Astros Farm Report: 9/17

Let's catch up on all the latest happenings in the Astros system...

WISHING A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO

Colton Shaver - July 2018

Photo by Jayne Hansen

9/15: RHP Forrest Whitley (21)
9/17: RHP Brady Rodgers (28)
9/18: OF/1B/DH Seth Beer (22)
9/18: 3B/1B Colton Shaver (23)
9/19: OF George Springer (29)
9/20: SS/2B Deury Carrasco (19)
9/21: C Nerio Rodriguez (19)
9/22: SS Carlos Correa (24)
9/22: SS Jeremy Pena (21)
9/23: OF Omar Diaz (17)
9/23: RHP Diosmerky Taveras (19)
9/24: RHP Matt Ramsey (29)
9/26: RHP Fredy Medina (21)
9/27: RHP Flaer Gonzalez (22)
9/28: RHP Enoli Paredes (23)
9/30: IF Jack Mayfield (28)
9/30: Trent Thornton (25)

ROSTER MOVES/TRANSACTIONS

9/16: OF Kyle Tucker (Fresno) recalled to Houston
9/15: OF Myles Straw (Fresno) called up to Houston
9/15: SS Antonio Nunez assigned to Fresno from Corpus Christi
9/13: C Freddy Guilamo signed by the Astros (17-year old out of the Dominican Republic)
9/11: RHP Bryan Abreu assigned to Buies Creek from Quad Cities
9/10: 1B Taylor Jones assigned to Fresno from Corpus Christi
9/10: SS Antonio Nunez assigned to Corpus Christi from Fresno
9/9: RHP Carson LaRue assigned to Corpus Christi from Buies Creek
9/7: LHP Carlos Hiraldo assigned to Corpus Christi from Quad Cities
9/5: RHP Justin Ferrell assigned to Fresno from Corpus Christi
9/5: SS Antonio Nunez (Fresno) activated from the DL (had been on the DL since 8/22)
9/5: RHP Forrest Whitley (Corpus Christi) activated from the DL (had been on the DL since 8/25)
9/4: 3B J.D. Davis (Fresno) recalled to Houston
9/4: RHP Dean Deetz (Fresno) called up to Houston

ASTROS MILB DISABLED LIST

8/15: C Ruben Castro (Quad Cities) placed on the 7-day DL
8/9: RHP Jairo Solis (Quad Cities) placed on the 7-day DL
7/28: 3B Joe Perez (GCL) placed on the 60-day DL
6/13: RHP Hunter Martin (Tri-City) placed on the 60-day DL
6/1: LHP Yeremi Ceballos (DSL) placed on the 60-day DL
6/1: RHP Carlos Quintero (DSL) placed on the 60-day DL
5/4: RHP Francis Martes (Fresno) placed on the 7-day DL; had TJ surgery 8/15
5/3+/-: RHP Gerardo Bojorquez had TJ surgery per Instagram post
4/5: RHP Ryan Thompson assigned to Fresno (starting the season on the 7-day DL); according to Instagram Ryan has had surgery, but I don't know whether or not it was TJ (later confirmed that it was TJ surgery)
4/5: RHP Matt Ruppenthal assigned to Quad Cities (starting the season on the 7-day DL; according to Instagram, Ruppenthal had elbow surgery to transpose the ulnar nerve in early April and started to throw mid-June; sent on rehab assignment to Quad Cities in mid-August but never actually activated from the DL during the season)
4/5: RHP Ángel Heredia (Corpus Christi) placed on the 7-day DL (Instagram post in early August showed him as having had surgery)
4/5: RHP Nick Hernandez (Corpus Christi) placed on the 7-day DL (Tommy John)

ASTROS MILB RESTRICTED LIST

8/24: OF Carlos Diaz placed on the restricted list (suspended 56 games for testing positive for a PED)
Note that a 56 game suspension in short season ball will effectively wipe out Diaz's 2019 season. I would not be surprised to see the 14th round 2017 pick released by the Astros this offseason.
6/22: RHP Yoanys Quiala placed on the restricted list (80 game suspension for performance-enhancing substance); Quiala won't be eligible to play again until approximately mid-April of 2019.

