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2023 Houston Astros Thread


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3 minutes ago, Gourmand said:

Also, their second rd pick and #57 overall has not pitched yet. Still recovering from TJS.

Yeah, no HS arms please. Stick with college pitchers. 

I'm not saying it's the right pick, but just showing that recent data says it's possible.

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11 minutes ago, Gourmand said:

Braves love taking HS pitchers and players, especially from Georgia. It is their thing, when you continually develop them, you can take more of them. The Astros need to take college players because their system has been decimated by many different things. They also need to change the development of their pitchers. They really need to stop the tandem shit when the pitchers get to AAA at least. We are seeing the problems with this philosophy because Javier and Brown are running on fumes. Both are on pace to obliterate their previous innings high. Shit Brown is like 12 innings away.

Edited by HtownHorn
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we sign plenty of young latin American arms, drafting college arms is the right compliment. Brown and France show our college pitching scouting is working 

we need to find more prospects like this guy …
 

https://www.milb.com/player/ryan-clifford-691775
 

2022, Houston Astros, Round: 11, Overall Pick: 343

Edited by tx 3 putt
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19 minutes ago, HtownHorn said:

They also need to change the development of their pitchers. They really need to stop the tandem shit when the pitchers get to AAA at least. We are seeing the problems with this philosophy because Javier and Brown are running on fumes. Both are on pace to obliterate their previous innings high. Shit Brown is like 12 innings away.

I think it's mistaken to say this developmental philosophy is a problem considering the incredibly consistent success the Astros have had with their pitching in the dynastic years despite injuries and turnover. 

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3 hours ago, HtownHorn said:

Braves love taking HS pitchers and players, especially from Georgia. It is their thing, when you continually develop them, you can take more of them. The Astros need to take college players because their system has been decimated by many different things. They also need to change the development of their pitchers. They really need to stop the tandem shit when the pitchers get to AAA at least. We are seeing the problems with this philosophy because Javier and Brown are running on fumes. Both are on pace to obliterate their previous innings high. Shit Brown is like 12 innings away.

Fun fact, Brown is 34.1 innings away from matching his career high in innings. Also it didn't seem to affect Javier when he threw almost 150 innings last season not including the playoffs. 

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8 hours ago, HtownHorn said:

Braves love taking HS pitchers and players, especially from Georgia. It is their thing, when you continually develop them, you can take more of them. The Astros need to take college players because their system has been decimated by many different things. They also need to change the development of their pitchers. They really need to stop the tandem shit when the pitchers get to AAA at least. We are seeing the problems with this philosophy because Javier and Brown are running on fumes. Both are on pace to obliterate their previous innings high. Shit Brown is like 12 innings away.

The tandem system has been a great idea because it manages workloads and allows the org to develop more prospects as starters; JP France and Cristian Javier likely would have been developed as pure RP otherwise.  I do think that it probably makes sense for AAA to be on a more normal 6 man rotation with 2-4 RP throwing multiple innings per appearance, so that their best SP prospects (and the ones who are likely to be in Houston in short order) are stretched out to 120+ ip/season prior to reaching the majors.

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Scale of 1-10 with 10 being "very concerned"....how concerned are you about the state of the Astros farm considering the W-L records across all levels of minor league ball?

AAA Sugar Land 35-52 .402 23 gms back

AA CC 38-43 .469 4 gms back

High A Asheville 29-47 .382 12.5 gms back

Low A Fayetteville 35-45 .438 12 gms back

 

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We went to the Hooks game on Saturday.  Loperfido looks pretty good.  He's at first now, but he looks athletic enough where he could probably play left field also.  They have a couple of other guys with some pop, but I think he's clearly the best hitter there right now.  One of the catchers (not little Correa) there is barely hitting .100 and he's got a decent amount of at bats.

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I said to stop tandem starting in AAA, I am fine with it at the lower levels, but eventually you need to start ramping up these guys because you can't expect them to jump 50+ innings over their previous high in their 1st season in the majors. This wasn't a problem when you had Verlander, Cole, Keuchel, and Greinke. However, now we only have Framber who has thrown 180+ innings in a season in the rotation.

