And he was more of the "can't miss" prospect that was possibly expected to go #1 the year Correa was drafted, but there was legitimate salary concerns (and selecting Correa allowed the Astros to slot money for LMJ... who is likely to end up having a more successful career than Appel). Appel showed a lot of moxie by not signing with the Pirates, betting on himself, and having an even better senior year at Stanford.... that probably swayed the Astros (and other teams) to be very optimistic about his future prospects. In the end, you just gotta be content that Correa, LMJ, Reed... and eventually Bregman have all lived up to expectations to get to the big leagues. Not every early round pick even makes it that far, let alone having a successful MLB career.
If I recall correctly, didn't the Astros also have Colin Moran ranked ahead of Bryant? So even if they didn't go with Appel, Bryant was never getting drafted number 1 by the Astros
True and a lot of teams felt that way and would have done what the Astros did. That being said, the Cubs do claim that they were taking Bryant all the way. In other words, they would have taken him #1.
3 years too late. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vNb-UNlV34U?start=13&end=24" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Grading baseball drafts in hindsight is ridiculously laughable. Appel was the sure-fire #1 pick in the industry at the time. Everyone had him atop the draft board. I liked Bryant at the time too, and yes, some people had Bryant over Appel, but an overwhelming majority of baseball scouts did not. It's a different story if, say, Correa flopped and Buxton turned into Ken Griffey Jr. 2.0. Buxton was pretty much the cream of the crop that year, and Correa the more cost-efficient pick. The players developed differently. Move on.
This, times billinfinity. Who cares? All this lamenting for what we don't have in this thread and the past-its-expiration-date about former Astros while the team we actually do have is in the midst of a 33-20 run since May 1 (a 92-win pace) is patently ridiculous. The depth and consistency of negativity around sports in a general is perplexing to me. I honestly can't grasp why some of you are fans - you seem to openly dislike the local teams.
as an example, players are held accountable for hits and outs and so should scouting and FO. you hope you get more hits than outs but if you don't there are consequences. Scouting and FO should be held to much higher standard than than a typical acceptable batting average.
Obviously the goal of the front office is to produce a World Series winning team. Every year 29 front offices fail. There are a plethora of things that come into play - drafting, scouting, free agency, trades, etc. the only thing that matters ultimately is late October baseball. If they go long enough without playing meaningful October baseball, all of those scouts and front office personnel WILL be held accountable and lose their jobs.
I don't think about it that much. Lost on bryant but the baseball gods sent us Altuve, Correa and springer. And Lance is a game changer what appel was supposed to be. It's rare that an organization hits on four holy phenoms in such a short span. Rizzo came from san diego before joining the cubs.
This is an arbitrary statement and metric--not sure why you would suggest a batting average as a benchmark. I would say, "Scouting and FOs should be held to a standard relative to their peers." If you're doing as well as or better than the league average in terms of hits/misses in the draft, you're probably doing something right. And if not, as is written above, if you're not building through free agency and winning at the ML level anyway (the ultimate goal), you will be held accountable.
Incorrect, he was in 2013. Also, I mis-remembered Gray being picked above Bryant earlier. Bryant was in fact #2.
It's going to be something Luhnow and the entire Astros origination will never forget... We potentially passed up on a future HOF.
