One of the lone bright spots to a failed season is the anticipation of the potential promotion of some of the club's brighter prospects in the second half. I don't know if they plan on bringing Patton up, but I don't know a whole lot about him altogether other than what I have read. Obviously the most prized pitching prospect within the Astros organization, where does he rank among pitching prospects in all of baseball? Is he in that premiere 'you will hear about it on SportsCenter before his debut Josh Beckett class.'...? How would he compare to Oswalt, Tim Redding, Hirsh, and Scott Elarton not in terms of production or ability, but in terms of how prized he is within the organization and what hopes they have of what he will become? I guess a ranking of the 5 (and anyone else to further illustrate) from most hyped to least would be appreciated.
It looks like he's more of a 2nd-tier of top pitching prospects. Kind of on par with what was expected of Hirsh coming up last year. So right now he's projecting as more of a middle of the rotation starter than an ace (beckett, oswalt, etc) type prospect. One piece of concern is that his velocity and K rates have fallen in the last few years. As of yet it hasn't hurt his era, but it's seen as lowering his ceiling as he moves up past AA. Right now he works about 88-90 on his fastball and has an above-average curveball, but his other secondary pitchs need work. Some pluses for him is that he's left-handed and has been relatively healthy his entire career, but on the other hand he's also had some trouble w/ the long-ball so keep an eye out of that. Bottom line is he's viewed as a nice piece to a future starting rotation, but shouldn't be viewed as a savior or someone who like come up and start dominating. Then again, w/ pitching prospects, who the heck knows...
Here is a few link: Link 1 As far as I know he is the top pitcing prospect in the Astros farm system, he projects to be a #2 or #3 starter. He was just promoted to AAA where he gave up one run and struck out two over seven innings. Apparently he has taken a little off his fastball to get it more under control. I'm sure he'll make an appearance in Houston once September rolls around. As far as comparing him to a member of our current staff, I've seen a scouting report where they compare his size to Roy O, but as far as who he pitches like is anyone's guess. I do know that he has a good four-seamer, working on a two-seamer and has a good curve. He is still just 21 and I think the Astros want to make sure his confidence level is where it needs to be to make it at the major league level.
Here's a link I found to a recent article on troy http://firstinning.com/content/200707107#comments Comparison Players for Troy Patton July 4, 2007 By Chris Constancio Troy Patton is headed to Triple-A Round Rock. And although he finished his Double-A season with a nice-looking 2.99 ERA, his strikeout rate is down this year while he continues to surrender an above-average number of fly balls. What can we expect from Patton over the next few years? Who are the most similar pitchers to Patton at age 20 and 21? I restricted my search to pitchers at the same level of competition and looked at key attributes such as handedness, strikeouts per batters faced, and walks per batters faced. Rather than give the false sense of precision with similarity scores, I will simply list all the statistically significant similar players in terms of "best case" and "worst case" trajectories after age 22. Here are Troy Patton's comparison players: Best Case Matt Chico Jimmy Gobble Macay McBride Median A.J. Murray Chris Narveson Worst Case Mike Connolly Michael Hinckley Dennis Ulacia Derrick Van Dusen The median and worst case pitchers are fringe major leaguers and career minor leaguers who could not maintain their performance in the upper minor leagues or struggled with injury problems. A.J. Murray, for example, suffered a shoulder injury after his breakout season in the minor leagues and he is now a Triple-A reliever who should see some time with the Texas Rangers later this year. There are no All-Stars on this list and most pitchers end up looking like relievers in the major leagues, but a few very useful pitchers find their way into the "best case" scenario. Gobble is arguably the most successful pitcher on this list, and he might also be the most similar pitcher to Patton with his flyball tendencies and low-90's fastball and slider combination. Gobble seems most comfortable in a major league bullpen, but it took a few years for him to become an above-average major league pitcher. This seems like a reasonable expectation for Patton; he might bounce between starting and relieving roles with Houston at age 23 and 24 before becoming an average or better pitcher in the minor leagues.
Saw him pitch here in Corpus. Effective, good starter, but not a "wow" pitcher. His stuff wasn't overpowering. He didn't strike me as "can't miss", but I think he'll be at least a decent starter in the majors. A lefty with a decent fastball and good command.
heard him on "Monsters of the Midday" yesterday, good interview, is very confident that he will make the roster in September when allowed.
