OF Drew Ferguson was taken by the Mets in the minor league phase of the Rule 5 draft. If Myles Straw and Chas McCormick make the MLB roster, the OF in the upper levels of Houston's farm is going to be embarrassingly thin.
Rule 5 Draft Results In RHP Joe Record (from Twins - minor league phase) RHP Seth Martinez (from A's - minor league phase) Out RHP José Alberto Rivera (to Angels) OF Drew Ferguson (to Mets) C Chuckie Robinson (to Reds - minor league phase)
Mets and their love of corner OFs continues. Are we sure they don't plan to sign Brantley and put him in CF?
Updated 2021 Astros Org Opening Day roster projections following Rule 5 draft: Astros: C: Maldonado, TBD (Castro?) IF: Gurriel, Altuve, Correa, Bregman, Diaz, Toro OF: Tucker, Alvarez, Straw, TBD (Puig?), TBD (Bradley?) SP: Greinke, McCullers, Valdez, Urquidy, TBD (Richards?) RP: Pruitt, Raley, Taylor, Paredes, Javier, Smith, Pressly, TBD (Yates?) DL: Verlander, James Traded: Martes DFA: Emanuel AAA Sugarland: C: Stubbs, Papierski, Shaver IF: Jones, M Sierra, Pena, De Goti OF: McCormick, Dawson, Matijevic, Meyers, De La Cruz SP: Whitley, Abreu, Bielak, Garcia, Dubin, Conine RP: Rodriguez, Castellanos, Blanco, Garza, Torres, Perez, Scrubb, Velazquez Released: Quintana, A Sierra, LaRue, McKee, Scheetz, Hartman, Ferrell, Bravo AA Corpus Christi: C: Manea, Salazar IF: Adams, Valdez, Nova, Hensley, Lee OF: Adolph, Julks, McKenna, Costes, Taylor SP: Solis, Ivey, Solomon, Hansen, Deason, Donato, Daniels RP: Mushinski, Record, Martinez, DeJuneas, Hernandez, Collado, Cabral Released: Rodriguez, Schreiber, Bermudez, Henderson, Benedetti, Rodriguez, France High A Asheville: C: Lee, Stubbs, Paulino IF: Santana, Kessinger, Correa, Wielansky OF: Daniels, Brewer, Barefoot, Dirden, Abreu SP: Brown, Henley, Brown, Freure, Serrano, Bellozo, Chavez RP: Endersby, Gruller, Sprinkle, Matthews, Peck, Gayle Released: Holderbach, Biermann, Machado, Conn, Ceballos, Robaina, Ruppenthal, Cody, Tejeda Low A Fayetteville: C: N Rodriguez, Perry IF: Coutinho, Whitcomb, J Perez, Carrasco, Jordan, Zimmerman OF: Corona, Barber, Guerrero, Orr SP: Santos, Macuare, Schroeder, Gusto, Ramirez RP: Melendez, Tavarez, Lopez, JP Lopez, Jaquez, Tamarez, Jimenez, West Released: Palmer, Castillo, Krabbe, Ramirez, Cueta, Arias, Urdaneta, Mendoza, Gomez, Barry, Casey, Dickey, Drennan, McDonald, Horrell, Plumlee, De Paula EST/GCL: C: Palma, Hurtado, Toro, Alvarez IF: Uceta, Martinez, Lorenzo, Mendoza, Espinosa OF: Rivas, Pinto, Machandy, Cortabarria, Ramirez, Giron, Carrillo P: Tokar, Vega, Holcomb, E Rodriguez, Pacheco, REina, Chavez, Pereira, Mejias, SOlano, BOjorquez, Monzon, Garcia, Gonzalez
From an MiLB.com article last year, apparently Asheville is a very hitter friendly park: Asheville has long been held up as the bandbox of Class A, and the numbers tell no lies there. That was especially the case in 2019, when there were a combined 813 runs scored in the 70 games played in Asheville. The average of 5.81 runs scored per team per game was just below the average of 5.85 scored by Pacific Coast League teams. Essentially, Asheville's McCormick Field brought PCL baseball to the Class A level, at least in terms of offense.
