FG Mets #23 prospect in 2024: McLoughlin was part of the Fairfield squad that made beat Arizona State en route to a Regional finals loss to Texas in 2021. In part due to shoulder bursitis, McLoughlin didn't pitch a ton during his third and fourth years at Fairfield. He's been healthy and productive as a pro reliever, climbing all the way to Binghamton and the Arizona Fall League in 2023. He's back at Binghamton to start 2024. McLoughlin has three big league-quality pitches. His fastball only sits 90-92, but it lives off of deception and McLoughlin's ability to locate it up and to his arm side with consistency. He has a nasty splitter that looks like his fastball out of hand before dropping off the table, and McLoughlin commands his slider to his glove side and can land it in the top of the zone in sequence with his heater. All the pieces of McLoughlin's repertoire fit together, his command makes each of his pitches sing, and he mixes them evenly enough to keep hitters guessing. He's a high-probability low-leverage reliever.
Astros picked OF Edwin Sanchez from the Dodgers’ DSL roster in the second round of the AAA phase. Sanchez, 21, has spent four seasons in the DSL. In three of those four seasons, he finished with a .234 average, including last year. Sanchez hit .234/. 486/.438 with 6 home runs and 28 RBI last season for the Dodgers’ Bautista team. He walked 61 times against 37 strikeouts.
Was in the DSL for 4 seasons and consistently crushed that level, odd that he was never brought stateside.
Astros Rule 5 draft results In RHP Roddery Muñoz (MLB phase) RHP Trey McLoughlin (Round 1 - Minor league phase OF Edwin Sanchez (Round 2 - Minor league phase Out RHP Abel Mercedes (to A’s in 1st round of Minor league phase)
This draft and international period is huge for Dana Brown. His contract expires after this season and he has basically let the talent level and results of the MLB club wither away while very marginally improving the farm. Since Dana Brown took over: Per mlbpipeline 55 grade 2022= 2 / Now = 1 50 grade 2022= 3 / Now = 3 45 grade 2022= 9 / Now= 12 Per fangraphs 50 grade 2022= 1 / Now= 0 45+ grade 2022= 0 / Now= 2 45 grade 2022= 5 / Now= 4 40+ grade 2022= 4 / Now= 7 So the number of projected average to mediocre MLBers has increased but not prospects who ptoject to be stars orveven regular starters. I have great hope for this draft but if its another blah result it may set the Astros back several years.
I’ve done some pretty extensive Pareto analysis comparing the current organizational roster against the last 10-12 years, and it really boils down to 3-5 players: 1-2 controllable star hitters (not even really superstars, just one additional player with 3+ years of cheap control who can be counted on for 3+ fwar/yr) and 2-3 elite prospects (again, not necessarily MLB Top 25 types, just guys that are firm top 100 prospects tha carry immense trade value and/or project with confidence to end up as 2+ fwar/yr producers). If Cam Smith had posted 3+ fwar last season and Janek, Brito, and Sullivan had broken out further into firm top 100 guys, this org would be right on par with their best years. But I definitely agree with your point. This will be the first draft in over 5 years that Houston has had significant resources. And this will be the first year where the disadvantages in their farm from all the buy-side trades and pick penalties should be flushed out. They will still be running out a relatively talentless AA infield, but the rest of their farm looks very good and with some lucky breaks or effective development they could end the 2026 season with a farm ranked in the top half or even top 10 of the league. If they combine that with effective roster management (and again, more luck and development) at the big league level, the window will have been thrown back open. If they fail on both those fronts, the only way out will be a full rebuild where you hope the CBA gets resolved in time to sell off Pena, Yordan, Hunter Brown, Paredes, etc before the 2027 season starts. I am still more optimistic than the average fan or average commenter on this site. I still have a lot of faith in Dana Browns ability to evaluate prospects. But last season was a major setback and really affected the organizational trajectory. Last season was really important, but this season is even more important.