I will continue to keep track of all the minor league releases, retirements, trades and signings for the 2018 season here until the major league season is over at which time I will start an offseason transaction post.

FINAL ASTROS MILB STANDINGS

FRESNO (Pacific Coast League) - Won the PCL Pacific Northern Division

1st 82-57 .590 -.-GB W1

POSTSEASON
Won the Pacific Conference Championship 3-2 over El Paso
Lost the Pacific Coast League Championship series to Memphis 3-1

CORPUS CHRISTI (Texas League) - Won both 1st and 2nd halves in South Division

1st 82-56 .594 -.-GB W2 (overall)
1st 39-30 .565 -.-GB W2 (second half)
1st 43-26 .623 -.-GB W5 (first half division winner)

POSTSEASON
Lost the South Division Championship Series to San Antonio 3-2
San Antonio went on to lose to Tulsa in the Texas League Championship Series 3-0

BUIES CREEK (Carolina League) - Won the 2nd half in the Southern Division

2nd 80-57 .584 3.5GB W2 (overall)
1st 43-25 .632 -.-GB W2 (second half)
2nd 37-32 .536 3.5GB L1 (first half)

POSTSEASON 🏆
Won the Southern Division Championship 3-0 over Winston-Salem
Won the one-game* League Championship Series 1-0 over Potomac 1-0

*Originally to be a five game series until Hurricane Florence crashed the party.

QUAD CITIES (Midwest League) - Won the 1st half in the Western Division

1st 81-59 .579 -.-GB W5 (overall)
2nd 41-29 .586 4.0GB W5 (second half)
1st 40-30 .571 -.-GB W6 (first half division winner)

POSTSEASON
Lost the Western Division Quarterfinal 2-0 to Peoria
(Peoria went on to win the Western Division Championship series 2-0 over Cedar Rapids and is currently down 2-1 against Bowling Green in the best-of-five League Championship Series.)

TRI-CITY (New York-Penn League) - Won the Stedler Division
1st 42-33 .560 -.-GB L2

POSTSEASON 🏆
Won the Semi-Final Championship Series 2-0 over Mahoning Valley
Won the New York-Penn League Championship Series 2-0 over Hudson Valley

GCL ASTROS (Gulf Coast League)
2nd 27-28 .491 12.5 L2

DSL ASTROS (Dominican Summer League Northwest)
6th 30-41 .423 21.0GB L3

NEWS AND LINKS

Your 2018 @nypennleague champion @ValleyCats: pic.twitter.com/BrbGrzBMlB

— Mark Singelais (@MarkSingelais) September 9, 2018

Voila. @bcreekastros ... they came into existence with a win and leave with a win: pic.twitter.com/CUBiuTUv1X

— Patrick M. Obley (@PMOWriter) September 12, 2018

In case you missed it, I posted my Astros Full Season and Short Season Players, Starters, Relievers and Catchers of the Year. So much talent!!

MLB has worked very, very hard to keep minor league players from earning a fair wage. Is this the answer?

"The Dodgers run one of baseball’s most extensive minor league systems. They list about 300 organizational players in their media guide, so guaranteeing each one $25,000 this year would have cost less than they guaranteed to infielder Logan Forsythe this season."

via GIPHY

Another former Astros farmhand and Friend of the Blog gets a baseball coaching gig.

Patrick Obley of the Fayetteville Observer looks back at the Buies Creek experience as the team prepares to move to their new Fayetteville digs next season.

Why Brett Maverick Phillips continues to be one of my favorite ballplayers and one of my favorite people.

SAFE!!!