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10 hours ago, HtownHorn said:

Braves love taking HS pitchers and players, especially from Georgia. It is their thing, when you continually develop them, you can take more of them. The Astros need to take college players because their system has been decimated by many different things. They also need to change the development of their pitchers. They really need to stop the tandem shit when the pitchers get to AAA at least. We are seeing the problems with this philosophy because Javier and Brown are running on fumes. Both are on pace to obliterate their previous innings high. Shit Brown is like 12 innings away.

I don’t think the tandem pitching is putting much of a cap on innings pitched.  The days of Chris Holt pitching 180 innings in Triple A just don’t happen anymore for anyone.  Blame maximum effort pitch coaching to increase velocity.  

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7 minutes ago, kevwun said:

We went to the Hooks game on Saturday.  Loperfido looks pretty good.  He's at first now, but he looks athletic enough where he could probably play left field also.  They have a couple of other guys with some pop, but I think he's clearly the best hitter there right now.  One of the catchers (not little Correa) there is barely hitting .100 and he's got a decent amount of at bats.

Are you talking about Garrett Stubbs little brother hitting .190?

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16 minutes ago, Gourmand said:

Scale of 1-10 with 10 being "very concerned"....how concerned are you about the state of the Astros farm considering the W-L records across all levels of minor league ball?

AAA Sugar Land 35-52 .402 23 gms back

AA CC 38-43 .469 4 gms back

High A Asheville 29-47 .382 12.5 gms back

Low A Fayetteville 35-45 .438 12 gms back

 

I’m not very concerned but it’s a choice-Luhnow was quoted as being bullish on creating a culture of winning in the minors.  Tampa, who we presumably want to emulate, has winning records with most of their affiliates.  
 

That said, I don’t know how you make THESE teams better besides to slow promotions or sign more minor league free agents (maybe including some AAAA lifers).  Playing devil’s advocate, not having a GM early in free agency might have been where signing that additional depth was felt most keenly.  

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7 minutes ago, LCHorn said:

I’m not very concerned but it’s a choice-Luhnow was quoted as being bullish on creating a culture of winning in the minors.

Bingo, that's my biggest concern with the state of the farm. Also, it's very surprising to me how terrible the Space Cowboys have played this year. Their -129 run diff is by far the worst in the PCL and eclipsed only by the CWS AAA Charlotte (-154) across all AAA clubs. 

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1 hour ago, Gourmand said:

Scale of 1-10 with 10 being "very concerned"....how concerned are you about the state of the Astros farm considering the W-L records across all levels of minor league ball?

AAA Sugar Land 35-52 .402 23 gms back

AA CC 38-43 .469 4 gms back

High A Asheville 29-47 .382 12.5 gms back

Low A Fayetteville 35-45 .438 12 gms back

 

The farm is below average, not terrible as those records would indicate.

Theyve had to raid the AAA pitching staff more than normal, and that staff was already decimated by injuries and underperformance.  Their lineup is deep enough.

The AA roster is fine.  Very deep lineup; Gilbert, Barber, Corona, Loperfido, Desenzo, and Daniels all have loud tools and have a chance to be good big leaguers.  The pitching staff lacks ToR SP but has a couple solid BoR guys.

The lower levels is really where you see the lack of depth, mostly from missing draft picks.  But that should get fixed after they add 20 guys from the draft and pull up a few international studs from the complex.

Depending on their deadline approach and how the rest of the draft plays out, I expect their farm to be solidly average heading into the offseason.  I do wish they’d done a better job of stacking the rosters such that they’d had better records, since I do think a winning culture does have a material impact on the big league club.

55 minutes ago, kevwun said:

We went to the Hooks game on Saturday.  Loperfido looks pretty good.  He's at first now, but he looks athletic enough where he could probably play left field also.  They have a couple of other guys with some pop, but I think he's clearly the best hitter there right now.  One of the catchers (not little Correa) there is barely hitting .100 and he's got a decent amount of at bats.

Wolforth is a driveline guy who was signed as a minor league fa for his ability to work with pitchers.  He’s essentially the minor league Maldonado.

As I noted above, the Hooks have 5-6 hitters who could be very good big leaguers.  Their weakness is rotation depth after Kouba, Gordon, and Robaina.

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