While I do stand by the assertion that the organization is only 3-5 players away from being on par with 2017-2022, I just went back and looked at how many top prospects Houston had to root through to put together their championship run. The Astros had 27 prospects in the mlb pipeline top 100 lists from 2011-2019: Jon Singleton bust Jake Marisnick 4th OF Jarred Cosart traded Brad Peacock BoR SP George Springer STUD Matt Dominguez bust Carlos Correa STUD Mark Appel traded for Ken Giles Colin Moran traded for Gerrit Cole Lance McCullers oft-injured MoR SP Mike Foltynewicz traded for Evan Gattis Delino DeShields bust Alex Bregman STUD Brett Phillips traded for Carlos Gomez AJ Reed bust Frances Martes bust Josh Hader traded for Carlos Gomez Kyle Tucker STUD Daz Cameron traded for Verlander David Paulino bust Forrest Whitley bust Franklin Perez traded for Verlander Albert Abreu traded for Brian McCann JB Bukauskas traded for Zack Greinke Yordan Alvarez STUD Josh James bust Corbin Martin traded for Zack Greinke So Houston developed about 20% of their Top 100 prospects over that time frame into true home grown stars. They also had home grown stars who were never top 100 prospects in Jose Altuve and Dallas Keuchel. All that said, Houston would be entering a new rebuild with significantly more talent and surplus value than they had in 2011. But you’d still probably need to accumulate 20 Top 100 prospects over several years to open a new completely fresh window. Say ~10 could come from trading Yordan, Pena, Paredes, Diaz, and Hunter Brown. Another ~5 would come from prospects already in the system or who recently graduated (Smith, Melton, Matthews plus future breakouts). So you’d be looking for ~5 top 100 prospects in future acquisitions from the drafts and international signing periods from 2026 on. They should get 1-2 out of the 2026 draft, and Assuming they were bad enough to justify a rebuild in 2026, they’d probably probably get 2-3 out of the 2027 draft. So a full rebuild that starts in December of 2026 could reasonably expect to have an improving team by the 2028 season and a contending team by 2029, which means only 3 tanked seasons (2025-2027), with only one of them (2027) a true tank job reminiscent of 2011-2014.
You could get more than that out of a tear down if you were committed to mainting a top tier payroll (basically where you are at right now). Yordan with 50M attached is probably worth 4 top 100 type guys. If you wanted to go ahead and pay Hader's salary (if he's healthy) hes probably worth 2 as well. Abreu would get you one. Pena 2. Paredes 2 if you sent money. Brown- 4? Diaz 2. When I'm talking about top 100 prospects I'm really talking about 150 guys- as I'm talking about being on 1 reputable list somewhere. 200M payroll and you are talking about 13-17 I think. If not 17 guys all in the top 100 then at least like 5 of them that we'd consider akin to a top 10 organizational prospect right now. Figure draft this year nets 2 and after being really bad this year we'd net 2 or 3 next year and I think you are pretty well over the 20 that you are looking for to swing open another window.
