the rotation all the way to MLB?
Yes I think he will be developed as a SP until he proves he can’t succeed there. His ceiling is too high for them to prematurely relegate him to the bullpen.
James Hicks went 2-0 and allowed six hits, walked two, and struck out 19 in his 14 scoreless innings in Arizona.
Astros signed former marlins RP Anthony Maldonado. 27 year old who has posted elite k rates but bad walk rates. Killer slider with mediocre FB and poor ability to stay in the zone.
https://www.mlb.com/amp/news/top-30-arizona-fall-league-prospects-2025.html Anderson Brito and Walker Janek were rated #11 and #13 prospects in the fall league. Brito raised his stock tremendously and he will likely slot into the 80-120 range in most offseason prospect lists. Both guys would slot pretty firmly in most org’s top 10 prospects and along with X Neyens and Kevin Alvarez give Houston 4 really really high upside prospects who probably won’t graduate next season, really giving the farm a pretty positive medium term outlook.
Interesting comment from the fangraphs prospect guy on potential changes to the minors in the next CBA: 1:17 Sir Nerdlington: With the NCAA continuing to lose court cases and shoot themselves in the <redacted>, do you think we see changes to the draft pool in the next CBA to compete with D1 money or is this all working perfectly to transfer costs onto big 4 programs? 1:18 Eric A Longenhagen: In the view of MLB I think it’s the latter. I think we’ll see yet another affiliate eliminated in the next CBA, more development will occur at the Complexes (good for me as long as I live here, bad for baseball) and an attempt will be made to outsource development more to college programs. We may even end up with a one and done rule like the NBA instituted, or so I’ve heard from people in the game. Seems like High A would be the level to be eliminated, and it’s the only team in Houston’s system that isn’t fully owned by the Astros. I personally think fewer minor league affiliates would be really bad for MLB. If MLB requires a year of college, the first year that rule was in place would be the weakest draft in history.
Given the range of talent levels, I cant see losing anymore levels. Just having the complex level and a single A level, just gives two levels for the DSLers, HSers and the one-and-done JUCOers to figure everything out before AA (where the real prospects go to play). I am also not sure how the NIL eventually shakes out in college baseball. Is it really sustainable? I can see a solid future for NIL in college football, where rich alums love to spend. But for baseball? maybe only a handful of programs?
I think the idea is that college would effectively absorb one of the levels, since the best HS prospects would be forced there for a year. The complex leagues would then just become a 2-step incubator for international signees and rehab assignments. There would be one full season “development” league for college draftees and graduated international signees, then you’d continue to have AA as a proving ground and AAA as just a supplement to the big league roster. I don’t like it, mostly because I think part of what sustains baseball’s popularity is that so many people are able to play at the affiliated professional level and so many places are able to have local affiliated baseball to watch. I was against shrinking the draft for the same reason.
There are not too many top college baseball programs that will start freshmen .. or ... at least how they want t be featured. If a top HSer can not get drafted, he will want to go to a college team that will play him every game (position player) or will make him their Friday night starter (pitcher). And that top HSer will want to post great stats, so that they will get drafted first or second round. BTW I think that the one year of college will work great for the prospect as well as the MLB. The prospects should get some NIL money while learning to play against the next level of competition. MLB teams will then get to see the prospects play better competition for an entire season.
I think from a player development and earnings perspective it’ll be a wash, some guys will make more money and get developed better in college, others will make less and not get developed. Mainly I think it’s just worse for the game to have less teams/leagues/players affiliated with MLB.