Sliding into the PCL championship like 🤪⚾️🙌🏽🎉 #FresnoGrizzlies #PCLChampionship #Growlifornia pic.twitter.com/Yd8NSnovJM

— Jackie Mayfield (@jackie930) September 12, 2018

And in case you missed any of these, here are my interviews from this season:

OF Alex McKenna (Tri-City, since promoted to Quad Cities)
RHP Peter Solomon (Quad Cities, since promoted to Buies Creek)
OF Seth Beer (Quad Cities, since promoted to Buies Creek)
RHP Jairo Solis and C Ruben Castro (Quad Cities)
RHP Corbin Martin (Corpus Christi)
3B Abraham Toro (Corpus Christi)
RHP Trent Thornton (Fresno)
OF Chas McCormick (Buies Creek, since promoted to Corpus Christi)
OF J.J. Matijevic (Buies Creek)
RHP Brandon Bielak (Buies Creek, since promoted to Corpus Christi)
LHP Brett Adcock (Buies Creek, since promoted to Corpus Christi)
SS Alex De Goti (Corpus Christi, since promoted to Fresno)
1B Taylor Jones (Corpus Christi, since promoted to Fresno)
RHP Brock Dykxhoorn (Corpus Christi, since promoted to Fresno)

STATE OF THE BLOG ADDRESS

This concludes my seventh season of traveling to see Astros minor league players in minor league ballparks from Kentucky to California to Tennessee to Oklahoma to Iowa to New York to South Carolina (Buies Creek road trip) and, of course, to Corpus Christi and Austin (Fresno road trips). I am not exactly a spring chicken anymore, but the players I have met along the way keep me much younger than my years. They make me laugh and cry and love baseball even more than I ever imagined was possible. Because, when it comes right down to it, the players are what make this game special.

And those players aren't limited to my favorite team. Players I've talked to and gotten to know are peppered throughout major and minor league baseball. The Astros will always be "my team," but I find myself pulling more and more for those players I care about regardless of the uniform the player wears. Which finally makes me a true fan of baseball after all these years, I suppose.

And that brings me to the future of WTHB?. I have always felt the need to re-invent myself every few years. I get restless with the status quo. But I can't imagine my life without minor league baseball in it. But, then again, why should I limit myself just to the Astros? Why should I deprive myself of the opportunity to get to know great people from 29 other affiliates simply because of the team they're on?

Readership is way down since the team is good again; people aren't hungry to know about the next wave of Astros players like they were when I started, and there are players from other MLB affiliates that I would love to get to know a little better. I have a ton of contacts in the Astros organization, but I've gained many contacts outside the organization as players, managers and coaches move around.

Secondarily, I've gotten away from what got me started on this blog in the first place ... writing about things that interest me personally, talking not only to players, but to people in all walks of baseball life, and going down the occasional rabbit hole. So, after much thought and deliberation about the future of WTHB?, I've come to the conclusion that, although the blog will still be mostly Astros-centric, I won't limit myself to just the Astros. I have been working behind the scenes on some long-read and series work that will look at prospects throughout the minors, the 2018 draft, minor league pay and women in baseball. And that's just for starters! I plan to keep interviewing Astros prospects and then start branching out to other teams next season during my travels. As a result, I may retire some of the content I've provided in years past. The blog may look a little different in 2019, but don't worry, the Astros will always be my first love and will take priority.

In the meantime, other than my annual Rule 5 draft post which will come out this week or next, I plan to take a little time off from posting regularly while I work on some of these larger projects and do some housekeeping on the blog. (And with the postseason rapidly approaching, Astros fans are likely to be too preoccupied to read much of what I'd put out there right now anyway!)

As a final note, I hope that Dustin will continue to contribute to the blog next season. He has really come into his own as a writer and has been an invaluable voice for WTHB?. He has an open invitation to write as much or as little as he wishes, about whatever he wishes, for as long as he wishes. It will be my absolute pleasure to have him continue to be my partner in crime.

Thank you for reading, and thank you for your encouragement as I strive to make the minor league life a fun and interesting part of your lives.

WTHB State of the Blog Address: One in a Million

If you were reading WTHB at around midnight last night, you may very well have been the blog's 1,000,000th page view. It's a milestone for the blog that, in all reality, is fairly meaningless. But people like round numbers, particularly nice big round numbers.

One million page views is probably a pittance for those who have dozens of writers and the support of SB Nation or Fansided, but for those of us independent sports bloggers like Astros County and What the Heck, Bobby?, it's kind of a big deal.

