Jacob nottingham top prospects5/30/2023 Rather than having a chance to bounce back right away, he had to sit with what was really just a short stretch in a long season in a long career in a long life. Hard to say what happened with a lot of minor leaguers during that time, but it might’ve been pretty rough on Santana. Then the pandemic began and closed out the 2020 season. 333 OBP, so it could’ve been worse, but he also hit. He played well enough (112 wRC+) in High-A, but then Houston sent him to Double-A at 19-years-old. Santana made enough noise with the Mets in 2019 that Houston targeted him as the (perceived) primary return in the JD Davis trade. The 6’0” 195 lb Diaz is a perfect fit for his major league team, where he should find plenty of ducks on the pond and plenty of easy homers down the left field line. We can see the elite power in the slash lines, but it’s nice to have the extra confirmation. Baseball America just released their Top 100, where they have Diaz listed as having a 92 mile per hour average exit velocity. His strikeout rates across these levels have also been consistent: 16.3, 16.2, 15, and 17.8 percent in 48 Triple-A games last season. 306/.358/.542 in 2022, which was pretty close to his slash line the year before. Certainly helped that he was with Cleveland and Houston, whose minor league lineups tend to be stacked, but he slashed. He doesn’t walk as much as you’d like, and runs batted in is perhaps the least popular surface stat in the game right now, but 90 RBI in about 100 games played across multiple levels is rare air for a minor league hitter. In 105 games across three levels, he hit 25 home runs and collected 96 runs batted in, his second straight season eclipsing 90 RBI in about 100 games across multiple levels. Whether or not Brown can buck that trend will come down to health across the roster, the club’s commitment to Jose Urquidy, and how Brown handles the back-and-forth role in which he’ll likely open the season.ĭiaz has always hit. The Houston development plan of piggy-backing mixed with starting all the way up prepares these guys for the life they’ll face as an Astro, waiting sometimes multiple seasons to truly crack the rotation. In 20.1 MLB inning in 2022, he posted a 1.08 WHIP after recording a 1.08 across 106 Triple-A innings. Hitting spots is still not his long suit, but Brown’s stuff is so dynamic, he’ll never have to be especially fine to retire big league hitters. His ability to repeat has improved year over year to the point that his control is finally trending toward command. At 6’2” 212 lbs, Brown maintains impeccable balance throughout his delivery thanks to elite posture and strong legs. Decent chance a couple people from this group vastly exceed their present perceived value in a similar fashion.įormat: Position Player | Age on 4/1/23 | Highest Level Played | ETAĬan Jose Urquidy hold this freight train off for the fifth starter spot? Hunter Brown is the most chamber-approved pitching prospect Houston’s had since Forrest Whitley. It’s helped us to roster Luis Garcia, Jose Urquidy, Cristian Javier and Jeremy Pena among others. The automatic bump to a Houston prospect has been useful since Yordan Alvarez was left off the Top 100 lists heading into his rookie year. And thanks to the Houston Astros for developing good baseball players. Thanks to all of you who chat it up in the comments. Mostly I just want to say thanks to all of you who’ve read my work between there and here. This gig requires a fair amount of future-casting, and that requires a fair amount of confidence on top of the competence. Something might look wrong to most readers today, but that doesn’t mean you should hesitate to say it. It’s just, both of these memories wound up being foundational for me as a baseball writer. I think Astros fans were especially salty because this happened during those early pandemic days when the trash-can hate was still fresh, and there was no baseball on the field to distract us or force them to pay the full-stadium consequences for their fuckery. I had ranked Alex Bregman 9th among third basemen for dynasty leagues coming off his 41 home run season. The other comment-cooking that comes to mind was Houston related as well. I wasn’t familiar with the ways of Reddit yet, and to be fair to the Redditors, I wasn’t particularly adept at writing these blurbs to reflect my reasoning yet either. ![]() I might never forget it: my first time getting cooked in the comments. My first year doing these, some readers on Reddit came at me for having Jeremy Peña too high (fifth) on the list. Houston prospects tend to get a little extra bump up the lists from me.
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