I mean, I don’t really hate either guy but this is the preferred nomenclature for this kind of post on here, right? Brady Rodgers is the pitching version of AJ Reed (the poster child for the difference in talent between AAA and the big show). I’m glad he got parts of 2 or 3 seasons bc I’m a sucker for anyone making it to the big leagues, but he’s clearly in over his head with no chance at being a major league arm in any scenario. To his credit, he’s at least a AAAA guy. Reymin though, that guy is just terrible. I don’t care if he throws left handed or 98 or whatever, he just doesn’t have any ability to get major league hitters out, and he’s been pretty crappy at AAA too near as I can tell. Both those guys are just wasting roster spots (along with AJ Reed). I laugh at people talking about a 40 man roster crunch (this season) when we have those 3 guys that can get cut at any time, and LMJ that can be moved to the 60 I’m not mad or anything about them being up, but yikes, I don’t see it with either guy. It does bring up an interesting point though, that with Devo being worse than average for about an entire calendar year now we don’t have much of any quality at the back end of the bullpen. If McHugh and Smith ever get right that alleviates much of the problem, and trading for an ace (my hope) or a #3 (Bare minimum) at the deadline probably gets rid of all problems related to arms, but man, the underbelly of this bullpen right now may be softer than the AAA nature of the lineup. It’s an interesting position the Astros find themselves in now with 9 guys deserving of AB’s and under club control thru 2020 in the OF and a fair bit of holes in the pitching staff come 2020. Am fascinated to see how the FO deals with the glut of OF talent and the dearth of pitching talent under club control going into 2020. Only arms you’d feel confident in under club control for 2020 right now are JV, Peacock, Presley and Osuna. Everyone else is either a FA, struggling with something, coming back from injury, young, unproven or all of the above. I trust the FO to figure it out, I’m just curious as to how they will do it.
Substantive comeback. This isn’t really a thread about either of those guys sucking, it’s more a what’s going to happen with various roster moves that are coming very very soon thread.
Oh, no worries, I just don't give much of a damn right now about what might happen a year or three in the future.
Eh, it’s partly about a year in the future, but it’s partly about a week in the future too. Neither of these guys will be up here much longer. I’d be very surprised if there weren’t roster moves on both of them relatively quickly. I’m not sure what the moves are, but I highly suspect that some of what happens in July will be pointed at “fixing” the 2020 problems in conjunction with strengthening the 19 playoff roster.
What I don’t understand is, after reading that lengthy Ringer player development (PD) article, why the system doesn’t seem to be working yet with players we drafted under the system. I trust it will, but man, it’s taking a while. I get that it works with acquisitions like Verlander, Cole, Pressly, Osuna and Harris, but not our own? I also noticed Peacock start to get visibly frustrated last night, not what you want to see at all, because that’s when the wheels start to come off. It’s not that we lost because we’re so spoiled with winning, it’s how bad our second tier of relievers continue to look, whether in the majors or any pitcher in AAA, giving up 19 runs the day before with a team ERA of 5.13. I knew it was bad when Crawfish Boxes named Kent Emanuel as AAA pitcher of the month, he gave up 7 runs the day before and has a 6.44 ERA. It’s starting to catch up to this team... I feel AJ literally took this game off to let his top tier of relievers finally have a rest. They’ve been taxed lately in these close games, and better served being available for Verlander today. The injuries are starting to take a toll on the pitching, with even Pressly and Osuna giving up runs. Let’s hope we can escape with a win and hope the Orioles are at their worst this weekend, while maybe finally seeing Alvarez and DFA’ing White. I honestly hope the Guduan experiment is finally over. He’s been at AAA for four seasons years with little improvement IMO, and literally almost cost the team two wins in two days. IMO he and Rodgers in the majors is like Ritchie at AAA... the FO simply hasn’t developed anything better to date. ILWT (and Hinch) given the miraculous way we’ve been still able to win lately, but it’s a little tough right now re pitching PD. We will certainly be active in the trade department as a result, just looking forward to when we develop our own like the Braves.
