Off Season League Updates for Astros

This is my second time for posting an update on Arizona  / Carribean fall and winter league stats for Astros' players.  All of the usual caveats about sample size and quality of competition apply.  The sample sizes for hitters are beginning to raise our level of interest.  The sample sizes for pitchers are still fairly small.

Jose Altuve continues to be the most prolific hitter among Astros' off-season stars.  The guy has great contact skill, and if he faces mediocre pitching, he can show off eye popping, high-.300's batting averages, like his current .375 average. He also has exhibited good doubles pop, which isn't surprising. However, off-season leagues tend to have lessor pitching, since teams will protect their best pitchers from overuse.  The question for Altuve will continue to be his ability to translate his batting skill into similar performance against high quality major league pitching.  Some of the commenters at TCB have suggested that Altuve's excellent contact skill works against him at the major league level, because his confidence about hitting everything hinders his selectivity.  I'm not sure, but there may be something to that.  In the winter league, Altuve continues to show the low walk and strike out rates we have seen in his brief exposure to the majors league.  It may well be that a better metric for evaluating his future improvement will be "pitches seen" rather than BB% and K%.  In any event, Jose is putting up some good offensive numbers in Venezuela.

Brian Bogusevic is also in an offensive groove.  Both his OBP (.405) and SLG (.516) are in admirable territory.  I recall when Luke Scott's rise to the major leagues was foretold by a scorching OPS in Venezuelan winter ball.  We can hope that Bogey's strong Dominican campaign presages a similar leap in his major league performance.

Brett Wallace has one of the strangest slash lines of the off-season: .188, .385, .354, .739.  A 200 point differential between his batting average and on base average is (take your pick): (1) awesome; or (2) terrible.    Both his walk rate and K rate are astoundingly high.  A low .700's OPS is not where we want to see a first baseman.  Glass half full: he is showing great on base skill.  Glass half empty: why doesn't he show more power?

Kody Hinze is the only Astros' hitter with noteworthy stats in the Arizona Fall League.  His three HRs, which lead Astros' off-season hitters, are accompanied by a high OBP.   The blemish on his performance is the high K rate.  One can hope that the high K rate is an artifact of the sample size. 

There is less to report on the pitching side.  Sergio Perez continues to impress as a starting pitcher.   He has allowed only 19 hits, with no HRs, in 28 innings.  Aneury Rodriguez has been reasonably successful as a starter, with a 1.11 WHIP and 15 Ks in 18 IP.  However, he has been hurt by 4 HRs.  Although he isn't shown below, due to small sample size, David Carpenter has pitched fairly well in relief with a 3.86 ERA.

Below, the hitters are ordered by OPS and the pitchers are ordered by ERA.

(Note: K% and BB% are based on at bats which can produce a slightly higher rate than per PA)