[SPEAKER_01]: Hey everybody, JJ Cooper Jeff Ponceback, another of the baseball America prospect podcast Deep Dives, and today we are covering the Houston Astros.

[SPEAKER_01]: Got a little theme here, we did the Tampa Bay Rays, which you may have enjoyed that we just dropped on the YouTube channel and our podcast feed, and now we're covering another team that was involved in that trade, because we're dropping the Houston Astros, which have

[SPEAKER_01]: including a new number one prospect because, you know, again, before we get into the prospects, Jeff kind of lay out if you would a little bit of good to see as always, but lay out like what the Astros got back here and how significant that might be to their big league club in 2026.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, I think one of the things that we looked at after the last world series championship in 2022 was the amount of talented young starters that they had some runway in terms of control.

[SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately for them.

[SPEAKER_00]: Those have been kind of, you know, not across the board, Hunter Brown has been tremendous.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's turned into a potential, you know, front of the rotation type starter.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if I want to say AC yet, but he's a one or two, I think, in most organizations.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's been a great development, of course.

[SPEAKER_00]: They've always had a couple other arms that that that

[SPEAKER_00]: weekend there.

[SPEAKER_00]: But these guys, there were a lot of injuries.

[SPEAKER_00]: Louis Garcia hasn't pitched for effectively a few years now.

[SPEAKER_00]: Christian Javier came back last year after missing, you know, large chunks of the last two years.

[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, I think you look at a lance McCuller isn't some of these other guys, and it's clear that there's some injury risk.

[SPEAKER_00]: McCuller's was

[SPEAKER_00]: But the depth became an issue.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's one of the reasons they went out and they signed Tetsuya Mai out of Japan, which I think you could argue was potentially the top available in PB player on the market, either Hamarakamoto.

[SPEAKER_00]: you know, they go out and they make this trade for Mike boroughs who had kind of an under the radar really good season for the pirates last year.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's obviously some other bigger names than that pirates rotation and guys that came up from the miners that maybe got more attention.

[SPEAKER_00]: But borrowed, you know, since coming back from injury, there were a lot of relief questions.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think he's kind of answered those questions a little bit.

[SPEAKER_00]: He looks like a star to go on forward.

[SPEAKER_00]: So they were able to trade out a few other more desirable prospects in Melton and Anderson Brito and, you know, a choir borrows strengthened up that rotation and, you know, depending on how you see Ryan Weiss who they had signed out of the KBO, how you sort of view him,

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, there's maybe five or six options here in this rotation, one of those options, of course, being Lance McCullers, which we could only count on so many endings with McCullers, but I do think that what it did is it helped them reinforce sort of the middle to the back end of that rotation, and then the Ami signing kind of firmed up, you know, the shape of of that group going into the season because it was of a concern.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was something that I think dragged them down a little bit.

[SPEAKER_00]: Is it the lineup of

[SPEAKER_00]: 2017 to 2022, probably not, but, you know, a bounceback season.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to take the probably out of that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, because the probably is not, it's like, Carlos Cray, it's not the same Carlos Cray as then.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's say how two days, not the same Joseo two day.

[SPEAKER_01]: Cal Tucker's gone, Alex Breggman's gone.

[SPEAKER_01]: Even if Jeremy Payne continues to, you know, blossom and all that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Gordon Alvarez comes back fully healthy.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's still not gonna be that lineup, because that lineup was just incredible.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, exactly, exactly.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I think it can still be a pretty good lineup.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's still some questions I think in terms of their outfield depth.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, some of that's going to come down to, you know, whether it's, it's can't smith out there, Jake Myers at Cole, you know, the obviously traded for Hazoo Sanchez as well, who I think does have some upside Christian Walker had a down year like I even yard yard or G has like I think that there's enough offensive fire power within the lineup to compete, particularly if they are able to go out maybe get another bat here.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we'll see, you know, what takes shape between now and the end of the season.

[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, it's not the same astros team that it was, but I think it would be wrong to say that they won't be competitive or have a chance in the AOS this year.

[SPEAKER_00]: I still have some belief that they can probably do that.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that leads us into, it's the first question we've been asking on all of these.