The fact that he is a lefty compensates for any small shortcomings he may have as an effective starting pitcher in this league. He is worth all the hype and it's going to be awesome when he comes up with J.R. Towles (who will hopefully be catching for him in an Astros uniform soon).
all i hear about pitching prospects and astros is troy patton. i knew absolutely nothing about him but now i'm kind of dissapointed reading this thread.
He's 21, he's a lefty, and he's done pretty well at every level of the organization, being able to be promoted after spending less than a year at both single A (advanced) and AA. We won't know much more about how his stuff can get major leaguers out until he finally gets up here... just like we didn't know that about Hirsh (who gave up only 2 HR's all of his AAA year, would give up 16 HR's in only 40 something innings). He's got some things going for him that may prove advantageous over Hirsh... he's younger, a lefty, and has needed less of an adjustment period (at each level) before harnessing his stuff. Look for the development of the 2-seamer and changeup to really determine if he can be a frontline starter.
The following is from Baseball America two years ago. The guys who get alot of notice as top tier prospects all seem to do it because of their fastball. Beckett, Prior, etc. I wouldn't wory too much that he doesn't have the 'wow' factor that a couple of other prospects have. The two listed above show that the hype machine isn't always a ticket to guaranteed success. And there are plenty of top tier pitchers who didn't have the kind of buzz that Beckett and Prior had, including Roy Oswalt. [rquoter] Background: Considered a tough sign after committing to the University of Texas, Patton turned pro for $550,000—easily the highest bonus in 2004’s ninth round. In his first full season, he set a low Class A Lexington record with 32 straight scoreless innings, pitched in the Futures Game and reached high Class A. Strengths: Patton can get strikes with his power curveball both by throwing it over the plate or by getting hitters to chase it out of the strike zone. He also can locate his 90-94 mph fastball all over the zone, and it has average life. He has very good control and a nasty competitive streak. Weaknesses: Patton needs to get stronger and battled some mild shoulder tendinitis in 2005. He must improve the command of his changeup, which lags partly because he doesn’t use it enough. His arm slot tends to wander, and he flattens out his curve when he gets under it. The Future: There’s debate within the Astros’ front office as to whether Jason Hirsh or Patton is the system’s top prospect. Patton isn’t as polished or as physical, but he’s lefthanded and 31/2 years younger. He could open 2006 in Double-A at age 20. [/rquoter] Whether prospects turn out seems to depend quite a bit more on their attitude and work ethic. If there were really any prospects that were so great that they couldn't miss, they'd be in the majors already. I can remember when people were talking about Bobby Witt as the next Nolan Ryan. That was one 'can't miss' that missed pretty badly.
How about , loretta, and jennings to the red sox for buchholz... Trade ensberg, lamb for a young catcher that has respectable power and a year or two on their contract call up patton,chan ho, and the stud 3 sacker ransom, and outfielder tim raines... send down bruntlett, , albers, and moehler change stuff up...
With Beckett, Matsuzaka, Schilling, and Wakefield, Jennings wouldn't even be in in the playoff rotation, and they have no competition for their division right now. Why would they want Jennings? If you were another team, would you trade a young catcher for Ensberg and his $5MM salary?
yeah, and it still registers as a solid do you really, truly believe boston is going to give up one of the top prospects in all of baseball for mark loretta and jason jennings? looks like "ridiculously dumb, one-sided trade proposals overwhelming favoring the astros" season has come early this year, people! i'm giddy anticipating our first "morgan ensberg for (fill in the blank)" "why would anyone trade for morgan ensberg?" "change of scenery" exchange - i'm psyched! anyone else? and there it is! awesome work, RG. and i'l happily oblige: why would anyone trade for morgan ensberg, especially a commodity as rare as a young catcher with respectable power? even moreso when we have j.r. towles already in the system: a young catcher with respectable power who's slugging away in corpus? good god. chan ho park? really? you're actually at the point of asking for chan ho park? and that "stud 3 sacker ransom" is 31.
it might make sense for you and me to coordinate responses over the next several weeks so we're not duplicating effort. like maybe you can take all "trade morgan ensberg for..." posts while i focus on any trade that lands us a top-of-the-line prospect that doesn't include at least lidge, berkman, lee or oswalt.
They showed one of Patton's games on FSN when he was still in Corpus and I wasn't too impressed. I think he gave up three runs in five innings to Frisco. He looked like a bullpen lefty to me. He wasn't that big, didn't throw very hard, and seemed to try to throw the ball past people at times.
