https://www.mlb.com/news/houston-as...ining-report-2023?partnerID=web_article-share Article about Houston’s farm mentioning OF depth and talking about Colton Gordon, Tyler Whitaker, and Justin Dirden. One thing I’ve noticed in that article and in some prospect interviews is it looks like one of Houston’s developmental focuses is to have player load earlier to shorten swing time and give them longer to make swing decisions. I think Houston’s OF and bullpen will be extremely good projecting out even 10 years from now. They need 1-2 star IF to emerge to replace Altuve and Breggy once they reach free agency or retire, and the need for ToR SP never goes away. But overall I think this will be rated as an average farm by the end of this season, which is great considering how good the big league team is. Super excited to see the minor league rosters next week. AAA technically has their first game of the season on Monday (against the Astros; their regular season starts Friday).
He didn’t look good in his big league spring appearances. Certainly room for optimism given his history and the tweet from yesterday. But his stock did not go up between 3/1 and 3/21.
I know. It’s just my schtick as the Whitley believer/truther. I was heartened by Brown last week saying Whitley looked fine and they were happy with him.
It looks like they are trying to turn him into Hunter Brown having him focus on the two seamer. I think also saw in an interview where he has also lowered his slot a little.
But...aren't you making decisions on ST results? Except when ST results are not enough results to make a decision?
You’re conflating making actual roster decisions with slight changes in my own expectations for a player. And I wouldn’t say players make opening day rosters based solely on spring game performance “all the time”. It may appear that way, but it is far more likely a result of a front office doing a whole analysis of the players in the mix, of which spring game performance is a tiny factor.
I'm not conflating anything, I'm just messing with you and don't care that much. When do the real games start?
Remember hearing about he was another low-arm slot deceptive spinny pitcher, which the Astros seem to be building an army of. Hopefully he can claw his way to AA soon, it’s hard to tell how good pitchers are outside of the peripherals below that.
Taylor was interesting because he's got the 'invisiball' fastball characteristics kind of like Javier. He was able to dominate in college despite averaging about 90 mph and throwing his fastball about 80% of the time. If he can improve his secondaries and throw harder, he has a really high ceiling. According to the tweet, he appears to be doing just that.
This is going to be the new buzzword that's actually been a thing for a hundred years, right? Like tipping, and sign stealing, and sticky stuff, and...
I am anxious to see the minor league rosters too. If Brown likes to push people up as fast as they say my projections will need a lot of adjusting. Rookie league rosters look to be more interesting than usual too. The Florida league teams could be consolidated into one pretty easily.
Also gotta remember he was an older sophomore, at age 20, he has a bit more time than most college juniors. In his sophomore year, he averaged 90-92 on his fastball, topping out at 94. Two ticks in less than a year is very impressive.
Pontes should h From what I’ve read 19+ IVB is considered elite at the MLB level. Cole’s IVB for instance is in the mid-19s. So that is incredibly impressive.
Another tweet by that same BA guy said Alex Santos was up to 96 today. Good sign for him after his velo was down last season.