I wouldn't say can't miss, but most scouts agreed he was a very safe pick. His potential upside was commonly questioned, but nobody saw this complete flameout coming.
Consensus was he'd be a likely #2 pitcher. With an outside chance of turning into a legit Ace. The absolute floor was an elite closer. Wow, few saw this coming. The total meltdown of his confidence. His pitching is off and on, I'm sure he still has the ability to figure it out. But patience runs thin!!!!
Hard to believe Appel was never able to even make it to the pros. Damn. just noticed the other thread. My bad.
I can't speak for everybody, but for some reason I'm not feeling very depressed abut the Astros right now.
If we’d have drafted Bryant there would most likely be no 3 run homer by El Yuli in game 5 off of Kershaw which was arguably the greatest home tun in Astros history.
I honestly knew Mark Appel was bad, because of his awkward delivery, off balance when he throws the ball, back in 2012 draft everyone in wanted the Texas guy, Mark Appel drafted by Pirates, I wanted Correa, he reminded me of Alex Rodriguez, I got blamed here, Mark Appel is better etc. Correa was ranked 9th on mlb.com. Correa was very skinny, his footwork, glove work, contact, but I saw a great one in him. Appel over Bryant, Bryant at the time in 2013 I thought he is a Adam Dunn type, alot of home runs, 200 strikeouts, but hey is a solid .300 hitter 40 hrs that's great. I thought Austin Meadows was going to be great, I wanted him as a number 1 he looks injured and bad too. Kris Bryant looks a lot like Chandler Parsons, lol.
Perhaps you should apply for a job with MLB since so many others had him pegged as the best available player in the draft.
You win some, you lose some - this regime has won far more than they've lost so I have no ill will or anger about it at all - but.... Bryant over Appel is one of the GREAT "what if"s in Houston sports history. A million things change, I know, if we had drafted Bryant - but the thought of Bryant nailing down LF or 1B for THIS team does make a part of me sad we don't get to see that version of the Astros.
Didn't like the Appel pick. Just always thought there was something off about him. I thought he should have been more dominant in college (almost like a Prior or Strasburg). I felt that way about Gerrit Cole too. Of course, I also though Bregman was a terrible pick... I loved Tyler Kolek & Kohl Stewart So, I was right once. Wrong just about every other time in history.
I never bought into him (Appel) being a TOR. But at the least, I thought he'd be a solid #3. The whole world was wrong about this guy.
I came here to post this. You can’t win them all. It’s in the past. I. Dont. Care. The Astros won a damn World Series and people are still b****ing and moaning. I personally waited 37 years for this to happen. I’m still completely stoked. I’m not going to complain about a draft pick that didn’t work out to the Astros advantage. Edit: Wishing Appel nothing but the best.