Yes I am assuming he’ll get another option year. He’s certainly been injured enough to qualify. If not then he’ll be either traded or on the MLB roster and another optional arm (Sousa, Kuhnel, Ortega) will take his place in AAA.
2024 fearless projections Breakout pitcher AAA: Rhet Kouba Will head up a surprisingly strong AAA staff. AA: Blubaugh & Swanson assert themselves but are surpassed by Dubroski by seasons end. A+: Austin Temple Will shine in his first year at full strength since he was drafted. A: Jake Bloss begins to show a lot of promise as a future starter. Think Zack Greinke as as youngster. Breakout position player AAA: Zack Dezenzo Comes up for an injured Alex Bregman and plays credibly. Bregman trade mid season. AA: Jacob Melton plays a lot of impressive games at 1st base and cements himself as the likely future there. A+: Brice Mathews splits time at SS/2nd for most of 2024 before moving on to Corpus at seasons end. A+ Redux: Luis Baez along with Mathews begins to rocket through the system in right field. A: Kenny Gomez and Wander Luciano will be well known prospects by the end of the season. 21 draft will shine Spencer Arrighetti Joey Loperfido Colton Gordon* Rhett Kouba Kobe Kato Nic Swanson Justin Williams Will Wagner and more…..
Just wanted to shout out to Snake, Blindhog, and telekineticwhatever for their contributions. Your contributions to this site are incredible.
Kenedy Corona has a lot of upside. I had someone with the Astros say they think he can steal 60 bases a season in the big leagues with GG defense and developing power… just have to get his strikeouts under control.
The Astros have lost prospects like Misael Tamarez, Julio Robaina, and even Shay Whitcomb to the Rule 5 in the past; 40/45 grade guys who either carry massive bust risk or have very limited ceilings. Yohan Ramirez and and Brandon Bailey and Jonathan Arauz and others were those kind of prospects. But to my knowledge they have not had a prospect like Colin Barber exposed and taken; maybe Delino DeShields Jr a few years ago. One of the top 5 prospects in the organization who has fairly high floor but also a ceiling that includes yearly 20/20 production with good LF defense or slightly below average CF defense. Of course as always we have to defer to the Astros front office because they have a proven track record and access to far more information, but to me exposing Colin Barber to Rule 5 could end up being a massive unnecessary risk.
What really gets me is that they decided Julks over Barber on the 40 man? That tells me that if an OF gets injured next year, they feel Julks would be more likely to get called up and help the club than Barber. That's very concerning. If I read tomorrow that Julks or Barber were sold for $100,000 I would be far more upset about Barber. In fact I may rejoice if it was Julks. I have nothing against Julks but he's another Taylor Jones. Simply a guy who can play at 85% MLB level so you have 26 players on the roster. At least Blight Madris hit left handed which filled a need. His ceiling is Barber's floor.
Castro, who turns 25 in February, made his MLB debut with 10 appearances for the Giants in 2021. He made two appearances in 2022 with San Francisco before getting claimed on waivers by the Cubs, where he made eight more appearances. Castro spent the 2023 season at AAA Toledo (Tigers), where he recorded a save and a 2.30 ERA in 10 appearances. He did not appear in a game after May 10 and had Tommy John surgery in June. Bastidas, 25, spent his entire pro career in the Yankees system and is a first-time minor league free agent. He played 118 games last year (101 AAA, 18 AA) and slashed .249/.339/.413 with 15 home runs and 45 RBI. Bastidas is a middle infielder by trade; aside from a few appearances at 3B, he's pretty much evenly split between 2B and SS.
I will be interested to see how the 2024 lists turn out, but I wonder how much "potential opportunity" is considered? Dezenzo was not higher than 4th (Apollo) and Wagner not higher than 8th (also Apollo) in any of the updated/second half lists I saw last year. The big news in the offseason is Bregman potentially being traded and very likely being gone after the season, and suddenly they are 1st and 3rd?
Glad to see Ben Ziedman got a job with a legit site. He is the best Astros prospect writer I’ve seen. Interesting to see Wagner, Bloss, and Luciano ranked that high.
I was looking at the 2023 minor league stats and the DSL just keeps impressing me. >10 BB%, <20 K%, and >115 wRC+ Darwin DeLeon (19), Jancel Villarroel (18), Sandro Pereira (17), Luis Colon (19), Roiner Quintana (18), and Cristopfer Gonzalez (17) Carlos Cauro (18) close w/ 23.9 K% Ariel LeBron (18) close w/ 9.9 BB% Jhon Diaz (18) close w/ 112 wRC+ Andrews Sosa (18) close w/ 105 wRC+ Can anyone give some scouting reports or information on if any of these guys are expected to move stateside and/or be prospects to watch this year? That 3 metric combination looks promising at that age/experience level.
Will Wagner is going to be this years rookie of the year top finisher for the Astros. If you look at the short sample size, the last 20 games, he tore it up.
