Somehow, in the same thread, you have criticized the Astros both for "going all in" and for "tanking." Wow. I'm not even mad. That's amazing.
Here we go again, making allegations. Ask your question as I asked others. I've been haggling with 4 or 5 different posters. And I liked the tear it down approach, one of the reasons I kept gong to the games. It was lonely, but it was a mad experiment. But losing the priced asset gained after the 2013 draft might be karma. Fisher failing a physical has been rumored, and needing to include Appel to get the deal done. Is saying its Karma a criticism?
Big rumor coming out is that Vince Velazquez failed his physical. So the deal got reworked. Phillie still wanted Velaquez, so the alterations... Well the deal makes a little more sense now... At least it wasn't Fisher who failed the Physical. Because he is still a part of the team.
I have a feeling that once a player has a year or two of experience under their belt, 99.9% of GMs don't give a crap where a player was drafted when making their trade decisions. At this point in his career, Appel is nothing more than a marginal minor league talent with the potential for upside. Scouts have a book on him now, they know what he does well and what he doesn't, and they have an idea of what type of player he'll be in the majors. Can he suddenly "find it" and become a stud like Keuchel did? Possibly. But the amount of time that'll take is time the Astros don't have to find out. To me, him being the 1st overall pick means nothing at this point. He's failed to live up to the expectation at this point in his career. Luhnow got something of value for him to help the big league club immediately. I share Luhnow's desire to make the Astros good today, not hold on to hope that the 1st overall pick will be good for the Astros in 2 years. We have a surplus of starting pitching right now with others coming on the horizon...that made Appel expendable. To say we got fleeced is ridiculous. If Giles was in the last of year of his contract and we gave up that much...yes. But his contract situation along with his stuff makes this deal very easy to stomach in my opinion.
Appel has more than marginal talent and certainly has value around the league, but people take top 10 and top 100 prospect lists too seriously. Often times even the most progressive lists are outdated or just wrong. Teams covet prospects differently, especially their own prospects.
Exactly; they (theoretically) didn't overpay, rendering all this hand-wringing over prospects moot. Giles is an incredibly valuable asset; obviously talented, as well as young and cheap. There's really no incentive for the Phillies to deal him; if the Astros wanted him, they were going to have to bleed.
I'm not concerned with anyone becoming stars; I'm responding to all the hand-wring from posters that have already anointed star status to our prospects. An elite closer - especially a young, cheap elite closer, was going to cost the Astros. Teams don't give players away. As long as the Astros continue to prioritize the draft, which seems likely, they'll be able to churn out another Vincent Velasquez and Mark Appel.
Strawman argument. As your responses have been to me in general, I have definitely not anointed star status to our prospects..outside of Correa. You basically hammer prospects for their risks, but basically threat a hard throwing reliever as a guarantee for future success. There are always relievers going down like Holland. Also, Velasquez has about half the innings pitched as Giles and it is not appropriate to call him a "prospect" as he is no longer even considered a rookie by MLB standards.
I've been responding to you, specifically, because you responded to my initial post, which was not a direct response to anyone, in particular (though vince was the poster that probably most motivated me to make it) - it was merely a general reaction to those upset over the loss of prospects. Settle down, Francis. No one is hammering anyone, unless you consider a generally held, "there are no guarantees with prospects" POV to be caustic. And, check the Tony Sipp thread; I'm probably the last person you should be accusing of assuming anything with Ken Giles. He's young and talented (+ cheap) and will hopefully help the bullpen maintain the same excellence they displayed for most of last year, in whatever capacity.
Forgot that Velasquez has already had Tommy John. Don't think that is a very good predictor of success going forward, although I hope I am wrong.
"There are no guarantees with prospects" is a lot different than "shot in the dark" which implies near complete randomness and that one prospect is as likely as another as succeeding. I see no other other way to take this except as hammering guys that are highly or even moderately rated. An expected value can be placed on prospects as their future success is somewhat predictable. Almost all of the expected values will be off, but most teams are off about as often as they are surprised in a good way in the overall values of prospects. I don't really care that an individual prospect is a guarantee or not as long as overall process evaluation for the Astros hits enough on prospects to make up for the misses.
Honestly, I missed that post. I don't argue to argue, though the thought has crossed my mind that you do. Granted, looking back at this thread, I've been as stubborn...though I don't think I'm the only one. I typically post more to contradictory opinions than not provided I don't consider the poster a troll. We have greatly disagreed on prospect value, reliever value, and value of McCullers lately. Expect me to post when I disagree with you when you post something I think is way off what I see them.
*as* stubborn... One of us admitted they mis-characterized a point they made and clarified it accordingly, once called on it. The other one is, well, you... You got called on being belligerent, and rather than own it (a "sorry" would have been nice), you instead tried to create a false equivalency about arguing and stubbornness, doubling down on both in the process.
I'm sorry you've taken my posts as belligerent. It was not the intent. For all, I'm sorry for my part in delaying this thread.
I do get the argument of where he is coming from. The disappointment lies in the value of the #1 pick. What we do have to remember is he was pretty much the consensus #1 pick for 2 years straight so the guy has the talent and most GM's assumed he would be a top end starter for several years. What I believe all GM's including Luhnow missed is that Mark Appel is an entitled mental midget from everything I have read and seen about him. I am not saying he is a bad person and maybe there was some "overrating" of his talent but I do think his mindset has set him up for failure. The mind is what can turn a good, solid talent player into a great one in sports. You need to be aware of your shortcomings and strengths and have the ability to tell yourself to work on them or you will fail since it is the highest level an athlete can be. It is an unfortunate situation that the Astros did not see his shortcomings (I believe 95% of MLB teams/scouts didn't) but remember that they passed on him the previous year and picked Carlos Correa as a surprise #1 pick in Appel's Junior year. That draft turned out to be brilliant so far. I am not excusing Luhnow and the Astros front office for the Appel debacle but at least they have received value in the form of proven MLB contribution for him and who knows where this trade ends up at this point.
Skipped over this part earlier. Where are these rumors coming from? Was pretty strange how the "official announcement" seemed to take awhile.