[SPEAKER_01]: And in this case, when you say how difficult was the decision to rank Xavier Nions at one, the answer is very difficult earlier on, because at the time we did the prospect handbook, Jacob Milton was the number one.

[SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, Anderson Rito, who's no longer on the list because that same trade is number of, was number three.

[SPEAKER_01]: So

[SPEAKER_01]: We will focus it on Nions now, but obviously we will also acknowledge that this is a new number one because of the trade, but what led, beyond the fact that a trade moved into number one, what stood out Nions when you compare him to the rest of the guys who, you know, the Ethan Frey or, you know, a Bryce Matthews, AJ Blubo, the other guys who were kind of in that same range of consideration.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think this is the kind of system and it's been this way for a lot of years that depending upon the organization you're talking to and the evaluator that you're having a conversation with whether it's internally or externally you can get this list laid out.

[SPEAKER_00]: of a variety of different ways, whether it's the top five or the top ten.

[SPEAKER_00]: There were people internally that I spoke with and then on the amateur side, externally because obviously there are the only ones that would have gotten real.

[SPEAKER_00]: Looks and Xavier Nions, that argued that he could be the number one prospect in this system when Melton and Rito were still in the system.

[SPEAKER_00]: There were teams that had valued Brito after seeing him in the AFL and doing some work on them.

[SPEAKER_00]: They viewed him as the number one player in the system.

[SPEAKER_00]: But more often than not, the consensus tended to lie with Jacob Melton.

[SPEAKER_00]: a guy who was barely eligible for the prospect handbook now that we've sort of changed, you know, our regulations based on service time versus just hard at back counts and hard in pitch counts.

[SPEAKER_00]: I believe it was a day, JJ.

[SPEAKER_00]: I believe it was one day that he qualified,

[SPEAKER_00]: As a prospect in the hand, but we had a double check it.

[SPEAKER_00]: We had a call external teams and a double check artwork to make sure that he was actually eligible, but he was just eligible, but he's not PPI eligible, which I think is kind of an interesting wrinkle in all this.

[SPEAKER_00]: That said, God, that's been in the big leagues.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's really hit at every level.

[SPEAKER_00]: Is it always the loudest production?

[SPEAKER_00]: No, but I think we've seen progression with him as a hitter.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's enough contact skills there to not, you know, think that it's going to completely bottom out.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's always been some approach.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's speedy.

[SPEAKER_00]: He hits the ball hard.

[SPEAKER_00]: The angles are in always great.

[SPEAKER_00]: But a guy that puts the ball in play has the place to make it work with his legs.

[SPEAKER_00]: And depending upon who you talk to, you know, you will get some guys that think he's maybe a 60 out there in center field long term.

[SPEAKER_00]: 55 tended to be more what I was getting.

[SPEAKER_00]: But a guy that can play all three outfield positions has experienced at all three outfield positions.

[SPEAKER_00]: The throwing is pretty good.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I think overall like, you know, Melton was was the one at that point in time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nions was close.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we talk about Nions.

[SPEAKER_00]: We we talk about a guy that

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, some prep hit tool questions, which can go a variety of ways, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: We've seen the Romanians and the Conner Griffins, which are guys that had different types of hit tool questions between a two of them, but hit tool questions nonetheless.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then we've seen, you know, the opposite side of that with, you know, a guy like now was granted was a small sample, but like a guy like Ethan Holiday, who I think is, you know, kind

[SPEAKER_00]: So maybe it's of a benefit, I think we certainly saw this with the Pirates of Connor Griffin and Roman Anthony to an extent of him having sort of that backfield work, then being able to, you know, sort of work out the kinks and the swing, whatever the things are that they feel they need to make adjustments on to get him making more contact because when he makes more contact,

[SPEAKER_00]: It is outlier power.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is 70 grade raw, and it will say amongst the amateur community, the consistent comp that I got was Roman Anthony, that there's a lot of similarities.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, different positions, he's not a shortstop long-term, probably a third baseman, but a really big arm, a lot of power kind of fits that prototypical third baseman.

