You would think no team hitd on picks outside of the 1st rd. Then you look at Hunter/Pena/Arrighetti etc... and realize this isn't true of well run orgs. No Janek's in the 1st. I'm beginning to think Dana's scouting ability while not terrible is overrated. Look at his drafts and tell me he's been above avg at best.
There hasn’t been enough time to evaluate Dana Brown’s drafts. Ethan Pecko is about as highly thought of as Hunter Brown was at a similar stage in their career. There were like 5 catchers drafted in the top 4 rounds of the 2024 draft, none of them are projecting as way better than Janek (most are still in High A).
How long is enough time? Is the farm really that much better since Dana became GM? I certainly dont like the trades Dana has made.
A couple of thoughts about the catcher situation. Janek is the only catcher above a ball that has any chance to be good. When he is well enough to return he needs to be treated like the heir apparent and finish this season in AAA with the expectation of an opening day catcher next season. We need to trade for St.Louis AA catching prospect Rainiel Rodriguez this week. Coming to an agreement for Drafting Arkansas catcher, Ryder Helfrickin in the first round well ahead of the draft. Any thoughts on these?
Strikeout issues have really hurt Houston's farm this season and it seems to be getting worse as the season progresses. Will Bush, who had a breakout April, now has run his k rate up to 33%. Xavier Neyens has pushed his up to 33%. Joseph Sullivan 31% Ethan Frey 28% (with very little power) Max Holy has opened up in AA with a 30% k rate in his first 54 pa Walker Janek was at 36% when he got hurt. The only hitters with any meaningful sample who seem to be making consistent contact are Yamal Encarnacion (21%), Kevin Alvarez (19%), Alejandro Nunez (18%), Zach Daudet (17% with no power), Drew Brutcher (17% with no power), and Kyle Walker (18% with no power). I really want to see Alberto Hernandez get consistent playing time in Corpus. He's also a guy who has potential to post a low k rate with moderate power and plus defensive value. The pitching side is similarly plagued by walks.
He has been instructed to pursue higher upside prospects, and he has said that includes prospects that strike out a lot. The players he scouted and drafted in Atlanta and in Toronto did not strike out this much. They had questionable hit tools or holes in their swing, but it has been more extreme with the Astros. With some of these guys like Matthews, I am sure there was the hope that he would strikeout less over time with his bat speed and wrists, but that hasn't happened. A lot of these guys are boom or bust guys.
I think at this point we need to hope that Janek turns it around with the bat. With regard to Rodriguez from St. Louis, that guy is at AA at 19 years of age and doing extremely well --- and is a Top 25 prospect in baseball (per mlb.com). I don't see any way the Astros would be able to pry that guy away from the Cardinals. Any catcher we would take in the draft (other than Vahn Lackey --- who won't be there at either of our picks in the 1st round) would be a crapshoot and would still take a couple of years to make it to the majors.
The rub is that it generally takes a while without top-flight picks, but it is really damaging if you get the data to be sure. I'm leaning towards Dana having been unsuccessful so far, but with the hit, miss, miss, miss, or miss nature of the MLB draft, it could just be small sample size or too early. I'd say the top of the farm looks no better. Alvarez, Neyens, and Pecko are the only guys that really pop for me.
Walker Janek needs to be objectively viewed, and he has shown no indication that we is close to being good enough to be a big-league catcher in 2027. He has struggled a great deal in AA. If he turns it around, and has a 900 OPS in AA and finishes the season in AAA and does damage, then we can revisit the situation. right now Janek is a guy with high level defensive tools, good bat speed for a catcher -- but has not produced well enough to be a top level prospect. It took him awhile in college to be a good hitter, maybe that will be the case in the minors too. I personally do not want the Astros focusing in on needing a catcher in the system. They are going to need everything. I would not pay a premium for a catcher in the draft or prospect trade. Add arms and athletes that can hit --- when a special bat comes along, like a Yordan or what they thought they had in Seth Beer, take them -- but you can't have multiple of those guys.
