Jeff Luhnow strikes again! It is so nice to have an owner with the guts to mandate improvement of the minor league system (even at the expense of losing mediocre major leaguers) and a GM able to execute his plan to near-perfection. tellitlikeitis or any other minor league experts: Any thoughts on where these minor leaguers would rank in the Astros' system? I'm guessing that Perez is now the system's top catching prospect. Where do the pitchers rank among what the Astros already have? Presumably, they're all behind Cosart and McCullers. But are any at the level of Folty?
Heads up for you guys interested in hearing about the trade: Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus is going to be on 590 the Fan (Toronto's sports station) this hour. I'm sure he'll cover the trade.
[rquoter]HOUSTON (FOX 26) - Former Houston Astros pitcher J.A. Happ was caught off guard on Friday when he received the news that he was sent to the Toronto Blue Jays as part of a 10-player trade. "Surprised," Happ said in an interview with FOX 26 Sports. "I thought I was a part of this thing going forward. I thought I would be an asset to the organization in that sense. "I can say this, I appreciate the fans in Houston that have always been good to me. We've had some difficult times there, but I appreciate them and just looking forward to going to a team that hopefully wants me obviously with the trade. Happ was 7-9 with the Astros this season, with a 4.16 ERA. "It's kind of my second time going through it," Happ said."It's a matter of picking everything up and trying to put it back down, without trying to mess with what's been working. There's a new cast of characters, new team, but hopefully we can get along well. I don't see why we wouldn't. The Astros acquired Happ in 2010 as part of the deal that sent Roy Oswalt to the Philadelhia Phillies. He said the experience of going through being traded before does help, sort of. "I suppose so," Happ said. "It really doesn't make it that much easier. "I guess just having that experience and realizing it's part of the business." In Happ's last start for Astros, in a 2-0 win over the San Diego Padres, he worked 6.1 innings, giving up four hits, with one walk and four strikeouts. "It's hard to give up Happ, especially come off an outstanding outing on Monday against San Diego," said Jeff Luhnow in a conference call on Friday with the media. "He's shown at times this year why he was a great pitcher in Philadelphia and a times a great pitcher with us. "He's still young and he's still under control and there's a lot of value there, but when we're talking about picking up five minor league players that we like, obviously we have to give some value to get some value. We felt like that was the piece that was necessary in order to get what we got."[/rquoter]
They're both free agents at the end of the season. Astros are paying off the balance of Cordero's $4.5m contract and Francisco's $1.54m contract.
My guess is that Perez and Wojo round out the top 10 and Musgrove is 11-15ish. Rollins is probably in the 20-30 range. Wojo has a 3/4 (MOR) upside. Musgrove sounds like he has a 2/3 upside but a better chance to stick in the rotation than Wojo. Wojo is more advanced than Musgrove but has less upside. I'd rank the top of the system pitching like this right now: level 1 - Cosart, McCullers level 2 - Wojo, Folty, Rasmussen, Trope, Musgrove level 3a - Oberholtzer, Clemens, Cisnero level 3b - Velasquez, Houser The level 1 guys have TOR upside. Cosart has consistency problems and may never reach his potential; it's too early to put a #1 prospect label on McCullers. The level 2 prospects have MOR upsides but are all fresh AA (Rasmussen) pitchers and below. The level 3a prospects have MOR upsides and are more advanced but are more likely to not reach that upside. Level 3b prospects are former top picks that are still in short-season ball but have MOR upsides and potentially higher if they make a jump.
Absolutely fantastic coverage of the trade from Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus Good coverage from the Blue Jays perspective at Crawfishboxes
Yet he's pitched exponentially better at MMP than on the road, where he's 2-13 with an ERA over 6 the past 2 years.
