Part 3 of 4 - Are We Getting Any Better?

For Parts 1 and 2, go here and here.

Next, let’s look at the overall age of those players still in the system.  I looked at the age of all drafted players as of 1/1/12 and I was somewhat surprised with what I found.  (Note: I did not include those who have graduated to the MLB.)

2007 Draft Average Age – 23.9

Pitchers – 22.8 (Colton Pitkin, Kyle Greenwalt)

Position Players – 26.1 (Colin DeLome)

2008 Draft Average Age – 23.9

Pitchers (9) – 23.6

Position Players (6) – 24.2

2009 Draft Average Age – 22.7

Pitchers (6) – 22.7

Position Players (11) – 22.7

2010 Draft Average Age – 22.3

Pitchers (18) – 22.6

Position Players (15) – 21.9

2011 Draft Average Age – 22.2

Pitchers (15) – 21.9

Position Players (19) – 22.3

The average age for those drafted in 2007 that are still in the system is only one year and approximately eight months older than the average age of those drafted in 2011.  Only about six months separate the average age of the 2009 and 2011 draftees.  What does this tell us?  It’s a bit early to be writing any of these prospects off, regardless of the year signed.  Of 39 high school players signed from 2007 through 2011, 28 are still in the Astros minor league system, and they are still young enough to show us something.

Another factor I looked at was team age and how that has fluctuated over the 2007 to 2011 seasons.  (Note: I had to average the ages of pitchers and hitters from Baseball-Reference so the exact averages may vary slightly from this, but generally the pitchers were slightly younger and the hitters were slightly older than the average ages given below.)

The trend as looked at year over year is slightly younger with a couple of exceptions.  In 2011, the average age at Tri-City jumped by about 7 months as the 2011 draft class was particularly heavy in college/community college players (86% as opposed to an average of 75% in the prior four drafts).  But the biggest change, by far, was that the average age in Corpus Christi dropped by approximately one year and six months from 2009 to 2011, which happens to correspond precisely with when the 2007 draft should have been making an impact there.  Instead, as you can see on the team composition chart from yesterday, more free agents and Latin players were being used to fill the void, and younger players were being pressed into service.

There are other factors that have impacted the success of various teams, at least for the short term, and I will touch on those briefly.

Pitching injuries - Of six pitchers remaining in the system from the 2009 draft, only two (Dallas Keuchel & Robby Donovan) were healthy for virtually the entire season.  Of the remaining four, three were on the DL for the entire season (Raul Rivera, B.J. Hyatt and Brandt Walker) and one was on the DL for a large chunk of the season (Tanner Bushue).  Since the 2009 draft should be getting to Corpus between 2011 and 2013, most of these players are well behind schedule.  On top of this, you have Vincent Velasquez from 2010 and David Duncan from 2008 who were high draft picks but did not throw one pitch in a regular season game in 2011.  Bobby Heck has an incomplete at this point on some of these pitchers.

Late signings/additions – In 2011, two of our top three picks signed late.  In George Springer’s case, he only played a handful of games and in Jack Armstrong’s case, none.  In addition, very few of the players acquired at the trade deadline, particularly the pitchers, got enough starts to make much of a difference to their respective Astros teams.

Shutting down the VSL in 2009 – In my opinion, this was a huge blow to the system.  The VSL Astros averaged a .590 win percentage from 2005 to 2008.  The DSL has never had that kind of success, although they did have a .500 win percentage the year after the VSL team disbanded.  Very few of the Venezuelan players go to the DSL.  Most of them come directly to the U.S. and participate with the GCL Astros or are mainstreamed into Greeneville.  I think that the importance of transitioning to a professional career in familiar territory cannot be underestimated.  And the number of Venezuelan-born players has dropped significantly.  We currently only have seven players in the minor league system (3 pitchers and 4 position players) who were signed after the Venezuelan Academy closed.

In Part 4, we will look at the trends on Win Percentage, ERA, WHIP, BA, OBP and SLG from 2007 to 2011.