Saturday Astros Minor Thoughts
by David Coleman on Apr 3, 2010 6:00 AM CDT
in Houston Astros Minor League News
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PrintLet's start out by talking about rosters. Last time, I tried to predict the Opening Day roster for Round Rock. Farmstros has done me one better over the past couple weeks, however, by actually getting player assignments after guys were cut from big league camp. Then, in his post yesterday, Jonathon Fixler revealed that all the minor league players got their assignments for the upcoming season on Wednesday. Here's a breakdown of what we know:
Round Rock
Starting rotation
LHP Wesley Wright
LHP Polin Trinidad
RHP Wilton Lopez
RHP Josh Banks
RHP Casey Daigle
Bullpen
RHP Chia-jen Lo
RHP Jose G. Valdez
RHP Evan Englebrook
Catchers
Infield
INF Edwin Maysonet
INF Wladimir Sutil
3B Drew Meyer
Outfield
OF Jason Bourgeois
OF Yordany Ramirez
OF Brian Bogusevic
The roster at RoundRockExpress.com listed Bourgeois, so I added him here. They also listed RHP Brad James, LHP Chris Blazek, RHP Roy Corcoran, RHP Andy Van Hekken, catchers Lou Santangelo and Brian Esposito and infielders Jose Vallejo and German Duran. All of those guys aren't making the roster, because guys like Kevin Cash, Josh Banks, Casey Daigle, Chris Shelton, Drew Meyer, Gustavo Chacin and Gary Majewski are also in play for roster spots. I slotted Daigle and Banks into the rotation here because I think they both will stick and added both Shelton and Meyer to the infield.
Corpus Christi
Starting rotation
LHP Fernando Abad
Infield
INF David Flores
The Hooks website lists more people on the roster here than we do, but since they also have Jason Castro on their roster, I'm not sure it's entirely accurate. I wouldn't be surprised to see Esposito back here as the starting catcher.
Lancaster
Relievers
RHP Henry Villar
RHP Matt Nevarez
Catcher
Jordan Comadena
Infield
3B Ebert Rosario
Again, not much information here. I'd like to see Comadena get a chance to start, however, even if he is joined by the likes of Bubby Williams, an 11th round pick out of Crowder College, or Federico Hernandez, a 22-year old signed out of Venezuela in 2005.
Fixler is the only known commodity at Lexington, but he mentioned in his blog post that he'd be joined by Jio Mier, David Duncan, Jonathan Meyer, Jake Goebbert and Rene Garcia, who is a catcher. Hopefully, Fixler will get ample playing time there to showcase his abilities. Now that we've had a chance to hear from him a little bit, it'd be hard to take him going the way of Crash Davis.
With those names in place, let's take a stab at filling out Lexington's roster
Starting rotation
Zachary Grimmett
Tanner Busue
David Duncan
Dallas Keuchel
Colton Pitkin
Catchers
Rene Garcia
Jonathon Fixler
Infield
SS Jio Mier
3B Jonathan Meyer
1B Aaron Bray
2B Jose Altuve
DH J.D. Martinez
Outfield
RF Grant Hogue
LF Jake Goebbert
CF Brian Kemp
That's a good guess, at any rate. Keuchel very well could start in Lancaster, as could Kemp. Just don't hold me accountable when it turns out to be very, very wrong. This page may mysteriously disappear.
MLBTradeRumors has a note about MIke Costanzo being released by the Orioles this week. You may remember Costanzo from his 10 minutes with the Houston franchise. Costanzo was one of the prospects who came over in the Brad Lidge trade, along with Michael Bourn and Geoff Geary. He was then traded to Baltimore in a big package for Miguel Tejada. Just goes to show that not every prospect pans out, I guess. Wonder if Wade will pick him up off the scrap heap now.
Some of you expressed your dismay in the Fixler FanShot at his demotion back to Low A ball. How do you feel after reading this article on the minor leagues from former Giants farmhand Garrett Brosius. Every time you feel like these guys are getting paid way too much to play a game, you see something like this about life in the minor leagues. I don't know about you, but I'd have been awfully tempted to take any advantage I could to get to the big leagues. Not saying I would have used steroids, but I can see why people did and it wasn't because their souls were black as the night, either.
Lastly, here's a story about how to evaluate amateurs before a draft. Turns out, how they do against the best competition is pretty telling. Who'd have guessed?
Next week, I'm going to cover the Round Rock/Corpus Christi scrimmage on Wednesday. Look for a game recap the next day and a little different Minor Thoughts column on Friday. Any Austinites with some dining tips for me after the game?
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I’m hoping they give JD Martinez a chance to play a position everyday, whether its LF or 1B just to give him some defensive value instead of sticking him at DH and giving him spot starts at a real position. The guy can hit though.
I was also a little surprised at David Duncan going back to Lexington. I know he was terrible at Lancaster last year causing him to get demoted to Lexington, but i figured he’d be ready to try Lancaster out again. This may be indicating that the organization isn’t going to be quite as aggressive as we thought with player advancement with pitchers this year and Lyles will actually end up in Lancaster. I thought that with Duncan being older, he might have a slim chance of skipping over lancaster for CC from his good stint at the end of the season with lexington.
