I'm not sure how to embed tweets here, but Dawson tweeted a video of him doing the same pull down drill that Whitley and Martin did. He 'only' hit 101, but I would guess he's improved the 40 arm he's been listed at. His transition from a bat first prospect to a defensive asset is one of the more remarkable storylines in the Astros system over the past few years.
I’m still shocked so many people got it wrong on Mark Appel’s potential. He had been such a stud pitcher in college and high school. And In spite of drafting Appel, after such a disastrous return for suffering another 100+ loss season, Astros won the World Series with the rebuild process. Kudos to Luhnow and co.
When you really think about it, the only person who got it wrong on Mark Appel’s potential was...Mark Appel. He mind****ed himself out of tens of millions of dollars. Certainly not the first prospect to do that, but he failed in spite of his talent and skill.
From FG Top 100 chat: Jackson: Yordan Alvarez didn’t rank after being high in your mid season list. What sorcery did Keith Law whisper in Eric’s ear? But for real, that’s a huge swing. What do you see now that you didn’t eight months ago. 12:08 Eric A Longenhagen: We re-shuffled last year’s final update a bit and sent it around to teams for feedback and they almost all said to move him down, that they had him in as a DH-only. 12:24 Jim Bob Cooter: So JB Bukauskas is ranked nearly 40 spots lower than Corbin Martin despite having better stuff (literally) across the board and the same command grade? I don’t get it 12:24 Eric A Longenhagen: How confident are you that Buk’s stuff holds with a starter’s workload the way Martin’s does? His stuff was down late during his junior year at UNC, his delivery is more violent. It’s a confidence issue, not stuff. 1:27 JD: So Yordan Alvarez’s defense knocks him way down the list, but what’s his bat look like to you? More likely to be a great DH, a good one, or an adequate one? 1:27 Eric A Longenhagen: On this DH valuation stuff: look at Nellie. That’s a 50 or 55. What are the chances Yordan is that good? That’s gotta be the high end of what he can do, Nellie is amazing. https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=dh&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&… 1:28 Eric A Longenhagen: Again, FV is mapped to WAR, so to say Yordan is a 6 he’s gotta be a 3+ annual WAR guy on average for his first six seasons, and I just don’t think he’s that guy
Aiken has been a total bust since signing with the Indians. Didn’t look good at all in A ball last year and he’s already 22. Nix reached the majors last season with the Padres and looks like a decent BoR SP with MoR upside; he’s 23.
What I find out about Appel is that he never really dominated at any level as a professional, and he was a high level college player who should have been ready to hit the ground running. The best he ever played was 2014 in AA and even then his K% was below 25%.
Aiken didn't pitch at all last year. He was bad in A ball 2 years ago. Maybe the year off will help him get his stuff back, but things are not looking up.
Well Astros came out of that situation with a MVP caliber player in Bergman. I am very happy Aiken’s nixed any chance at a mutual agreement with the Astros. Nix and Marshall were like any other top-mid tier prospect, crap shoots, with higher likelihood of not making a big mark in the ML club level.
One of my biggest gripes with prospect lists...they aren't good enough to project a guy to get 18 WAR. Prospects they grade as FV60 perform closer to what they define as FV50. They grade too much on unlikely to be met ceilings.
RHP Bryan Abreu and SS Freudis Nova made Fangraphs “who we expect to make the 2020 Top 100” list. Was (only mildly) surprised not to see Seth Beer not make the list. I also think the “other” 2017 college pitchers (Ivey, Bielak, Solomon) could get there. Other outside shots in my mind are 2B Luis Santana, 3B Abe Toro, and OF Alex McKenna. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/picks-to-click-who-we-expect-to-make-the-2020-top-100/
Beer likely suffers from the same reason they moved Alvarez way down their list...the prospect guys like that defense gives a player another way to make majors. According to their chat, a lot of teams feel the same way. The Athletic is doing a Top 200 with 101-200 released so far. Here are the Astros listed: 191 Framber 178 Nova 150 Abreu 148 Beer 121 Bukauskas
I wouldn’t be opposed to them going ahead and developing Abreu as a lights out late inning reliever. 2021 backend bullpen of Abreu-Bukauskas-Osuna could be badass. Although based on the FO track record (Guzman, A Abreu, H Perez, Alcala, F Perez, M Feliz, D Paulino), I would be surprised if Abreu wasn’t traded this season.
For now it sure looks like the system has an awful lot riding on Nova (and maybe Santana) developing into a top prospect in order to keep the position player pipeline afloat.
That would be a pretty quick trigger on a guy with a lot of helium, although the 40 man spot is obviously a drawback. His numbers were also so wild last year. We'll see what happens though when he faces the Carolina and Texas leagues. If he takes a big step back like Alcala did then it may make sense to move him.
FWIW, he did start 1 game in BC (the championship game) and surrendered 2 baserunners while striking out 5. I think he'll move pretty quickly through the Carolina league. I think he's a bit different than Alcala, Abreu, Guzman, and Perez, who were all arm-strength darlings, but don't have the elite breaking ball spin Abreu does. Thornton and Paulino had the spin, but both were rather buried, and Paulino had makeup/injury concerns.
I doubt they shoehorn him into a reliever. I could see a very similar season to what Cionel did in 2018, where they let him start for half the season, and when he's approaching where they wanted him to get in terms of innings, they evaluate whether or not he could make an impact in the major league pen, and continue developing him as a starter in 2020 if that still looks viable. Abreu has never thrown more than 55 innings in a season, and his 2017 season ended with an elbow injury, so I doubt they're going to push his workload too hard.