Minimum of 4 years to get any real idea of how good a GM has been at drafting. This time next year if the 2023 draft hasn’t produced a prospect who looks like a significant core player, and the 2024/2025 drafts don’t have a handful of guys that are outperforming their draft slots, then we can start to say “this dude is not who we hoped he’d be”. But I think the bar needs to be much lower than it was for Luhnow because Brown is working with far fewer resources and under a different dynamic.
The minor league system was bereft of talent. It is way too early to be such a harsh critic of Brown. The jury is still out on Matthews that for some reason has torn it up on the road and shows signs of getting better at home. Neyens and Alvarez are going to be in top 100 lists. Cam Smith is still a high level prospect. We are a spoiled fan base, many of which are advocating another 5 year tank job. No thanks. It took Luhow 5 years and he did it by gutting the major league roster and starting over with high draft picks. When we got closer, he was given permission to gut the minor league system again for win now vets and made his share of crap trades as well. Then he gets kicked out of baseball and leaves us with a weak minor league roster and the loss of high draft picks. The one thing that Luhow had that none of the other GM’s have had, is an owner that gave him free rein. Once Crane started playing GM things started going south. By the way, I’m responding to the thread as whole not to Joe, Joe who is being reasonable.
I think this is fair. By this point the hope would be that at least one guy from his draft was a regular. Right now Matthews is intriguing and has some value at the big-league level, but he isn't a long-term starter at this point. Brown took a number of high upside swings, especially on the pitching side and so far they have been injury prone. He can point to Pecko and say he is doing well and almost ready. On the offensive side, he took some high school bats and they take longer. Alvarez, Neyens and Pecko are legitimate top 100 type prospects. guys like Huezo, Ochoa, Sullivan and a couple others are interesting. Overall I would say the returns have been middling -- but that is written in pencil, because of the youth and upside of some of these guys. If Pecko is a #2-3 starter, and Alvarez and Neyens are long term starters... then the view of the draft will be drastically different. I think it is fair to say his draft hasn't blown anyone away yet. He did identify Cam Smith --- who the hitting coach recently said is elite in all hitting drills, and his struggles are mental.
For a GM who has contributed very little to improving the major product, I do think it's fair to hold him to a higher standard on his farm development. That seems to be the only job he's judged on, so yes middling results are not good enough. I do think Jim Crane being Jerry Jones 2.0 is gonna be a hinderance for the rest of his tenure, which scares me more than Browns meh results.
Matthews has a .247 BABIP in MLB which with his power and speed reflects a lot of bad luck. If that normalizes up to ~.310 which is where I'd expect a player with his profile to end up, he'd be a league-average hitter with plus CF/2B defense and baserunning value, even if he doesn't improve his bb/k rates. That's a fine player to have in the 7-8-9 hole for 5 years, and a guy you can probably comfortably bat leadoff against LHP. That's a great outcome for a #28 overall pick.
That is an excellent point. I do expect his walks to increase based on what I saw in the minor leagues.
In his AAA stint last season he walked 14.6% and had a .346 BABIP with 28% k. If he can just get his MLB bb rate to 10% and his BABIP to .310, he will be a 2.5+ win player even with a 35% k rate (his MLB k rate so far is 34.7%). Homers, steals, and excellent CF/2B defense can mask one major flaw.
By power I'm sure you're looking at max EV, but his average exit velo is 88 (which is close to his 89 in the minors). He doesn't consistently hit the ball hard. His xBA is actually 10 points below his actual batting average (and his xBA was also well below his actual average in the minors). His 37% wiff number isn't much higher than his 35% in the minors and is among the worst in the league. He misses too often in the zone and doesn't make quality contact often enough when he connect. For him to have any positive value in the lineup, he's got to run like he did in the minors. He went from a 40+ steal type to a guy who won't reach double digits, and that's inexcusable for a guy with his profile. I love having fast guys but someone needs to turn them loose at the ML level. I suspect it's an unfortunate organizational philosophy.
This is another issue I have with Espada. He is a passive manager. He just let's the players play instead of calling plays like steals, hit and runs, taking pitches and even pitch outs. He is basically Tom Hanks from A League of Their Own sitting in the dugout scratching his balls. When you have a lineup full of inexperienced players thats totally different than veterans. They need more instruction. You can't expect the same level of results from lesser players unless you change what you have/allow them to do.
