Welcome to Appy Astros, a blog dedicated to following current & former Greeneville Astros, the Appalachian League affiliate of the Houston Astros. Here you will find reports on current G-Stros, updates on the development of former G-Stros and occasionally an update on what has happened to the guys who have hung up their spikes.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Cumulative Top Prospect List

Updated 2/6/13 to include MLB's changed list after the trade with the A's and Keith Law's list for ESPN.

I enjoy the top prospect list exercise.  It is interesting to see which players are valued by different analyst.  Every year, I try to keep up with the lists when they come out and compare them to each other.  I also like to see what the consensus thought is about players.

Below is the cumulative rankings that have been compiled thus far.  This includes the list from 14 different sources: Baseball America (top 10), Baseball Prospectus (top 10), The Crawfish Boxes (top 30), Fangraphs (top 15), MLB.com (top 20), MinorLeagueBall (top 20), Bleacher Report (top 10), Baseball Prospect Nation (top15), MLB Dirt (top 15), Scouting Book (top 20), Baseball Instinct (top 21), Perfect Game (top 10), Astros County (top 25) and Keith Law - ESPN (top 10).

I continue to tweak this process.  There are two cumulative ranking orders.  The first is the cumulative ranking based on # of list they appeared on and the average ranking. This list is the true consensus as it rewards a player for making more list and lowers a player who was highly ranked but appeared on very few list.  The second cumulative ranking is based on average ranking and then # of list the player appears on.  This rewards a high ranking regardless of how often a player was ranked.  The color shade of the name indicates how they were obtained. The key is at the bottom of the list. Here is a link to the google drive spreadsheet for those who don't want to scroll in the window.

Here are some observations about the cumulative list thus far (updated 12/31/12):  
  • There is consensus on the top 11 players on the list.  Six appear on all 14 list, and the five others appear on at least 10 list. 
  • There are a few prospects with wide disparity of ranking:
    • Jonathan Villar is ranked #6 (4x), #7, #8, #9, #11 (2x), # 12, #15, and #25. 
    • Kevin Comer is ranked #9, #14, and #20.  He was also mentioned as an "others" by John Sickels
    • Carlos Perez is ranked as high as #9 and as low as #19.  He appeared on six list. 
    • Nolan Fontana is ranked as high as #9 and as low as #19.  He appears on seven list. 
    • Joe Musgrove is ranked as high as #10 and as low as #22.  He appeared on five list.
    • Teoscar Hernandez, Jose Cisnero, Brad Peacock, and Kyle Weiland all benefit from just appearing on one list. 
  •  There are 49 players who have been included on a list at this time.  Here is the break down of how they were acquired:
    • Via Luhnow Trade -17
    • Via Draft 2012 -11
    • Via Wade Trade - 6
    • Via Draft 2011 - 3
    • Via Draft 2010 -4
    • Via Rule 5 Draft 2012 - 2
    • Via Draft 2009 - 1
    • Via Draft 2008 - 1
    • Via International Free Agency (2007,2008, 2010) -4
  •  That makes 30 out of the 49 have been acquired since Luhnow took over.
  •  12 of the players have played in Greeneville. 

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Former G-Stros Involved in Recent Transactions

Now that the season is over, players find out if they are in a teams plans or not.  Sometimes that means a door is opened for a new opportunity with a new team and sometimes it means a career may be over.  Here is the list of transactions that have occurred since this season ended that involve former G-Stros.  For those who have been declared a free agent, I have listed the last team they were affiliated with.

I am also including any players still on active rosters (MILB & MLB) so that you can see what results those teams have produced.

2004
Jimmy Barthmaier - declared a free agent by the Nationals.
Juan Gutierrez - re-signed by the Royals to a minor league deal.
Jordan Parraz - re-signed a minor league deal with the Braves.
Wladimir Sutil - declared a free agent by the Dbacks.
J.R. Towles - declared a free agent by the Twins. (Update signed to minor league contract with Cardinals)

Felipe Paulino (Royals-DL) and Troy Patton (Orioles) are the last two on Major League rosters.

2005
Koby Clemens - released by Blue Jays before end of season.
Victor Garate - released by Brewers before end of the season.
Ralph Henriquez - released by Mariners before end of season. (Signed to minor league contract with Rockies)

That leaves only Brandon Barnes left in affiliated ball from the 2005 G-Stros.

2006
Amadeo Zazueta (Blue Jays) and Tom Vessella (Giants) were on minor league rosters at the end of the season and have not been declared free agents or released yet.  Both Barnes & Henriquez were also on this team. 

2007
Fernando Abad - removed from the Astros 40 man roster, cleared waivers and is a free agent. (Update - signed to a minor league deal with the Nationals)
Arcenio Leon - removed from Astros 40 man roster and was claimed by the Brewers.

In addition to those two, the only player left on an active roster is Albert Cartwright (Phillies - minors).

2008
The following players have been released by the Astros organization:
Brad Dydalewicz
Nathan Pettus
Jose Trinidad
Jay Austin (before season ended)
Kody Hinze (before season ended)

In addition to those, Jorge De Leon was removed from the 40 man roster, cleared waivers and is a free agent.

Henry Villar was declared a free agent by the Astros.

There are still seven players in the Astros system from that team (Altuve, Lyles, Urckfitz, Grimmett, L. Cruz, Seaton, R. Garcia). Also Cartwright was on this roster too.

2009
Gabriel Garcia was released by the Astros.  There are still 12 players from this roster active in the Astros organization.

2010
The following players have been released by the Astros organization.
Ricardo Batista
Emilio King
Rodney Quintero

There are still 14 players from this roster active in the Astros organization. 

2011
The following players have been released by the Astros organization
Juan Mojica
Brad Propst
Garen Wright
Joshua Magee (released during the season and is now on the Alabama football roster as a walk on).
(Batista & Quintero were also on this roster)

There are 22 players from this roster active in the Astros organization. 

2012
James Howick was released by the Astros organization.  Propst was also on this roster.  There are 39 players from this roster active in the Astros organization.