Stros sign Chris "Mr. April" Shelton

I didn’t see anything about the signing, but you’re right, it looks like he could compete for a bench job in the spring and then end up in Round Rock. Wade said the Astros had re-doubled their efforts at evaluating 4A, er, 6th year minor league, players. And he would seem to fit that category.

Cook’s advanced stats are here. This looks like a Billy Bean type minor leaguer. He has serious power and he walks a lot (good on base skills). He will strike out some, and won’t produce a high batting average. His Isolated Power (ISO) has been impressive in the minors. and he hit 25 HRs in AA Birmingham in 2009. And, yes, CHONE projects good major league numbers for Cook: 1.3 WAR, .335 wOBA, .197 ISO, .768 OPS. Take that with a grain of salt, but I can’t recall any other Astros’ minor leaguer whom CHONE projects to put up offensive numbers that good in the majors.

I’m not sure about his speed and defense. My guess is that he is average for an outfielder in terms of speed/defense. He has mostly played LF in his career, but he has played significant time in all outfield positions in the minors, and the fact that he was used occasionally in CF as recently as 2009 must mean that his range isn’t terrible. His speed score is about average.

The biggest impediment to Cook’s career is that he hasn’t spent a lot of time in AAA, despite his age. He played mostly AA Birmingham last year, before a brief promotion to AAA. The White Sox SBN blog commented that someone in the ChiSox organization must really want Birmingham to win as shown by putting Cook on their roster, even though he should be in AAA.

Also, more importantly, the Astros now have two minor leaguers who share a name with contestants from season 7 of American Idol.

David Cook and Jason Castro