We'll see how the Matthew's and Coles of the world do this season. We have a handful of guys that could be meaningful players by years end, but they all have some pretty ugly holes in their profile. The Astros haven't graduated a meaningful prospect the last 3 seasons. At a certain point it isn't national media pessimism, it's just a fact. The Astros farm has been bad the last few seasons and even now only has hopes for breakouts into top prospect territory
Nah. The Astros graduated All-Star Jeremy Pena in 2022 and CY Finalist Hunter Brown and starting C Yainer Diaz in 2023. So really this “slump” is related to 2024-2025. In 2024 they graduated August 2024 MLB Rookie of the Month Spencer Arrighetti who posted 1.7 fwar (83rd among all MLB SP) as a rookie and traded away Jake Bloss who is a top 100 prospect and brought back a P in Kikuchi who pitched like an ace. In 2025 they graduated Cam Smith who was a top 50 prospect and became their everyday RF less than a year after getting drafted and who got ROY votes. The narrative is bullshit. The Astros were 12th in the league in rookie fWAR last year. Had Arrighetti not gotten hurt last year and Smith not fallen apart (or not been rushed), Houston’s farm would be inarguably maintaining its streak of producing at least one quality core player every year. Every year they’ve been ranked in the bottom 5 of the league they’ve produced MLB value commiserate with a team in the middle of the pack. The Astros farm system is not good right now, but they are not among the 3 worst in the league. They may not even be 3rd worst in their division. Their AA infield is likely going to be terrible this season, which is bad because that’s where the meat of most farm systems is, but outside of that their farm is on par with most of the teams in the league. That Fangraphs list is ridiculously low on Brice Matthews.Ethan Frey, and Zach Cole. It’s stupid lazy writing to look at their secondary stats and say “swings and misses-WORTHLESS!” and to write off the system because they’re thin on bonus babies.
