Houston Astros 2011 Minor League Review

Organizational Talent Rankings via Baseball America:

2011 (26) | 2010 (30) | 2009 (30) | 2008 (29) | 2007 (22) | 2006 (20) | 2005 (22) | 2004 (29)

2011 Affiliate Records

MLB: [56-106] NL Central

AAA: [68-75] Pacific Coast League – Oklahoma City

AA: [50-90] Texas League – Corpus Christi

A+: [55-85] California League – Lancaster

A: [59-79] South Atlantic League – Lexington

A(ss): [33-42] New York Penn League – Tri-City

R: [25-43] Appalachian League – Greenville

The Run Down

Having revamped their amateur scouting department in 2008, Houston finally seems to be on a better track with their farm system.  After the previous administration yielded miserable draft class after miserable draft class, it appears that Scouting Director Bobby Heck has rejuvenated their Minor Leagues with four consecutive nice drafts.  Now, this is all very good news for the real life Astros and their fans.  For us in fantasyland, however, Houston’s farm system is too youthful to generate much excitement in 2012.  Due to their extraordinary lack of genuine big league talent, the Astros graduated an unusually high number of prospects, leaving the heights of their farm system a bit depleted.  I’d love to discuss some of their most exciting prospects (DeShields, Wates, Mier, Fotynewicz, to name a few), but they’re simply too far from fantasy relevance to be included just yet.