They have major league data on all of the guys we've acquired externally. We knew exactly how major league hitters handled their pitches, and what tweaks we could make. Prospects on the other hand, all the scouting and projections in the world can't tell you exactly how they are gonna fare in the show. A pitch that AAA hitters couldn't recognize may be a pitch MLB hitters spit on and force you to throw something more to their liking. We've developed a ton a great pitching prospects, our farm had been much deeper on the pitching side in recent years. We just haven't had many MLB breakthroughs just yet
Good points. The thing is, the Ringer and other articles make clear that they have video and tracking data on what those pitches are, and the pitchers are also struggling in the minors, they can't even progress to facing MLB hitters. Something is missing, at least in the short term, with pitching PD, though I'm confident things will improve soon enough.
Any hand wringing over the astros developing pitching prospects is misplaced. Yes, they’ve had a ton of guys busy, but that’s typical in the industry when you need about 4-5 good prospects to get 1 good major league arm. They’ve graduated Hader and that weird Aggie handlebar mustache guy and LMJ and Musgrove and that guy they shipped off to TOR and James as well. That’s not a bad track record. It goes with the nature of pitchers being so bust heavy. That’s why you need so many pitching prospects- it’s a meat grinder/war of attrition. As to AJ taking off this game I don’t think so. I’ve felt like he’s done this in the past and I have no proof of this, but I feel like when Lunhow calls up someone he’s not al that interested in having on the roster he immediately pushes them into sink or swim situations. Like he says “the easiest way to get rid of RG is to bring him in to a high leverage situation right away and watch him **** the bed”. Or, I wonder if hitting Tyler White 5th will accelerate his removal from the roster. With a 10 game lead and what appears to be a good relationship with the FO this makes sense. But I feel like with guys he likes he tries to ease them in/give them a longer rope than with some of the others. I could be wrong- it’s just a suspicion I’ve had for a couple years.
In Rodgers case I think the thing missing is talent. I think he’s maximized and has become everything he ever should have. Just making the majors is great. I’m proud of anyone who can do that. He’s just not good though and doesn’t have the tools in his tool box to ever be good, imo.
I don't really care for Rodgers, but he's also shown more velocity and more swing and miss in his brief time this year than he did previously, so I have hope for him. He's the kind of guy that may have a really good year at some point, but is a dime a dozen in this league. Guduan can go as well. The organization isn't really holding anybody back right now (pitching wise), so it is what it is. The guys left in RR have certainly not done much to earn a promotion this year.
I'd like to see Urquidy get a shot, which may happen sooner than later. His velo is up this season and he's been maybe the only bright spot on Round Rock's pitching staff this season.
James looks good besides for early this year and when he's pitching on fumes. For James, he either needs to be a starter, a 1-inning reliever, or a multi-inning reliever with multiple days of rest, IMO. Valdez looks average. Whitley, Bukauskas, and Martin having setbacks sucks. Urquidy looks close from a stats POV. However, it looks like Astros are about to have a lot of rookie pitchers even if it may be postponed a year.
Unfortunately it’s not just the top guys who have struggled. Almost all of their pitchers in the upper minors have failed to take a step forward. Other than Urquidy, I cant think of a single guy in AA or AAA who has significantly raised his stock this season. Martin tanked in the majors. Ivey got hurt. Bielak, Deetz, Bukauskas, Armenteros, Hartman, Bostick, Bailey, Adcock, Abreu, LaRue, Emanuel, Ferrell, Garza, Blanco, McCurry, Sneed, Perez, and Javier have all had bad or middling seasons so far. I’m excited about Willy Collado’s potential as a reliever. And Kit Scheetz, Gabe Valdez, and Colin McKee have had a nice year. But those guys have pretty limited ceilings. Hopefully a few of those guys turn it around. Otherwise the Astros are going to need to come up with some money to fill their major league staff next season, as they’ll lose 2 starters and 4 relievers to free agency this year.
Rodgers has no comparison to Reed other than they played together in AAA. Reed was considered the best 1B prospect at one time. Rodgers, to my knowledge, was never on any top prospect list.
I think all 3 of those guys were rushed to their respective levels this year. JBB not as much as the other 2. Disagree on Valdez, he just has to throw strikes. Agreed on James, they need to make up their mind, and his, what kind of pitcher he's going to be, for the rest of this year at least. eta: Rodgers and Guduan are JAGs
