No he wasn't. Right, and when they were willing to trade Lester he wasn't their top prospect. He's better now in the majors than he he has ever been. In 2007 he was coming off of cancer and hadn't been very good in the majors. I agree with that.
http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/rankings/top-100-prospects/2007/26983.html All-Time Top 100 Prospects In 2007 Hughes was the 4th rank prospect in all of MLB and in 2006 Lester was 22nd above any other Sox prospect. Lester's cancer was a MAJOR setback but before that he was very good in the minors.
Yeah but for Lincecum to be listed behind him when he dominated the minors and has WAY better stuff than Hughes, you could see how sometimes even Baseball America is biased. Thank god this wasn't a Keith Law top 100. Would be all Yankees. Phil Hughes just barely figured it out while Timmy has 2 Cy Youngs.
We should set up a trade up with the Mets for Oswalt, give them a favorable deal and let them leak it to the media to get their fan base all happy. Then at the presser say "Remember how y'all did us with Carlos Beltran? Yeah this was all fake, you aren't getting Roy."
Well in hindsight, I'm glad we didn't sign Carlos Beltran. We wouldn't have ever picked up Michael Bourn and Carlos Beltran is injury prone now. I honestly am glad we will be paying Carlos Lee 74 million over the next three years and last year (whos defense is way worse) rather than a guy who is always dealing with injuries. Beltran isn't quite the stick Carlos is, but would be funny nonetheless. Omar Minaya is a jackass.
True, but that wasn't the point. Everything is potential at the prospect stage so anything you get for Oz, Puma or Wandy will be such. Some turn out like Lincecum others not so much but we won't make the playoffs with Roy in decline so why not take a chance one of the prospects we acquire turn out to be the next Lincecum. In addition, the money issue is something to consider as well, we could use the money we save into development and make smart baseball moves.
Omar Minaya traded Cliff Lee, Grady Sizemore and Brandon Phillips for a beat down Bartolo Colon. So maybe Houston will rip him off if Oswalt is ever dealt there. The Mets just don't have the quality of prospects like Sizemore, Lee and Phillips, but a boy can dream right?
Yeah but Timmy mowed down all minor leaguers when Phil Hughes was good but not Lincecum like. They couldn't even keep Tim to the minors at the start of the season. Thats why he was super two status (arbitration eligible after only two years) this off season. I'm just saying that prospect rankings can be a little misleading and VERY BIASED at times. I wish Drayton realized farms win championships before every other 29 teams. He was last on an overloaded boat.
Once again good point, but rankings are all we have as fans and even teams I'm sure have rankings setup. Pretty much everyone agreed Lincecum was going to be dynamic and most have felt the same way about Hughes but while the Giants were cellar dwellers when Timmy was brought up the Yanks were playoff contenders so a quick leash was necessary. Hughes was a great setup man last year but it was pretty much understood that it was only a temporary spot for the kid and starting was still his eventual role. By the way don't sleep on Hughes, this season he has pitched really well so far. He has a 2 ERA in 18 innings/3starts, 18Ks, only 6 hits, BAA is .103 and a nice whip of .94. Hughes could finally be ready to take his spot in the Yankee rotation. Uncle D lost vision around 04/05 because before then the Stros had a great farm system and he had people who understood the importance of maintaining it. Heck and Wade seemed to have put the boat back on course, so if we can avoid Ed from making a "Carlos Lee" type singing we should be in good shape.
It's not some ridiculous Yankee bias - it's data. Going into those 2007 rankings, Lincecum had pitched all of 30 innings in single-A ball. Hughes had 150 innings, mostly at AA. The fact that Lincecum was in the top 15 or so as a player who had barely played in the minors is pretty damn impressive.
Oh yeah Hughes seems to have surely caught on now. He can definitely get Major Leaguers out now at a consistent rate. I agree that we are back on track with Bobby Heck as our scouting director. He drafted Prince Fielder with fairly high in the Amateur draft. I think it was top 10. We have the 8th, 19th and 32nd pick in this years draft. I'm so excited that we will get some legitimately great talent in this years draft. I sure hope a guy like Levon Washington will fall to number 19 so we can pick him there. Drayton needs to open up his check book. He better not just pick guys for signability reasons. That would really grind my gears.
I also hope to get lucky with some late picks like Oswalt was. We have JD Martinez looking like a late round find right now in Lexington. We'd probably move him along faster if he wasn't blocked at the ML level for the forseeable future. I'm extremely excited about Lyles. Best pitching prospect we've had in a long time. I just hope injuries don't hit him like Miller/Hernandez.
Lyles looks legit. He could have signed with South Carolina to play WR for Steve Spurrier. We drafted him way earlier than anyone expected so he decided to sign with us. Daniel Meszaros also looks like a late round stea as a relieverl. JD Martinez is a beast with the bat. I could go on and on. Houston is now starting to get stacked with viable talent no matter how many media outlets want to deny it. Poor Wade Miller and Carlos Hernandez. Crazy thats Carlos is only 30 still. They were talking about him on the Astros telecast last night. Hes in AAA Durham for the Rays. I just don't get why he would sign with a team which has so much depth at SP. Like I have said previously, lets look back in two years, and I bet we have a top 10 farm. I agree with everything you said though for sure.
Yeah I guess you are right, but to think that Phil Hughes high prospect ranking had nothing to do with his team being the Yankees is foolish.
Why? What is the evidence that Baseball America has a pro-Yankee bias? If you look at all the other years on that list, the Yankees don't even have any top 20 prospects anywhere.
If you honestly don't believe in the Northeastern media having a pro-bias toward their own teams and it affecting the way people perceive teams in comparison to them, you are going to make me cry. Its blatantly obvious that bias is very prevalent in most of all baseball publications. Sure they throw us (here in the south) a bone from time to time, but for the most part the Astros are deemed as failures. I made a post about covering my opinion on this on the "Astros are the fourth most hated team" thread. Check it out. I'm not trying to be an arse, just expression my personal opinion.
CC Sabathia > Roy Oswalt As much as that pains me to say, its just the honest truth. CC when traded was barely making 9 million dollars in 2008. Oswalt is making 15 million this year, then 16 in 2011 with a club option for 16 million with a 2 million dollar buy out in 2012. Thats a huge amount of money for a guy who isn't CC Sabathia by any means. He's older and has more baggage as far as contracts are concerned. As I have previously stated, teams are less inclined to take aging players with tons of guaranteed money for much more valuable prospects. Since this "recession" teams have become more dependant on young controllable players and developing them through the minors. There was a window in which Roy Oswalt was VERY VALUABLE but that window has since closed. I love the guy and would rather keep him if we don't get the right price for him, but its not fair to Roy to keep him if we finally go into full rebuild mode. If we had traded (convinced them to waive their no trade clauses) our core of players before 2008, the rebuilding process could have been sliced in half. We were contenders in 08 so that wouldn't have been very smart. Anyways, I couldn't even see us find spots for every core player due to contractual issues on the trade market. So had Drayton croaked over and sold his team, we may have only been able to half way rebuild. I think with Heck at the reigns, we can rebuild rather quickly. Just ask the Milwaukee Brewers.
