More relevant for DeShields, his OBP is at .385 and climbing now. It's up .80 points from last year, which is a great improvement. He's 2 walks away from matching his total last year, and we're about 2/3 into the season. Villar got his 35th steal last night as well. Easy to overlook his speed given DDJ, but credit to him. Astros speed throughout the system is great: -- Paredes is 2nd in the PCL with 27 steals (1st place is Astros prospect for 2 minutes, Anthony Gose with 29) --Villar leads the Texas League with 35 steals (2nd place is 6 behind him) -- Springer is 10th in the Cali league with 17 steals, but only has 3 CS -- DDJ leads the SAL with 57 steals, a comfortable 22 SB lead -- Andrew Aplin has 9 steals in 13 games in the NY-Penn league, leading the way. 2nd place has 6. It probably helps he's getting on base at an absurd .547 clip --Not much of note in the GCL, Appy League, or DSL 1st or 2nd in 3 of 4 full season leagues is pretty impressive though.
Hi guys, brand new here. When does Ruiz report to GCL? Anyone know? I've been following GCL games every day but I haven't seen his name pop up in the lineup yet. Thanks!
Didn't know if anyone else saw this but thought I'd pass it along. Once again, I really enjoy Luhnow's openness about possible player movement. REALLY intrigued by the Paredes comment.
Austin Wates... 4th outfielder or potential CF and #2 hitter? If Altuve keeps this up by the time DDJ is ready, do you put DDJ back in CF where he played in HS and shift Springer out to RF? CF- DDJ 2B- Altuve 1B- Singleton RF- Springer 3B- Wallace/Johnson LF- Martinez C- Castro SS- Fontana
I wrote up a little bit on Wates in the top 10 thread. He's a ML quality hitter with decent speed and zero power. He profiles as a solid #2 hitter. The problem is his defense is limited to LF. That means he's a perfectly capable 4th outfielder on most teams. Now the thing that's interesting is that if Springer can stick in CF, then power from a traditional corner spot isn't as important. Thus if Springer sticks in CF then Austin Wates at LF or Chris Johnson/Jimmy Paredes at 3B becomes a reasonable option. So Austin Wates could be an everyday starter; he just needs the right opportunity. As for Altuve/DDJ, I would absolutely not move DDJ unless totally necessary. DDJ's value is far higher as an infielder. And like you pointed out, that would necessitate putting Springer in RF which sets off a cascade of position moves. Altuve is a solid but un-spectactular defender at 2B who is a good enough hitter to be DH. I think putting DDJ at 2B and Altuve at DH makes more sense. This is all really preemptive though. DDJ is at least 2 years away, if not more. If DDJ/Altuve really becomes an issue I see them trading one or the other. If everyone keeps developing there's going to be massive logjams at SS and 2B. Altuve is already blocking Paredes. Here's an overview of 2B in the Astros system: ML: Altuve - all-star AAA: Paredes - capable of starting at 2B ML right now AA: Jose Martinez - 26 y/o former high-level prospect hitting .311/.366/.474 A+: Ben Orloff - probably organizational depth A: DDJ - close to top prospect status. Bobby Heck did exactly what he said he would: he built the team up the middle. You could pretty much make a solid top 10 list with just our SS's and 2B's.
So since it looks like Paredes will get brought up soon to man various positions, what do you think they will or should be? He's clearly a great athlete so I wouldn't mind seeing him at 2nd(when Altuve needs a break), 3rd(played last yr and prob can't be anymore shaky than CJ), SS(Lowrie's not use to playing as much as he has & slump shows it, could use break), and then CF(Schafer is NOT GOOD). I just really liked what I saw from him last yr and think he needs to be on the next flight with Wallace.
I think 2B/3B is where he's most likely to sub in at. My problem is that he won't get time at 2B with Altuve back and Luhnow has this thing about him not playing 3B. I haven't heard anything about him playing SS or OF. Marwin's set to come off the DL anyway. Another problem is that we already have a bunch of utility players (Downs, Moore, Bixler) up with the club. Luhnow wants Paredes to play regularly, which is entirely reasonable. He's kind of stuck, like Wallace.
Also... Jio Mier out at least another week or so. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Minor league notebook: Lance McCullers Jr. pointed toward July 13 start, which is good since we need new photos of him. <a href="http://t.co/MpR1zs3h" title="http://tinyurl.com/d6tt34a">tinyurl.com/d6tt34a</a></p>— Zachary Levine (@zacharylevine) <a href="https://twitter.com/zacharylevine/status/220167036981100544" data-datetime="2012-07-03T14:48:06+00:00">July 3, 2012</a></blockquote> <script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
On working with new GM Jeff Luhnow and new owner Jim Crane: "With Jeff and his background, it was almost like having two scouting directors. He was familiar with a lot of the players, then putting what he did in St. Louis together, combined to what we had done here since my arrival, I think once we sat down and lined our stuff up against one another, we realized we do things much more similar than probably people would have thought from the outside. I do know, over the past five years, we've been in a lot of the same parks as the St. Louis Cardinals. I think there were a lot of assumptions made that we were going to become a Moneyball club, but we never really saw St. Louis as a Moneyball club when Jeff was at the reins. We didn't do a whole lot different or ask our scouts to do a whole lot different than they were doing. I would say the management and application of information is much more advanced than we were doing. I think that was probably the biggest leap we made as a scouting staff in helping us make decisions, but the one common thread [is that] we've got a good group of scouts here. Did we have to change? No, I just think we had some adjustments to make and some adapting to new thoughts and new ideas. I think Jim's very aggressive and Jim has a thorough understanding of having a pipeline of players coming through. It takes a long term commitment, a heavy financial commitment, an aggressive commitment to buy into that, which Jim does and from that standpoint, I think he understands that there's a time for this process. We live in an instant gratification world now, but I think from Jim's playing background he understands as much as we live with clocks, a lot of baseball is still timeless and it takes a time commitment to rebuilding an organization."
Oh snap. Owned. Though on the contrary, I'd be a lot happier if the big league club was nothing but prospects at this point. About half the ML roster are guys who need to be traded/waived. I'm looking at you: Wandy, F. Rod, Myers, Lyon, Bixler, Downs, Lee, Scott Moore, Schafer, Abad, Carpenter. Happ, CJ, Cruz: try harder Snyder: you're cool
I would be too. I think the only guy that should be untouchable really is Altuve. Other than that we need to listen to all offers. I expect Myers, Wandy, and Lowry to be gone by the deadline. If only Carlos Lee wasn't so attached to his cows...
