Just a quick glance shows Cristian Javier pitching 3 innings of long relief three times within the first month of the season and Hunter Brown pitching more than 2 innings of long relief twice in September.
as lackluster as Houston’s offseason might seem, I keep coming back to the idea that their “weaknesses” in their roster are occupied by high ceiling young players: Hunter Brown, Korey Lee, and Jake Meyers all have star potential and I’m excited to see them get opportunities.
I see him as a 4th OF at best. If you want to trade him for something of value, you better hope some team hires James Click to join their FO, since he was willing to bet his career on him.
Of course it depends on how you define "star" and "potential". I define "star" in this case as averaging 3+ fwar/yr thru his 5 peak seasons. Meyers almost certainly has that as a reasonable outcome; he's shown he can be elite defensively, and even bad/mediocre hitters can post 3+ fwar if they are excellent defenders at an up the middle position. As far as defining "potential", I would say at least a 10% chance. Given his injury and pedigree, I wouldn't consider it likely that Meyers ends up as a star, but I do think the odds of him reaching that outcome are better than 10%.
If you see Meyers as a 4th OF "at best", it means you believe he has already peaked and is on the downhill slide of his career at age 26. At 1.5 fWAR over his 1st 101 MLB games, he's already performed significantly better than a typical 4th OF.
I'd wager he doesn't move the needle much going forward. Injuries, injury excuses doest change the fact that I watched a guy closing his eyes through his swing a whole lot, as his oversized Helmut went flying around his his head.
I'm higher on Lee than I am on Meyers. While Meyers did look good when healthy at the end of 2021, it is too small of a sample size to tell whether he is legitimately going to be good going forward, or if it was a case of small sample sizes and lack of a good scouting report. He may just be someone who the league "figures out." The fact that he has a lot of whiff in his swing doesn't help his cause either. And while his route running and instincts in the outfield are nice, I've never been a fan of his arm. Just my two cents.
Improving this roster is not easy. Many, including myself, tend to forget the roster has to include the prospects or we die a slow death via the window theory.
Don't use a year being mismanaged coming off an injury as a limit to his potential. He showed it before in 2021 and he has shown it in AAA again. This doesn't mean he will be a star, but he still has the high upside until he disproves it when healthy. He has as much potential as many of the CF prospects who got outrageous contracts this off season. By the way, I consider 2 WAR average and at least a 4 WAR to make a star. 6 WAR is an Elite star. Pitchers vary. particularly in bWAR which seems lower for pitchers than position players, and more particularly relievers. 2022 World Champion Astros Elite Yordan 6.8 Star Altuve 5.1 (elite in fWAR 6.6) Tucker 5.2 Pena 4.8 Bregman 4.5 2023 Astro in 2022 Star Abreu 4.2 JV only achieved 5.9 bWAR as the Cy Young winner so you see why pitchers have to have a different standard.
