Hughes, Radel, Mendes, Johnson, and Peterson should all rank among Houston’s top 20 prospects but none of them will be higher than 4th to start out. Dornin is a nice 4th tier prospect like Nick Monistere, he would rank in the 20-40 range. Theres a handful of HS guys left that would really elevate the expectation but otherwise we just have to hope Dans Brown and his guys know way more than the industry and other teams.
I said I wasn't going to derail this thread. I never said it was a bad trade. Just not the winner some think it is. Lets take this to the 2026 general thread if you want to talk further about this.
In part that shows how the system has grown over the past couple of years . Even if we drafted LeBron , he probably wouldn't rank above neyens and alvarez yet . Frey has had a down year and pecko is near the majors . I do feel like these guys will move quickly , at least the first 3 picks . What does a guy drafting for his job look like ? He is grabbing players that should move quickly . We can hope he saved money and it looks like he think he did a little bit with johnson and peterson . This is looking like a well rounded, solid first day . If the bat on Hughes is real then this draft could be awesome . Obviously have only just seen clips , but I like the pitchers we took Both of those college guys have 4-5 pitch arsenals. Both have room to grow as they are freaking 21/22 whatever they are . I kinda like that we didn't take any velocitymaxxers so to speak . We need to hire Zach grienke to do our pitching development. I hope we keep getting some more live arms . I wouldn't mind another couple of HS players . One hidden aspect of lunhows genius ,.perhaps stated out loud, is that he wanted winning minor league teams to help create the culture of winning to trickle up . Now , we already have a culture of winning at the MLB level , but if you have more good players on your teams your players will perform better ... Aka batters getting protection and AB's with risp ... Pitchers facing batters desperate to catch up or supported by good defense. Supposedly you could get data to factor in some of this , but you need the eye test too . Lunhow traded a lot of value from our farm system , it's hard to say what part of prospect valuation includes statistical performance , and to what degree that data is influenced by the strength of the team. But I bet he benefitted a good percent . He could also give meaningful options in negations while keeping certain players off the table I hope Dana continues to strengthen our system . For all teams , every draft should be a net benefit . It's all how it plays out in the results . Starting grades do stick for a little while , but overall information gets updated.
Just responding to posters. I did tell him if he wanted to talk further we could move the discussion to another thread.
