Baseball America Top 30 Prospects The Houston Astros ranked #5 in terms of talent within the organization, jumping up 6 spots from 2018. 2018 draft analysis Best pure hitter: Seth Beer Best power hitter: Beer; Chandler Taylor (10), Marty Costes (22) also mentioned Fastest runner: Jeremy Peña; Austin Dennis (20) also mentioned Best defensive player: Peña, César Salazar (7) also mentioned Best athlete: Peña, Alex McKenna Best fastball: Mark Moclair (12); 94-96 with "excellent, explosive late life" Best secondary pitch: R.J. Freure's (6) curveball; high-spin, low-80s, 12-6 break Best pro debut: Beer; for pitchers: Austin Hansen (8) Most intriguing backgrounds: drafting Correa's and Bregman's younger brothers Closest to the majors: Beer Best late-round pick: J.P. France (14), Costes, Brett Conine (11) The one who got away: Brandon Birdsell (39) Best Tools Best pure hitter: Kyle Tucker Best power hitter: Yordan Alvarez Fastest baserunner: Myles Straw (they have Seth Beer listed in this section, which... come on) Best strike-zone discipline: Straw Best athlete: Ronnie Dawson Best fastball: Josh James Best curveball: Bryan Abreu Best slider: J.B. Bukauskas Best changeup: Forrest Whitley Best control: Rogelio Armenteros Best defensive catcher: Garrett Stubbs Best defensive infielder: Freudis Nova Best infield arm: Nova Best defensive outfielder: Straw Best outfield arm: Straw Top 2019 rookie: Whitley Breakout prospect: Ronnie Dawson Sleeper: Jojanse Torres Top 10 with tool/pitch grades. 1. Forrest Whitley, RHP, 70/High 70 FB, 70 CH, 60 CB, 60 CL, 60 CUT, 55 CTRL 2. Kyle Tucker, OF, 60/Medium 60 hit, 60 power, 40 run, 50 fielding, 50 arm 3. Yordan Alvarez, OF/1B, 60/Medium 55 hit, 60 power, 50 run, 40 fielding, 45 arm 4. Josh James, RHP, 55/Medium 80 FB, 70 CH, 50 SL, 45 CTRL 5. Corbin Martin, RHP, 55/Medium 60 FB, 55 SL, 50 CB, 50 CH, 55 CTRL 6. J.B. Bukauskas, RHP, 55/High 60 FB, 70 SL, 50 CUT, 45 CH, 45 CTRL 7. Framber Valdez, LHP, 45/Medium 55 FB, 60 CB, 40 CH, 50 CTRL 8. Freudis Nova, SS, 55/Extreme 50 hit, 55 power, 60 run, 55 fielding, 60 arm 9. Seth Beer, OF/1B, 50/High 45 hit, 70 power, 20 run, 30 fielding, 40 arm 10. Bryan Abreu, RHP, 55/Extreme 55 FB, 70 CB, 40 SL, 40 CH, 45 CTRL 11. Jairo Solís, RHP, 55/Extreme; will miss 2019 season due to Tommy John surgery 12. Cionel Perez, LHP, 45/Medium 13. Ronnie Dawson, OF, 50/High 14. Garrett Stubbs, C, 45/Medium 15. Myles Straw, OF, 45/Medium 16. Abraham Toro, 3B, 50/High 17. Jonathan Arauz, SS, 45/High 18. Jayson Schroeder, RHP, 50/Extreme 19. Brandon Bielak, RHP, 45/High 20. Tyler Ivey, RHP, 45/High 21. Peter Solomon, RHP, 45/High 22. Rogelio Armenteros, RHP, 40/Medium 23. J.J. Matijevic, OF, 45/High 24. Dean Deetz, RHP, 45/High 25. Jeremy Peña, SS, 45/High 26. Alex McKenna, OF, 45/High 27. Manny Ramirez, RHP, 50/Extreme 28. Reymin Guduan, LHP, 40/Medium 29. Brady Rodgers, RHP, 40/Medium 30. Deury Carrasco, SS, 50/Extreme 29 out of the 30 prospects on this list were acquired by the Astros. The only player who was not originally a member of the Astros organization was Yordan Alvarez. Grades 1 70 2 60s 6 55s 6 50s 12 45s 3 40s Risk 13 high 11 medium 6 extreme By position 17 pitchers 14 RHP 3 LHP 13 position players 5 outfielders 4 shortstops 2 first basemen (Beer and Alvarez) 1 third baseman 1 catcher
Encouraging grades on Nova’s and Pena’s tools. Surely this list was made before the JD Davis trade, as there’s no rational argument for having Santana outside the Top 30. Is it wrong for me to dream of a super-dominant bullpen led by JBB’s slider, Abreu’s curve, and James’ FB? Whitley and Martin can lead the rotation and they can fill in 2-5 with trades or free agents. Tons and tons of pitching depth. Solid position player depth that may look a lot better 6 months from now.
