Luis Durango

Scott Evans

Houston Astros 2011 Minor League Review

| Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 7 Comments

by:

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.

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Grey

Ordain St. Rasburg

| Fantasy Baseball Buy/Sell | 371 Comments

by:

The Nats will probably bring Stephen Strasburg into Washington in the bubble car with the albino John Lannan charged with throwing rose petals at his feet.  This was recently overheard in the Nats bathroom sometime in the near future, “Um, John, do you think you can stop with the petals?”  “Stephen, it’s my duty.”  “Yeah, well, this is my doodie and I’m going to be about 20 minutes.”  “Fair enough, sire!”  I went over Strasburg for fantasy already.  Been there, drunkenly wrote that.  I’m not changing my projections from that post.  A three and a half ERA seems optimistic enough.  Could he do a 2.75 ERA?  Sure, but I’m not counting on that.  I’m already giving him what I think we can get from Greinke.  So a 3.50 ERA… Let’s see, who else could bring such luster to our fantasy El Camino.  In 303 and a third 2nd half innings over the last three years, Bronson Arroyo has a 3.06 ERA.  Would anyone in their right mind trade Strasburg for Arroyo?  Not right now.  The hype is way too strong with the young Austrian.  Today, I think you can sell Strasburg for someone’s kidney.  I’m not sure what you’d do with three kidneys.  Maybe a bookend.  Think about how you felt owning Matusz, Smoak, Ike Davis, etc.

Please, blog, may I have some more?