Did we screw up not keeping him? DDJ has really bit us in our head to head matchups. I havent't watched his other games, but DDJ has an oWAR of 1.8. He looks like he'd be a better fit in our lineup than Marisnick. Granted his dWAR is -0.6, but should we have kept him? Or was it the right move, in hindsight, to let him go? He's at .265/.363/.750 with 18 SB (3 CS), 14 doubles and 7 triples.
Did we screw up not taking Schwarber in 2014? Did we screw up not taking Bryant in 2013? Did we screw up not taking Jose Fernandez in 2011? Did we screw up not taking Chris Sale in 2010, instead of DDJ himself? Did we screw up not taking Mike Trout in 2009, instead of Jio Mier? Did we screw up letting JD Martinez go? Did we screw up letting letting Bobby Abreu go in the expansion draft? It's baseball man, it's EASY to look back at things in the past and pass judgement on them. All sports have a lot of risk when making personnel decisions, but in baseball you can probably double that risk because of the variance.
Yes. If this team had DDJ & JD Martinez, this team would be better, though DDJ might still be in AAA if he was on our team. Would you like to revisit not protecting Johan Santana or Bobby Abreu in the drafts we lost them in?
Every team from every sport in the history of the world has hits and misses WRT player personnel. The misses just get amplified more when it's a team you pull for.
By "not keeping him," you mean that we decided not to protect him in the Rule 5 draft. I thought it was a good move at the time not to protect him, in light of his development to that point. Rangers got lucky, in a sense. Luhnow didn't think DeShields would contribute to any team this year, so he was betting that the Rangers would have had to offer him back to the Astros (no team can send a Rule 5 player that they claims to the minors, they have to offer the player back to the original team). If you think Luhnow made a mistake there, you would need to point out who Luhnow protected in the Rule 5 draft that should have been unprotected, so that DeShields could have taken that protected spot. I thought the last two players added to the Rule 5 protected list by Luhnow were Feliz and Velazquez, if I recall correctly.
Baseball should be easy, right? Just draft the right guys and you only need a couple of trades or free agent pick ups. Just make the "right" decisions and we could easily have 1. Springer, RF 2. Correa, SS 3. Trout, CF 4. Gomez, LF 5. Altuve, 2B 6. Bryant, 3B 7. Scharber, C 8. Lowrie, 1B 9. Tucker, DH SP1 Keuchel SP2 Fernandez SP3 Sale SP4 Kazmir SP5 McCullers Dang why can't we just get those draft picks right :grin:
The obvious answer is why did they tender Alex Presley? The Astros assumed DDJ would stick with a team, and were willing to risk that for an extra year of not carrying DDJ on the 40-man roster.
DeShields had a terrible work ethic and attitude. He was and is a poor defender. I was surprised they didn't protect him at the time and try to deal him. However, would he have a long term spot for the Astros? Even with his surprising play I don't think so.
I always had a problem with them protecting Torreyes over DD. I wasn't a big fan of his, but he seemed to have more upside. The red flags about his work ethic did concern me. I honestly didn't expect either guy to amount to much though. They missed on this one. No shame in admitting it, things like this are gonna happen.
Its often problematic if you're going to apply labels about work ethic/attitude on 19/20/21 year olds and expect that to be "who they are". Obviously, he's got talent that kept him rising through the system despite these other problems... usually talent is what should win out on the young guys. Also, regarding his defense... is it really "that" bad? Saw him run down several balls in CF that I thought could have been hits off the bat (or at least could have been mis-played if he truly was a bad defender). He seems serviceable enough... definitely failed as a 2B (which is where they tried to put him), but if he continues his performance at the plate, it will probably justify keeping him in the OF. I do agree that he may not have had a position this year... on this team... but doesn't prevent him from being more of an asset than the Marc Krauss/Alex Pressley's (hell, even the Robbie Grossman's) of the world. Was a former first round pick, so there was a significant investment made in him as well that would have led me to believe they'd see it through.... lets hope that Luhnow (who admits this was a mistake) has learned and doesn't make these sort of judgements on future players.
He seems to be a surly type with a chip on his shoulder. To some degree, our team could use some of this but the Rangers seem to have several in this vein and I've felt that kind of chemistry hurts more than helps. I think Gomez is an upgrade all around to Deshields. He plays with attitude without being a prick.
This thread was not meant as a floodgate to all baseball decisions, like drafting Trout or holding onto JD. Hell, JD might not have developed into the player he is if he stays in Houston. I'm a huge proponent of Luhnow and I trust the FO, so this thread isn't an underhanded bash at them. I'm just wondering what y'all thought on DDJ. That's it. I didn't follow him closely in the minors. Just seems odd not to protect your #1 pick from a couple years back. Should we have protected him? Or, in the grand scheme of things, does letting DDJ go not matter? I'm raising the issue because he has surely been a thorn in our sides at times.
Delino DeShields was not the big fuss at the time! It was Michael Feliz! How could they not protect Michael Feliz! Feliz was later protected. Some thought DeShields should have been protected. Others thought he wouldn't make it, wouldn't stick. Yes, he should have been protected. All those fringe AAAA players. Dominguez, Krauss, Petit, Grossman, Hoes, Presley. As Geoff Blum would say, good grief!
Well we've established that we should have protected him, that's not really debatable at this point. We messed up, it happens. And FWIW DD wasn't Luhnow's pick, he was picked before Luhnow got here, or else I imagine he would have been given a little more rope. Most of us weren't complaining when he was left unprotected. Some of us thought we should have protected him, but it was hardly viewed as a major screw up at the time. But in the grand scheme of things it may not be a big deal, and even if it is there's nothing you can do about it now.
Yeah, that's my main issue... you're basically taking the risk of losing a former #1 pick for nothing who's still only 21 years old (with tangible/projectable MLB skills... namely speed), but deciding to hang on to fringe players with little to zero trade value, some of whom are no longer even with the organization. Just seemed the opposite of what we desire in a minor league system.... stockpiling an excess of talent with projectable skills and using that to either supplement the MLB roster, or make trades to get pieces that fit better.
Was he rising through the system, though? I honestly don't know what the expectations are for 17-year old players but he spent four years in rookie/A/A+; he didn't move to Corpus until 2014. My guess is if they thought he had something, he would have progressed faster. But, again, I won't pretend to know.
He wasn't fast-tracked, but he wasn't stalled either. He wasn't Jio Mier'ing it by any means nor at any point was he considered a flat-out "bust". Hell, wasn't he in the MLB futures game (with Springer and Correa) in 2013?
I'm never going to be one to question every move that we didn't make like holding on to JD, not drafting Bryant, etc.. But not protecting DDJ is the one I'll never understand. I realize you can't protect everyone but there was so many fringe players that we did protect. The thing is if he was drafted by Luhnow, he would've no doubt been protected.
