Houston Astros Organization Discussion

The changes will come with new ownership. Wade needs to go but Bobby Heck needs to stay.

Jordan Scott had a solid year in the Appy as a 19 year old.
Luis Ordisgoitti is a pitcher to watch - has pretty good stuff.

Brandon Meredith, Javaris Reynolds, and Wallace Gonzalez, and Chase Davidson are four guys who could make some noise next year. On the pitching end, Christopher Lee, Nick Tropeano, and Kyle Hallock are all potential names to watch.

In terms of a player already in the system who might break next year, I’ll agree with kyuss and say Telvin Nash. The guy has monster raw power, although the strikeouts are a bit worrisome.

And certainly more upside in the top 3 prospects. I think a few of the pitchers floating around the back end of the organization top 10 are mildly underrated in these parts (Foltynewicz, Houser, and Clemens jump to mind) and deserve strong consideration for B- grades rather than the C+ some people seem to be leaning toward.

But really, which prospects slot into the top dozen or so should be pretty easy to pick out. Off the top of my head, Singleton, Springer, Cosart, Villar, Santana, Oberholtzer, Clemens, Foltynewicz, Houser, DeShields, Ovando, Wates… in no precise order. After that, you have a whole mess of C/C+ range sleepers, mostly without substantial upside, with perhaps a few exceptions like Telvin Nash.

Fire Brad Mills. Easily the worst manager I’ve ever seen. I still can’t believe he played minor-league caliber players Jason Michaels and Angel Sanchez consistently. I won’t get into his lineups, as they were downright pathetic in the last 3 months of the season.

Aside from getting rid of Mills, we need to remove Ed Wade. I think the Hunter Pence trade was a fantastic trade for us, but the Michael Bourn trade was a disaster. He’s just not the right GM for us.

As for our farm system, I think it has vastly improved. Jonathan Singleton, Jarred Cosart, and George Springer are our top prospects. All three have All-Star ceilings, but all three also have low floors. That’s actually a consistent theme throughout our system.

With the additions of Singleton, Cosart, Springer, and Domingo Santana (Also acquired from Philly), our system is at least respectable.

Ariel Ovando and Delino DeShields Jr. can certainly boost this system if they lives up to their potential. Ovando’s got immense raw power, a cannon of an arm, and good speed. DeShields has pretty good power and elite speed. His transition to 2B is still a work in progress, though he did show improvement there in the second half of the season. Both are exceptional athletes, but are still very young and raw. It would be nice if both had good 2012 campaigns. They could be legitimate B+, A- prospects if they live up to their potential. Big if, though.

Hopefully the #1 pick will increase our system even further. Too bad that it’s a weak draft, though.

Has fantastic power potential, but doesn’t do much else. He does walk at a fairly high rate, and he does have a somewhat respectable batting average, but his K rate is alarming. The funny thing is that he has a great eye at the plate, and rarely swings at pitches outside of the zone. However, he takes a lot of giant swings, therefore he strikes out a lot.

If he can improve his K rate, and not take so many unnecessarily giant swings, he could be a legitimate B, MAYBE even a borderline B+ prospect, depending on how much progress he makes.

He MUST make some noise at Lancaster this season, or he’s in trouble.

should play well to his power since a routine fly ball often leaves the stratosphere there.

I know he’s reasonably highly regarded (top 10 from almost everyone), but he’s underrated in my book. He focused almost all of his efforts on converting to second early in the year so it makes sense that he struggled a bit with the stick, skipped the NYPL and played in A-ball as an 18 yr old, improved his walk and K rate, and was playing in a tough park for hitters. He’s the classic prospect fatigue case and I think he could shoot way up in stock if he moves up next year and hits well because he could be a five tool 2nd baseman who hits for a ton of power, steals a lot of bases, and has a sure glove. I like this kid.