Yeah, it’s only 370 to center, 320-ish down left field line and 297 down right field line. I think it’s got a high wall in right, but that’s still a small field.
Need to flip those RF and LF dimensions. Astros need to be training their prospects how to clear a high, but close wall in LF.
WTF, those are unacceptable dimensions if they're my farm club. We can use all the metrics in the world to parse out facts, but excessive dingers effects your mindset. Can't be great for judging outfielders either.
Maybe that mindset f!@% is what Astros want. Teach pitchers not to throw meatballs when behind, and helps batters see swing change effects quicker. Not sure this is why Astros did it, but it is possible. Most likely, Astros don't care about results of games too much as they focus on EV and LA. As such, convenience was all they were thinking about.
We'll see, I would be much more worried about the Coors field effect where good pitchers suddenly start to suck everywhere they pitch. Somewhat uncoincidentally I think, they've been the Rockies affiliate for 26 years I imagine they did it more for the shuttle convenience with Fayetteville. FWIW, it is a pretty little stadium, but f**k that is a bandbox.
The link is to a pod cast. Astros stuff starts about at the 18 minute mark. James and Keith Law sit down and talk about writing, reading, what to expect from James Click, what's up with Forrest Whitley, Cristian Javier, and the Astros' farm system in general.
For a team that hasn't prioritized ceiling, guys making professional debuts with Astros Organization under Luhnow make up almost 10% of the position players projected to make at least 3 WAR this season, and a smidge under 10% for pitchers as well. Maybe just maybe, the way the Astros brought in amateur talent is a lot better than Law gives them credit.
Law definitely was biased toward how most MLB teams run their scouting and development departments, which gives insights into how the rest of the league viewed Luhnow and his FO. I also found Law’s comments on Cristian Javier interesting. Minor League scouts did not see a MLB prospect. His numbers outperformed his talent. But now that Javier has had success at the MLB level, even after his second time through the league, scouts will need to go back see (or not) what they missed. Analytics likely saw something that the scouts did not and were proven correct.
On Javier, Law talked about data not out there for Javier's fastball. Javier's fastball exhibited great rise by Statcast (top 15 min 250 fastballs), especially in early innings despite not having elite total spin or extreme velocity. Javier just got most of his spin as backspin. I expect in early innings, his fastball rise was in the top 2-3.
As for Keith Law, I have had an opportunity to talk to him a lot over the last dozen or more years. First he isn't anything like his articles, he is pretty kind and down to earth. He was offered the head of scouting by Luhnow when Luhnow first took over the Astros..... so Law really doesn't have anything personal against Luhnow or the Astros.... in fact he was flattered to be offered a MLB major job after how the Blue Jays job ended for him. He was very close to taking the Astros offer BTW. The think with Law is that he is kind of stubborn in his beliefs when it comes to evaluating baseball players. He will change over time somewhat but he isn't someone that jumps quickly or easily to new methods of thinking when it comes to prospects. As for Javier, his success really isn't THAT complicated. He is the rare guy that has an assortment of pitches that compliment each other very well and over the last couple years his mastery of them has increased. Last year he only had confidence in a few of them at the big league level, as he gets more comfortable and mixes the pitches in better he will have more success (as long as he can keep some version of his velocity). He throws 5 pitches and last year was mostly going with 1-2 pitches. In hind sight I am very glad Law did not take the Astros job. The players the Astros took that he praised largely failed, and there were some players the Astros targeted that Law bemoaned their lack of upside and he was just wrong. Essentially Law relied on just a couple measures and the Astros had a dozen measures and over time the more information the better. Still, I can say he has always been a very genial and nice person. He has overcome a lot of mental health issues and works hard to be a better person. I like him a lot.