I think this guy is inches away from thrusting himself into a Top 75 type prospect. If you compare his stats this year to Billy Hamilton's last year, there is not much difference. I think I have mentioned this comparison in another thread on here somewhere. Hamilton last year in A ball at age 20: 278/340/360 with 103 steals and 20 cs Deshields this year in A ball at age 19: 241/347/331 with 25 steals and 1 cs Deshields is on pace to get about 80 steals. He also walks much more and strikes out a little less. He has raised his OPS about 50 points from last year's season at Lexington so far. If he can finish at say 250/350/350 even...he will be a Top 100 prospect in my opinion heading into next year, assuming he gets close to 75 steals.
assuming altuve is the 2B of the future...which he certainly seems to be... where does that leave deshields in the astros organization? btw: didn't he have 5 steals in a game last week?
It's definitely nice seeing him develop but man I can't help but think a 250/350/350 line, while an improvement, doesn't portend good performance at higher levels.
I think they changed that to 4 steals and changed his double to a triple. Don't ask me the sequence of events that allowed that to happen. The same could have been said of Hamilton last year concerning his batting numbers. This year he is tearing it up. Hamilton was a year older as well. I think if Deshields is allowed to stay at Lexington even into the midway point of next year, he will still only be 20, and we will see him really starting to figure it out. Again, Hamilton had identical numbers and was ranked as a Top 50 prospect coming into this year. If anything, Deshields' numbers are better because he walks more and gets caught stealing less. As far as position, maybe he could be the DH as someone suggested. If not, he could be a key piece to getting a #1 starter here in a trade once we are competitive.
maybe CF (where he was before) with Springer taking a corner? hopefully it's a problem we end up having. No reason to worry about it when Altuve isn't proven quite yet (though it's looking promising..but it's not like he's Biggio in his 4th year at 2B or something) And no, I can't see Deshields being a DH lol
DDJ is still atleast 2-3 years away. I think we'll have a much better idea of Altuve by then. It would be nice for once for the Astros to have two legitimate options rather than mediocre ones, e.g. Wallace/Johnson/Paredes at 3B.
I don't see why he couldn't play DH for a little while to see what we have. His defense is very poor anyways. His current slash line is better than half the DH's in the AL. Only 6 DH's in the AL have an OPS over .700 believe it or not. I understand the ultimate goal is to have him be much more valuable as a guy that plays in the field too, but if you have a 21 year old with an .850 OPS and 50 steals in OKC year after next, then you have to find a way to get him out there one way or another. Which one would be the worst joke, having Springer play DH or Altuve or Deshields? If they have any intention at all to have him play center, they need to go ahead and start playing him out there once in a while.
Deshields is already a much better prospect than Paredes in my opinion. Deshields went from 6BB/20K year before last to 52BB/118K last year to 25BB/38K this year so far. Paredes has 77 walks in his entire minor and major league career in over 2,000 plate appearances.
DeShields is a much better prospect than Paredes. Paredes is most likely a utility man in the making unless he learns plate discipline. DeShields has a long way to go and his line in A ball is not better than half the DHs at MLB level. On the DH, I would be happy if DeShields, Springer, and Altuve all panned out well enough to be considered for DH. I don't think any of them will play any significant time at DH unless they play it late in their careers.
Considering that he switched positions last year from CF to 2B, I'd say he is doing fairly well, especially for being as young as he is. Are you going off a scouting report from last season? Because from most observations and reports, DDJ has improved his defense quite a bit as compared to last year (not saying he's gold glove caliber, but he's not lost either).
He's hitting 240 in A ball. He's only 19 but I wouldn't get too excited about him coming around as a hitter at this point.
OBP is .360. That would be second on the team behind Altuve. Assuming he can progress at the same rate that everyone else around him does until he gets to Houston he should be ok. He has raised his OBP almost 60 points over last year. I am more concerned about projection than what he is now as a 19 year old. Elvis Andrus didn''t look like he was going to be worth a crap either at that stage if you just look at the numbers. Andrus had career averages of 275/343/361 in the minors. Now here he is in the majors demolishing all of those numbers.
As much as I love Altuve, DeShields has a much higher ceiling. He has ridiculous bat speed, elite speed, and a great approach at the plate. Also he showed signs of having plus power last year, if he can develop all of his tools, I could see him being a Ricky Weeks type player, where Altuve, as much as we want to believe he will become a superstar has more of a David Exestine type ceiling.
