My biggest concern is our continued lack of international success in terms of signings, hitters in particular. We haven't had a single meaningful hitter during this era aside from Teoscar Hernandez, who we gave up on. We haven't even had any prospect busts because almost no player succeeded enough to become top prospects. I think Leon could still be a decent MLB player, but given how much money we threw at him it's hard to call that a huge win if he become JAG. We've had a stunning lack of success in that regard. We've had issues on the pitching side as well, but we did find some success there with older prospects teams didn't chase. Without the high draft picks to cover for it, it becomes more glaring.
Some guys they traded. Gilberto Celestino reached the majors with the Twins. Cionel Perez panned out as a RP. Enmanuel Valdez and Wilyer Abreu are up with the BoSox (Abreu looks like a potential plus player). It is worth noting that the Astros were under penalty in international signings as well. I am still probably higher on Leon than most. Dauri Lorenzo looks like a bust (he is just 20), but other than him Freudis Nova is the only glaring bust. I am very excited about the 2022 and 2023 classes.
I just can not make myself believe that losing 4 picks over two years really changed things all that much. Top prospects are almost always gone after the first fifteen rounds and at the end of the first round they are exceedingly rare. We lost a couple of thirty somethings and a couple of seventy something picks. Trading away top prospects to fill singular needs has had a much larger effect. With a few exceptions it has proven to be a good investment and I would not undo it. My most valuable prospect list contains roughly 30% un-drafted players, 7 IFA, 1 UDFA, & 1 traded for. This area has remained Houston's strongest for over a decade now and I expect it will be long into the future. We have 10 from the top 5 rounds for another 33%, 1 1st rounder, 2 2nd and 1 compensation 2, 2 3rd, 3 4th and 1 5th. This is definitely our weakest area compared to most of our competitors. The last 35 or so per/cent consists of 2 6th rounders, 2 7th, 1 8th, 1 11th, 3 12th, 1 15th, and 1 18th. The Astros will get a few players from this group and one or two of them will be starting for years. This is something few other teams are able to consistently do. In order to get our farm nearer to the top our only bargaining chip is to trade away some top MLB talent. This is something that seems counter intuitive but I am not convinced it would be such a bad thing. This off season I would think about trading Bregman for prospects and replacing him with Dezenzo. Perhaps a pitcher, I think Abreu may be our best reliever and could replace Pressly seamlessly. Next year we may have a prospect to do the same with Tucker. We do not have a front office man that I trust to make those kind of decisions yet. Brown may turn out to be that good but has not convinced me of it. That is another discussion altogether.
Technically true, but I don't see a wink, some collusion, and 16 days in the Dodgers organization as a hindrance to saying the Astros have had great success with getting an international hitter to sign even if it was with another team first and cost a reliever to hoodwink the CBA into making him an Astro.
It didn’t start until yesterday, Astros are assigned to the Mesa team, none of them played in yesterday’s game. We discussed who was assigned, they are an interesting group that seems more advanced than prior years. Hopeful to see some feedback on their guys from folks scouting the games. I half suspect they sent Dezenzo and Corona in an attempt to get them noticed as potential trade chips at next season’s trade deadline. Neither guy seems to need reps and both are near ready for AAA so should be more advanced than the typical AFL prospect. Palma, Ullola, and Guilfoil are probably there to gauge their readiness for AA. I don’t know why Gaither and Blubaugh are there; both pitched a full season and are already in AA and neither is a trade candidate. Melendez is there to get some innings since he missed almost the entire year due to injury.
Here’s the list of Astros draftees 2014 to present who have posted at least 1 season of >1 fwar: JD Davis (2014) Ramon Laureano (2014) Alex Bregman (2015) Kyle Tucker (2015) Trent Thornton (2015) Patrick Sandoval (2015) Myles Straw (2015) Jake Rogers (2016) Jake Meyers (2017) Chas McCormick (2017) Josh Rojas (2017) Jeremy Pena (2018) JP France (2018) Hunter Brown (2019) That 2015 draft was an all-timer.
The whole Astros-Dodgers collusion narrative never made sense to me. The Astros could have given him the same bonus the Dodgers did like 15 days later. The only thing the Astros would have gotten out of it is a savings of ~$3 million, which is nothing, particularly since they gave up an interesting reliever in the deal. What makes a lot more sense to me is that the Dodgers were handing out bonuses like candy, and the Astros were targeting high risk/reward type players when their playoff chances started getting low. This has definitely hurt the Astros. Even another Teo esque player makes the division easier. If they had their own J-Rod or Vladdy, they'd be WS favorites. I'm an optimist by nature, and the early returns from the last two classes are really promising, so they might have improved considerably. Even so, it'll be years before any of them establish themselves as core pieces.
Whether collusion or not...16 days from his signing and he's an Astro suggest the scouting was there and the Astros had interest.
Technically it was like 45 days, but the international scouts clearly had an impact on the trade. It's nitpicking, but he's the biggest success they've had on the international hitting side, and they didn't offer him enough to wait 2 weeks to sign. It's like failing the test and nailing the extra credit. They give out banners for World Series, not signing classes, but that process felt more lucky than good.
Maybe there wasn't collusion. It was skill by the Astros IFA scouts that identified Alvarez. It was skill by the Astros IFA scouts that even though they failed to sign him technically, that they got the Astros GM to get him as quickly as they could before the Dodgers organization had a chance to see Alvarez in a game. Maybe it was luck that the Astros were able to trade for him (assuming no collusion), but the scouting part and getting him before he played a game in another organization matters more, IMO, than the technicality of signing a guy and then trading him away before he plays a game for you at any level. On the macro scale, the Astros have 103.3 fWAR on their current active roster or IL from players that were IFAs and have only played games for the Astros organization. The Astros have 87.6 fWAR from guys who were drafted and who played their entire careers for the Astros organization on their current active roster or IL. I'm going out on a limb, but I think the Astros process of building home grown talent (i.e., never played for anyone else) is not luck. I'd say it it just odd randomness that the Astros recent IFA hitters besides Alvarez and Teoscar have not faired well or just Teoscar if you want to hold July 15th to August 1st in 2016 against the Astros IFA scouts.
I wonder if the Astros see him as a starter(team Cuba) or relief pitcher (Japanese league). Apparently he was good as a starter but got better when he went into the bullpen in Japan. I'm assuming it's all about money so if the Astros see him as a relief pitcher, they'll get outbid. Some see him getting anywhere from $50 to $70 million. Maybe Alvarez can talk to him.
Looks like Alfonsin did not have his contract renewed, as the first tweet in that thread announced he’s moving on but he doesn’t seem to have another gig lined up. He was a good source of Twitter insight into the DSL. I do think it’s funny he showed a highlight of a DSL Astro hitting a HR off of…the DSL Astros. Also, my reading of those charts doesn’t really show the Astros as performing very well among those metrics, they look pretty average. Maybe I’m reading them wrong. Anyway, the fact remains that the DSL prospects seem to be getting pretty positive reviews. I’m really excited for the big bonus guys from that 2023 class to get stateside.
I'd say the position player numbers look average for 22 to 23 and meh for 21 to 22, but pitching numbers look great.
