If there is nothing in the way of minor league games this year, then add in a small but still significant draft class/international signing group, organizational rankings will be almost worthless this time next year. Kids a year older but no more experience, will be tough to assign players to the right level, and some levels might not exist anymore anyway. Will be a true crapshoot, even more than it always is
Looking ahead to the draft, I really like 3 guys from Arizona St. Too early off the cuff mock: 2C: Alika Williams, SS Arizona St. 3: Gage Workman, 3B Arizona St. 4: Trevor Hauver, OF Arizona St. 5: Trei Cruz, IF Rice 6: Jack Neely, RHP Juco
Yep, especially with the possible reduction to 4 or 5 MiLB teams per org the shakeup will be impossible to gauge right away. Good thing is that likely provides opportunity for teams with lesser farms but forward thinking front offices (like Houston).
Yea losing the minors for a year would suck But man, gotta tell you I hope the article is true. I hope the "info from agents" is legit and this is a sign that baseball is around the corner, even if it means almost half of our games start at 9
Im still hopeful that even if they cancel the minor league seasons, they still have rosters in the complex leagues with games and stats. I could see mlb rosters being set at 40, with 2 complex league rosters per team (one made up of AAA/AA players and one made up of A+/A/A-/Rk players, each with 40 players). That would get close to allowing all the minor leaguers who would have otherwise been assigned to a full season affiliate to have a season.
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2020/04/mlbpa-rejects-mlbs-2020-draft-proposal.html Looks like the June 10 draft will be 10 rounds, with severe limitation on undrafted bonuses and possible hard slot signing for drafted players. A lot of talent likely to defer to future drafts, which benefits Houston since they’re penalized this year. Fewer draftees also makes it more likely there won’t be a season for short season minor league teams like Tri City and GCL.
Trei Cruz in an Astros uni would be special. Local product obviously (go Episcopal Knights!). His college numbers look good too. Do we have a shot of landing him? I didn’t realize that we’ve drafted him before. How good of a prospect is he?
He is a decent prospect. Fangraphs has him rated as the #179 draft prospect. Fairly high upside since he has potential to play SS and hit for some gap power, and is a switch hitter. But he’s not an elite athlete; he has average speed and an average arm, and his body type indicates he might end up at 3B. I think he’ll be drafted between the 4th and 8th rounds and he is a solid value there.
You might be correct. I have a hard time seeing the GCL getting cancelled. Games going from being lightly attended to no attended should not matter much for the play on the field. I could even see most complexes added a second team, so all of the early-in-development talent gets some reps this season.
My expectation is that the complex leagues will serve as replacements for the full-season leagues. So in that sense I agree with you that there will be a GCL. But I think those rosters will be made up of guys who would otherwise have been at QC, Fayetteville, and EST rather than draftees and guys promoted from the DSL.
I noticed today that the minor league rosters have been updated. Some very strange placements so no clue what it means. For those interested, here are the rosters for the full season affiliates: AAA: C: Stubbs, Ritchie, Manea, Castro IF: De Goti, Duarte, Jones, Mayfield, A Sierra, M Sierra, Tanielu, F Medina(?) OF: Dawson, De La Cruz, Ferguson, Wrenn P: Adcock, Bailey, Blanco, L Chavez, Deetz, Emanuel, R Ferrell, Garza, Hartman, N Hernandez, Javier, LaRue, McCurry, C Perez, L Rodriguez, Sanabria, Scrubb, Taylor, Tejada AA: C: Canelon, Quintana, Robinson, Shaver IF: Adams, Matijevic OF: Benedetti, Julks, McCormick, Meyers P: Bielak, Collado, Conine, DeJuneas, Donato, J Ferrell, Ivey, McKee, Paredes, Scheetz, G Valdez, Whitley https://www.milb.com/fayetteville/roster https://www.milb.com/quad-cities/roster
Poring over Fangraphs and MLB.com prospects lists, it looks like there are 8 basic groups of prospects, of which the average farm would have about 5 or 6 in each group. This is how Houstons farm shakes out: 1st round draft picks (2): Whitley, Lee Top 30 int’l signees (4): Nova, Lorenzo, C Perez, M Sierra Other $700k+ bonus draft picks (6): Barber, Taylor, Dawson, Matijevic, J Perez, Schroeder Other $700k+ bonus international signees (4): Macuare, Santander, Cueta, A Sierra 3rd tier drafted position player prospects (7): Toro, Pena, Kessinger, Brewer, Stubbs, Jones, McCormick 3rd tier drafted arms (9): Ivey, Brown, Bielak, Dubin, Conine, Henley, Deason, Solomon, Bailey 3rd tier international position player prospects (2): Santana, De La Cruz 3rd tier international arms (16): Solis, Paredes, Rivera, Torres, J Lopez, N Rodriguez, Garcia, Javier, Sanabria, Ramirez, JP Lopez, Robaina, Taveras, Urquidy, Abreu, Armenteros As has been widely discussed, Houston sorely lacks 1st round draft picks in their system, and the next layer is merely average, but the depth (especially arms) is very good. If you were to add Tucker, Beer, and Bukauskas back to this farm, my guess is the consensus opinion would be that Houstons farm rates about average to slightly above average.
