Even if they were done yesterday, Leon would not have been in the Top 100. The publications do not like to use stats much and do not put much stock in an organization's view of its own prospects. As other teams haven't seen Leon 100% since his injury, they can't confirm whether the Astros were crazy or not. Though, the publications typically love power speed guys at a premium defensive position. Adell who's mostly played corner and has struggled with contact for almost as long as Whitley has struggled is BA's No. 13 prospect.
genuine curiosity, not snark: has there been rigorous study on the predictive nature of these rankings on MLB success at either the prospect or organizational level?
2/3 of all good MLB players end up on BA's Top 100. Using future values from publications, one can calculate an average WAR for each future value. Whitley for instance has a Future Value of 55 which on average produces about 5 WAR over first 6 years. Sometimes that can be 15. Sometimes 0. While they are off on individual guys, overall they usually do a decent job of averaging out despite a couple of biases they have. Typically, some teams have a good run, while other teams have a bad run. Astros being very thin in top level talent puts an emphasis on what they do have as if a couple falter, there won't be guys to average them out. Astros have moved a few guys through system pretty quickly which makes the Astros Farm look worse than it has been. Javier for instance was not a top prospect, but he wasn't in the top levels long enough to change minds. Even after last season, he isn't well thought of.
I’m surprised opinions haven’t changed with Javier. Only 60 odd innings between the regular season and playoffs for him last year but even in that sample a .260 xwOBA is really impressive especially considering most of those innings came in starts.
I don’t think JBJ would be a good fit here in Houston seeing as he thinks that him, Betts, and Benintendi were Killer Bs. He needs a history lesson.
FIP and xwOBA have about the same next year predictive power. A lot of people haven't figured out that means that FIP will be better sometimes and xwOBA will be better sometimes. It takes some discernment when there is a large disagreement. A lot people still default to FIP or similar stat, and Javier's risking homers for easy outs doesn't look good in those stats. PCRA is likely a better stat than FIP and xwOBA as it basically utilizes FIP like principles on Statcast data. It isn't completely sold on Javier, but was about 0.7 runs less than FIP for Javier.
Not that we were in on him but Jake signing with Cubs, still think he would have been a good fit here
$1.5M for Marisnick is nothing. Click better either have something big up his sleeve or hope Steven Souza is WAY better than projected. It’s possible Click is using his leverage as one of the only (possibly the only) contenders with a hole in CF to lowball Bradley and/or Pillar.
Every bit of logic suggests Click just flat out thinks Straw is gonna be a capable starter in CF if he's who we go with. If he doesn't believe that, then yes it's been a series of inexcusable choices. If Straw plays closer to his 2019 level, it will have been a very smart move. If not, the bottom of our order is gonna be ugly and a trade will be necessary.
Pillar would be interesting as a stop gap, but I'd much rather spend that money on pitching if that's an option.
They don't have enough money to get a starter that would push any of Greinke, Framber, Urquidy, McCullers, or Javier out of the rotation. So you are likely looking at another reliever. The only reliever I would rather have on this team over bringing in Pillar to play CF is Trevor Rosenthal. I doubt the Astros can get him considering he is a Boras client and will get more than Baez. So the next tier down would be guys like Shane Greene, Jeremy Jeffress, Keone Kela, and Mark Melancon. I'd rather have Pillar.
One thought. George Springer is 31 and put up 26.6 fWAR in 795 games. He secured $150M/6yr. Jackie Bradley is 30 and put up 15 fWAR in 873 games. If you didn’t dig any deeper than that, giving Bradley a long term deal (something like $45M/5yr) sounds pretty reasonable. Bradley’s market is narrow, especially if he is intent on playing everyday for a contender. I am not a big fan of Bradley but I think the team that signs him could be getting a very good deal, especially at first glance.