I don’t go to austin very much, but i do know that Stubbs BBQ is pretty good. My family and I usually head out of austin and go to Gruene and eat at the Gristmill instead.
If you haven't been to Oasis on Lake Travis, try it
for the view and margueritas alone if nothing else. Ilike the enchiladas myself.
Astros fan for life
by Joe in Birmingham on Apr 3, 2010 10:07 AM CDT reply actions
Oasis is good for the views, the mexican food is average at best, IMO. Austin has really good mexican restaurants and barbecue places. It depends on when, where you are eating and what kind of food you want. Are you thinking about eating before or after the game? Does it need to be near Round Rock?
I like homestyle cooking, and these two restaurants are among my favorites. Since they both close at 9 pm, obviously it’s not a post-game place. They are places I generally recommend to people from out of town who aren’t looking for a specific type of food.
If you go to Threadgill’s on North Lamar, be sure to look at the Janis Joplin memorabilia room. She used to play at that location when she was a UT student.
Round Rock's pitching
Starters may offer Astros some help this season but the relievers look weak.
Astros fan for life
by Joe in Birmingham on Apr 3, 2010 10:09 AM CDT reply actions
My recommendations
Round Rock: Pluckers and Round Rock Donuts
Georgetown: Monument (God I miss that place). Georgetown BBQ, little mom and pop joint that is phenomenal and cheap.
Austin: The above are all good.
The Crawfishboxes
A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.
by Stephen Higdon on Apr 3, 2010 11:24 AM CDT via mobile reply actions
Stop at Baris Pizza & Pasta in Pflugerville
For really good Italian if you’re in the mood for that….MMMMMM baked ravioli or manicotti, and fresh garlic loaf!
Between Round Rock and Austin.
That article about evaluating potential draftees by how well they do against other potential draftees was really interesting.
I like the idea of trying to find potential bust picks by looking at whether there is a big drop when they face other guys who have been or will be drafted. Zack Cox has been identified as a potential draft pick here…and it makes sense…college, 3B, hits for power… sounds great. One concern people have pointed out regarding Cox is his K rate…this article points out another cause for concern…His overall OPS is 930, but in his 68 plate attempts against higher-quality, drafted pitchers from previous years, his OPS drops to a paltry .609. Small sample size, yes, but a definite factor to consider.
Meanwhile Bryce Brentz (42 PA in 2009, and a disgusting 1.409 OPS against drafted players) and Christian Colon (216 PA over 2008 and 2009, with a consistent 800+ OPS against drafted players) have done pretty well.
Let me start by saying i’m a Zack Cox fan and like him and was my favorite for our first pick, but lately i have been souring on him. You mentioned that he has a high K rate. This is the result, if you watch film, he struggles with pitch recognition and his swing on off speed pitches is usually very off balance. He has worked on this has made improvements which has helped his k rate some. But the adjustments have caused a slight dip in power. He has been batting 5th this season instead of 3rd or 4th, which is indicative of a combination in a dropping productivity and that 1B Andy Wilkins is just that good and needs to be in that spot.
When I saw this analysis, I had mixed feelings about relying upon the results. This approach is similar to using career MLB stats for individual hitter vs. individual pitcher or individual hitter at a particular ballpark. When those splits are used at the MLB level (and we know many managers use them), the sample sizes are similar to the HT analysis, and many sabemetric analysts attack the use of those numbers on statistical reliability grounds. I have always felt that the MLB splits of this nature can provide an additional piece of information to the manager, so long as they aren’t the main basis for a decision. (My view: some information is better than no information.) However, the reliability concerns are real. My suggestion would be to focus on split results (draftee vs. draftees) which are extreme and ignore the rest; extreme results are likely to have more statistical significance. For example, a guy with a 1.3 OPS or a .500 OPS vs. draftees may be worth using, but I may not feel as confident about using Cox’s .609 OPS, for instance.
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Current Series
3 game series vs Dodgers @ Dodger Stadium
| Fri 05/25 |
WP: Lucas Harrell (4 - 3)
SV: Brett Myers LP: Clayton Kershaw (4 - 2) |
3 - 1 win |
| Sat 05/26 |
WP: Kenley Jansen (4 - 0)
LP: Wesley Wright (0 - 1) |
3 - 6 loss |
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Houston Astros
Sunday, May 27, 2012, 3:10 PM CDT Partly cloudy. Winds blowing out to right field at 10-15 m.p.h. Game time temperature around 75. |
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NL Central Standings
| W | L | PCT | GB | STRK | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Cincinnati
|
26 | 20 | .565 | 0 | Won 1 |
|
St. Louis
|
25 | 22 | .531 | 1.5 | Lost 3 |
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Houston
|
22 | 24 | .478 | 4 | Lost 1 |
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Pittsburgh
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22 | 24 | .478 | 4 | Won 2 |
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Milwaukee
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19 | 27 | .413 | 7 | Lost 1 |
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Chicago
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15 | 31 | .326 | 11 | Lost 11 |
(updated 5.27.2012 at 1:03 AM CDT)
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