I wasn't able to write a "Blogiversary" post last month when WTHB turned four, but now that the Astros minor league season is rapidly winding to a close, this seems like as good a time as any to give you my State of the Blog Address. Pardon me while I meander.

The blog started with my desire to learn more about the Astros farm system as the on-field play in Houston was rapidly deteriorating. I thought, "Why not share my findings?" It's never been a sophisticated blog. I don't embrace advanced statistics much. That's not because I'm against them. It's simply because a lot of those metrics don't mean a whole lot in the lower levels of the minors where the competition is often incredibly uneven as the rawest of the raw high schoolers and international free agents face former collegians and the ages range from 17 to 21 and older. As the Astros PITCHf/x guru Mike Fast once told me, a pitcher's ability to miss bats is probably the best indicator of a rookie league pitcher's potential as any other metric.

I also found that I don't really have the patience to do detailed game recaps. My many thanks to Dustin (and Buca before him) for handling that thankless chore. Dustin has recapped approximately 860+ games this season and most of those have been full detailed game stories. Wrap your head around that! That is incredible, and I hope that Dustin will continue with his fine work next season.

But I honestly don't have the patience for the recaps because with a few exceptions, the day-to-day doesn't interest me. Yes, I get excited when Jon Singleton drives in 10 runs in one game or when Dean Deetz gets lifted from a game after pitching seven no-hit innings, but I am more interested in the big picture. I'm not likely to point out that a .189 hitter went 3-for-5 in a game. I'm more apt to tell you what a hitter or a pitcher has done over the last month or two. I like to look for trends in a player's development, not what they've done over one or two games.

And, as a part of the big picture, I love getting to know the players. Not just talking to them, but watching them. Watching how they "go about their business," a popular phrase from coaches and managers. I can learn almost as much about a player from watching them take early work, batting practice, pitcher's fielding practice and the like, and seeing how they interact with others, as I can from watching them in a game or talking to them. A player is so much more than stats. His work ethic, his ability to lead by word or example, his ability to keep a clubhouse loose are all important to building a good team. Is a player a "team player" or is he only focused on his own goals and desires? How does that player handle adversity and success? Character is important. It won't replace talent, but it certainly can supplement that talent and take a player just that much further. It's all a part of that bigger picture.

Which brings me to a thought that I had when I was visiting California in May. I hit up Fresno and Lancaster while I was there, but first I went to Yosemite to commune with nature. As is always the case, I took a lot of pictures. But I don't just take pictures of gorgeous vistas. I take pictures of things other people might consider odd. Two of my favorite pictures were these:

It struck me that both trees were beautiful, the giant Sequoia and the small gnarled and twisted specimen arising from the rocks. Carlos Correa is the Sequoia, a majestic awe-inspiring specimen, a thing of beauty. But most ballplayers are more like the latter photo. Their path is rarely straight. Just making it up through the various obstacles and detours thrown at them is nothing short of miraculous. And those are the players I like to follow and write about.

Sure, I'll write about Carlos Correa and players like him whose path is straight and true and majestic. But I'm more interested in the 40th round 25-year old draft pick who made it back to baseball after a detour in life or the atypical corner infielder who has mashed his way to AAA in 3 seasons after falling to the 33rd round in 2013 or another corner outfielder who has largely flown under the radar (despite being one of the most consistent hitters in the system since he was drafted) and has never appeared on a top prospect list but just made his major league debut.

My own path has been littered with obstacles the last year and a half. A contract to sell my company should be signed in the next week or two with a potential closing after the first of the year. Maybe it will happen. Maybe it won't. Maybe I'll have a job when the next minor league season rolls around in April. Maybe I won't. Maybe I'll be able to continue travelling to minor league games. Maybe I won't. And with the big league club doing so well, I expect a decline in readership as interest in the farm system wanes. But I intend to continue persevering. I don't know what the blog will look like a year from now; it will likely continue to evolve and adapt just as those players have whose lives I find interesting, just as my own life may over the next few months and years. In any event, I will keep writing about the things that interest me and I hope that my readers will continue with me on the ride, wherever it takes us.

Thank you for reading and thank you for indulging me.