I think the record for top 100 prospects was the Royals back in like 2011 when they had 8-11 prospects on almost every list. Not that I’m rooting for it, but as a prospect guy it would pretty crazy if Houston embraced the rebuild next summer (including paying down salary in trades to increase the return) and ended up with something like 15 of the top 100 prospects. One thing that I will note is that in the event Houston rebuilds next year, it is very very likely that a lot of their players’ value will be depressed, because otherwise they’d be winning enough games to keep contending. But in a unique scenario where their valuable players perform well but somehow they end up out of contention (thru a combo of bad luck and poor performance by their complementary players), this is the # of top 100 guys I think they could get: Diaz: 1 Pena: 2-3 Paredes: 1-2 Correa: 1-3 (3 if he has a great year, waives his clause, and Houston pays down his contract) Alvarez: 2-4 (4 if he has a great year and Houston pays down his contract) Brown: 3 Abreu: 1 Hader: 1 (if he has a great year and Houston pays down his contract) You’re not getting a Top 100 prospect for Walker, even if they pay his whole contract. They’re not trading Altuve. So that’s 12-17 depending on how well everybody is playing and whether the Astros eat money, assuming they sell everybody except Altuve. Should be easy getting to at least 18 by 4/1/27: Cam Smith (graduated) Brice Matthews (graduated) Jacob Melton (graduated) Yordan trade Yordan trade Yordan trade Pena trade Pena trade Brown trade Brown trade Brown trade Paredes trade Diaz trade Abreu trade Existing prospect (Brito, K Alvarez, Neyens, etc.) Existing prospect (Brito, K Alvarez, Neyens, etc.) 2026 draft 2026 draft
Maintaining their current payroll while putting a losing team on the field for three years is suicidal.
I don't think it would necessarily be 3 years. And it wouldn't be all of the current payroll as in you'd move on from guys like Walker and Pena you wouldn't have to pay any down- DIaz- you wouldn't have to pay any down. Brown you would't have to pay any down. Trade Meyers and Sanchez. Pay down guys are Correa, Hader, Yordan- that's 60 million or so a year. Altuve is going to make his 25 or 30, so, 150M payroll in 26-28. By 28 you should absolutely be in the playoff race if you do it right. They've already sold season tickets and the like this year if you ripped the band aid off and did it this year. You'd have 150M payroll in 27 and a 2014 type team. 2028 you would be ready to sign some Josh Reddick types and compete. Also Ullola, Blubaugh, Arrighetti, whoever Dana were to grab off the waiver wire. I think the pitching might be better than many would think and the team might not lose near as badly as it might be thought to. Figure between Cam, Melton, Mathews, Dezenzo, Alvarez, the catcher who I don't like, Cole there's the chance that they end up with 1 or 2 all start types and 1 or 2 above average players. So- you might have 1/3 of your lineup with just guys already in the system and 20 cracks at it in the trades.
You might want to look at the players Luhnow got in the 2012-2016 ish teardown trades. Not a lot of everyday players. One all star, Yordan.
Yes but Luhnow was dealing much less valuable players. There wasn’t a single star level player on the 2012 roster, much less one in his prime with control remaining. Here are the assets Luhnow was able to trade during the rebuild (2011-2014): Jed Lowrie: turned him into Brad Peacock and Max Stassi Chris Johnson: he was crummy and didn’t bring back anything Carlos Lee: was totally washed up, brought back Matt Dominguez Brett Myers: brought back Chris Devenski Wandy Rodriguez: sold low on him and got Robbie Grossman who busted Bud Norris: brought back Josh Hader JA Happ: brought back Joe Musgrove Jordan Lyles: sold low Jarred Cosart: sold high brought back Jake Marisnick, Frances Martes, and Colin Moran (who ended up in the Gerrit Cole trade) Jose Veras: brought back David Paulino who busted The main phase of the rebuild brought in Peacock, Devenski, Marisnick, Hader, Musgrove, Martes, and Moran, all of whom were either key pieces of championship rosters, top 100 prospects while with the Astros, or key pieces in trades that brought in good players. Pretty impressive considering not a single veteran they traded away made any meaningful impact on the team they traded him to.
I disagree ... perhaps better said ... the traded Astros gave WAR to their new teams. JA Happ, Kiki Hernandez, Jed Lowrie, Jonathan Villar, and Vince Velasquez had nice MLB careers, after being traded by the Astros. Evaluating trades is damn hard. Most of the trades in the rebuild were net zeros. Some lead to other trades which eventually landed a "meaningful" MLB player for the Astros. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ My original point that I likely failed to land was that the core of the last decade Astros playoff teams came from high draft picks: Correa, Bregman, Tucker and Springer ... that the Astros developed from prospects to MLB all stars.
