Future Outlook: Houston Astros

The Houston Astros are a struggling team and have been for the last few seasons.  This doesn’t mean that all hope is lost though in fact it might mean they have a very bright future!  Baseball’s draft is just as important as the rest of the sports world and that one pick can have just as much importance to the clubs future than signing a guy like Pujols or Sabathia.  With these entries we shall take a look at teams and look at how their systems are doing and how the future of the team looks.  First I think it’s a good idea to explain the Scouting Grading Scale and what it means.  For position players scouts look at 5 different areas: Batting, Power, Speed, Defense and Arm.  For pitching they look at they look at the pitches that the pitcher throws and his overall Command and Control.  The scale isn’t a normal scale its called the 20-80 scale, where 80 means All Star and 20 means well below average and 50 would be league average.  With that said lets take a look at today’s subject the Houston Astros.

            Houston has made a lot of bad choices with their team and that has lead them to the situation their in now.  Signing Carlos Lee and Woody Williams loosing the first 2 picks in the 2007 draft then failing to sign the first pick they actually had. (Derek Dietrich now plays for the Marlins and is the 12^th ranked player in the system.)  Even the players they signed were nothing more than back up bench players and bad picks in the years after that started the slippery slop.  But enough about how the team got to this point and look at how they’re looking in the future.

            Lets start by looking what Baseball America says about the team under General Manager Jeff Luhnow.  Out of the 30 teams the Astros are ranked as having the 9^th best system in the league.  Smart drafting and smarter trades have helped rebuild a system that had all but fallen apart, something that Luhnow has experience in doing with the Cardinals.  The team has done a smart strategy in drafts by drafting players that are cheaper but have good talent.  By doing this it lets them spend more on the later picks giving them more talent overall then super talent and then weaker after.

            The system has improved so lets look at the players that are the top ranked so far.

Carlos Correa- Born on September 22, 1994 and was the 1^st round pick in the 2012 season for the Astros actually started the new draft strategy.  Correa is a plus power hitter and a plus contact hitter and could be a gold glover but doesn’t really look like a Short Stop.  His average speed means his range will limit him so look to him to be a Third Baseman at some point unless he can work on his range.

Jonathan Singleton- Born September 18, 1991 and was the 8^th round pick by the Phillies in 2009 and is the closest to the Majors in my opinion.  I’m legitimately excited for this guy and any Astros’ fan should be, plus power and plus bat control.  Averaging out what he’s done in the minors he can average out to about 22-25 Homeruns a season hitting and an AVG of .290 to .300.  He’s not a fielder though with below average defense in LF and average at 1B with below average speed means his future is at 1B.

George Springer: Born on September 19, 1989 and was drafted in the 2011 by the Astros and could be as good as Singleton given time.  Unlike Singleton, Springer needs some time since he hasn’t had a season above AA so far but in the High A division he showed the talent to help the team using his speed, defense and bat were amazing and good defense means he could be a 5 tool player in the majors.  He may not be a Homerun hitter that will match Singleton but look to be a 15-20 with a .300+ Avg.

Lance McCullers Jr.: Born October 2, 1993 and drafted in 2012 as a supplemental pick, he’s young and has lots of talent.  His Fastball is that can reach 100MPH, though normally sits at 93-97MPH, and a devastating Slider that will feed the Fastball.  His changeup needs work but for now it can be used when he needs it.  McCullers is getting used to the starters workload so it’s going to take time for him to get himself settled.

Delino DeShields Jr.: Born August 16, 1992 and was the 1^st round pick by the Astros in 2010.  He’s fast, very fast.  On the scouting scale he has a 75 in speed so his speed can be a game changer and isn’t his only talent making him a threat on the bases and with an increased patience at the plate he could be a good lead off hitter.  He could become a average power player but he’s better off focusing on hitting using his speed as a weapon.  His glove and arm are both solid so if his path to the majors is still blocked by Altuve he could go to CF.

This is a small sample of what the Astros have in store for the future and these guys could be seeing the majors in a few years.  When they get up there we very well may see a reborn Astros and back to the glory days of the Killer B’s.