(I know I’m talking to myself here, but we got a pandemic on, so...) From the current MLB.com Top 100, only 16 prospects received <$700k signing bonus as amateurs: 5 were drafted 3rd round or later, 11 were underrated international signees. The take away: the draft is pretty damn efficient, and while the international signings are less accurate, the vast majority of top players come from the top of the pool. Scheming as to how Houston can rebuild their farm without a 1st round pick the next 2 years and while continuing to be able to trade away prospects to help win another championship, they could use their surplus of upper level pitching prospects to acquire additional international bonus pool. They’ve secured the #6 prospect in Pedro Leon, and although they aren’t likely to get another Top 30 prospect, they could get 2-3 other really good prospects that require $700k+. They could also use that pool to potentially add a CB draft pick.
If nothing else might be a sign that Abreu and Javier will be on the team when we finally get started, and Whitley won't
I took a deeper look at all the rosters, and this is my total speculation, but I think the rosters were updated with the expectation that the MLB roster would be expanded to 30 (from 26), that minor league rosters would expand to 35 (from 26), and that the minor league season would not begin until after the draft, which they expect(ed) to be about 25 rounds. There are some really odd assignments, with guys who primarily played in AAA last season assigned to AA and guys who played in High A and A ball assigned to AAA. But there has to be some meaning to them because the QC roster was updated with recent draftees like Brown, Henley, and Gusto and guys with no full season experience like Serrano and JP Lopez. And some guys who had been in full season ball were reassigned to short season rosters. But no roster has more than 35 players. And no players in the Org are missing (although from what I can tell most of the previous J2 international signees are still not on a roster). I expect there to be a draft in June prior to opening day, with MLB starting July 1 and the minor league seasons starting a week or two later, so there will likely be a set of big changes to all those rosters at that point. I should also note that many of the player assignments are dated back to November of last year, which could mean some of them (like Miguelangel Sierra assigned to AAA) could have been made to avoid players being exposed to the minor league phases of the Rule 5 draft.
From what I have been told the Astros intend to follow the blueprint laid out right before the GM change and that is to try and hit the top of the international market hard. The Astros were already intending to go this direction before the change at the GM level was made. Also they were discussing targeting higher end high school players before as well. Click when on the Rays would advocate for pushing all out for guys they believed in, even if it meant less resources at other spots in the international draft. He was a big advocate of Franco and others. I expect to see the Astros take a similar tact for at least the next handful of years.
I'm like 60% sure your last paragraph is spot on, because it looks like most were assigned Nov 19 or 20 and the 20th is when they have to finalize rosters, and all the guys moved that date were rule 5 eligible. If that's true, the guys clearly protected were: Adcock Castro Chavez De La Cruz Hernandez Manea Fredy Medina Rodriguez Sanabria Scrubb Sierra Tejada Medina is the one that kind of stands out there. It looks like he's a converted infielder, so is probably rawer than his age suggests. Protection from the minor league rule 5 draft is a pretty low bar, but it'll be interesting to see what he's got.
Yeah the more I think about it the more likely it is that the AAA and AA rosters solely reflect what was done in advance of the Rule 5. The takeaways from that would be to note those guts protected are at least valued to some degree, and the guys exposed to the minor league phase (McKee, J Ferrell, Scheetz, G Valdez) probably aren’t likely to be real prospects (given they were both exposed and passed over in the minor league phase). It is still interesting to me that the QC roster was updated in October (for most players) then Gusto was added in March.
