Astros Noob here.. Minor league systems in baseball interest me highly and have wondered why the Stros even bother with sending top prospects to Lancaster. It seems like a death trap for pitchers and just produces inflated numbers for hitters. What is the value of sending people to HighA from the Stro's perspective? Why I ask this.. likelihood that they send Correa to Lancaster over CC.
He won't be there very long. And they have (very) advanced ballpark figures to account for the stadium (they think Appel will start there, too - apparently, all the pitchers b**** about going there (Folty did last year), and the team's response is: pitch well and you won't be there long). They want their prospects to accomplish certain things before moving on; it's really that simple. (For instance, they really are genuinely concerned about Springer's K's and are ready to keep him in AAA if he doesn't show improvement.)
Common and semi-reasonable question that comes up every few months: why bother with Lancaster? Simply put, because it's a level of baseball competition between low A and double A. Here's a good overview of what to expect at each level of the minors. As mentioned in the link, low A gets a lot of high school draftees and high A tends to get college draftees. To generalize, HS draftees have stuff/tools and college draftee's have skills/pitchability/decent off-speeds. Say you've got a high school draft pick with off the charts tools. He can hit a BP pitch a mile but has little experience and/or current talent at hitting the change-up. Send him to high-A vs the college pitchers who usually have diverse 3-pitch mixes and better game-planning. If you send him to AA, he'd have to contend him some pitchers who are already flashing ML ready pitches (e.g. Folty's grade 80 FB) and that might just be too much. Vague over-generalizing rule: Low Minors: Complex/Rookie/Short-season LowA: best heat in low minors Hi-A: best offspeed/secondary pitches in low minors _______________ High Minors: AA: best heat in high minors AAA: best off-speed/secondary pitches in high minors. As HeyNow mentioned and I've commented on several times previously, the Astros likely have the advanced numbers that render the box score numbers moot. The Astros have had chances to leave Lancaster and they've kept it as an affiliate; so clearly they find value in sending prospects there. I haven't seen enough Correa tape to say that he could make the jump to hitting high-minors offspeed stuff right away; that and I'm not a scout. He may very well be able to but I don't expect it. A couple of the spring training reports and articles have said stuff like "Correa got fooled on that off-speed pitch; not surprising for a guy who hasn't played above Low-A ball". For all the prodigious talent he has, there is absolutely no shame in hitting the majors at 21-22 vs 19-20.