The Athletic Top 200 Astros: 191 Framber 178 Nova 150 Abreu 148 Beer 121 Bukauskas 72 Martin 58 Alvarez 54 James 9 Tucker 4 Whitley
Crazy how high Josh James skyrocketed out of nowhere. Not saying he doesn't deserve it. The position player equivalent would be Chuckie Robinson going to corpus and hitting .300 with 25 home runs this year.
MiLB.com ranked the Astros 4th best in their pitching rankings. I think that ranking is pretty fair, but I thought it was odd that they didn't mention any of the arms that didn't make it to AA yet.
Can any kind soul post the Top 100 prospects please? Is the list by John Sickels, did he join The Athletic? I was a big fan of minorleagueball.com.
Nice little article on Dawson: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/sp...ect-Ronnie-Dawson-is-finding-his-13635327.php “I remember when we were at Quad Cities in 2017. He didn’t have the best arm, and he’s worked really, really hard to get his arm strength up, and I know he’s got one of the better arms in our system now. I kind of attribute that to his hard work.” Pair that with an offensive uprising in the Arizona Fall League this past December, and many within the Astros’ organization affirm their long-held prediction: This former minor league batboy and high school football star is a late bloomer in baseball. “He’s improved so much,” said Astros minor leaguer Alex De Goti. “He made a huge improvement coming into his first spring training. He came in lighter, more athletic, and it just transferred over to the field. He looked way better at the plate, his swing got much better, his arm got better, and he’s kind of carried that into his upcoming offseason, and it showed.” Three years after he began his minor league career at 230 pounds with a size 38 waist, Dawson is in West Palm Beach weighing 215 with a 34 waist. Slimming down has increased his speed. Dedication to a diet has aided the endeavor.
I'm not sure if he's technically a prospect any more, but this is an intriguing development to watch for on Brady Rodgers: "The 28-year-old already senses the progress surgery helped him achieve. The spin rate on his curveball accelerated. So did the velocity on his slider. Pre-surgery, Rodgers sat 88-92 mph with his fastball. Now, he rests at 92 mph while bumping 94-95 with ease."
The fact that the Astros have kept him on the 40 man roster over the last 2 years, and that they kept promoting him despite poor results in the minors tells me they really like something about him. While being far less hyped than some of our other arms, he could be a sleeper to help us in the rotation moving forward.
Yep. If I recall, they even kept him off the 60-day DL to avoid him accruing service time. If he becomes a contributor, that would be a very nice bonus.
Totally agree. I have never been high on him but given Luhnow’s history the fact that he’s on the 40 man says a lot; would not at all be shocked if he ended up as a good mlb pitcher.
MLB.com is releasing their Top 30 lists for the Top 10 farms this week and Houston is one of those teams. None of the other AL West teams are in the top 10 so their Top 30s have already been updated. Here is the breakdown of their prospects: Team: # of Grade 55+/# of Grade 50 Rangers: 3/11 A’s: 3/8 Mariners: 3/5 Angels: 2/8 My guess is Houston will have 6 Grade 55+ and 13 Grade 50, putting them head and shoulders above the other teams in their division.