[SPEAKER_00]: you know, sort of sort of outline.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it will be interesting to see how it all progresses and the type of player that we have next year.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I do think this is the first time in a while that I could come into a season and truly say that the Astros had a player who could go from outside the list to the top 50 if he really produces.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, whether it's Drew Gilbert, whether it's Brian Clifford when he had his breakout, of course, Melton,

[SPEAKER_00]: as long as I've been doing the system for four years now and I think you could probably even go back five or six.

[SPEAKER_01]: That is something like you said that's not been a big kind of attribute of theirs and the system that hasn't had a ton of top 100 caliber prospects in recent years doesn't have again, we are rolling out our top 100 very shortly

[SPEAKER_01]: I will just give you a little sneak peek if I'll give anything away to say, don't expect to see a lot of astros on this top under right now, as you said, guys who could move up.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I do think that to just kind of ask you with that, to follow up on that, it's in for a who's number two on this list.

[SPEAKER_01]: is another guy who, I don't think those in any way, there's not really any way that you were gonna compare him and to Jacob Melton at that moment and say, oh, I'm gonna take the guy who hasn't really had a whole lot of chance to play in the outfield too much recently in LSU because of a shoulder injury,

[SPEAKER_01]: has had some injuries, but you know, shown production as well, but just starting as pro career versus the guy who's literally been in the big leagues and plays all three outfield positions as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: But now if you compare him to Nions, Nions has more upside, but it would not be, it's not crazy to think that Ethan Frey could end up being the more productive player either, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: No, not at all.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think especially, and we talked to him on the hot cheat show, a week or two back, I think especially now that he is getting more out field work and kind of getting those reps back in, there's a better athlete in there than I think a lot of people had anticipated.

[SPEAKER_00]: And just in terms of the bat, there's, I mean, this was one of the loudest,

[SPEAKER_00]: post-draft performances.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think I probably had two of them in my systems, Kane Capley with the Cubs, which was a very different manner in which he was impressive.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then Ethan Frey, and the thing that I love about Frey, he kind of falls into that wheelhouse of like my personal cheeseball type of player, and that is he's a guy who makes a ton of inzone contact.

[SPEAKER_00]: The swing decisions are really good.

[SPEAKER_00]: maybe a little bit passive, but enough that he's never going to overexpose himself in the zone.

[SPEAKER_00]: And when he does make contact, he makes some of the hardest contact of, you know, really any player in professional baseball.

[SPEAKER_00]: His 90th, now granted was 122 played appearances.

[SPEAKER_00]: So this could tick down a little bit.

[SPEAKER_00]: but it was a 108.3 90th percentile EV.

[SPEAKER_00]: He had a 114 ball in play.

[SPEAKER_00]: The angles are pretty good.

[SPEAKER_00]: The pull air could get a little bit better, but he finds the barrel consistently, and he makes that contact, you know, in zone with freight.

[SPEAKER_00]: Once again, low A.

[SPEAKER_00]: He played in the SEC, so we'd take it with a grain of salt.

[SPEAKER_00]: But 15.4% that's what we want.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's the kind of performance we want to see that's probably going to continue to be sustainable as he got up to higher levels.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I wouldn't even be shocked if this is a one-month in Asheville, and then he's in Corpus Christi by May.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah, I think you look at this player, you look at the upside when you consider how big the power is.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's another thing about this current astrosis, and I like better than maybe some of the guys that the years passed.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is a guy that we could be talking about at the top 100 prospect, come June.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, if he really hits in Asheville, which I would expect he's going to really hit in Asheville.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, there's not a lot of guys that don't.

[SPEAKER_00]: and then gets at the corpus Christi and continues to perform, then that answers a lot of the sort of age to level questions and prior experience questions and all that sort of stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility, just the type of damage that he does, the quality of the contact and the swing decisions.

[SPEAKER_00]: More often than not, when guys show this in their pro debut, it's pretty sticky.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was just going to ask that question just to lay it out for people.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, 108, 90 of EV is excellent for any level of with a wood bat.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's just an excellent 90% helix of Austin.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's no, there's not a curve that where you're going, okay, well, you need to see him do more.

[SPEAKER_01]: No, if he just could do that in major leagues, he's going to be a really good player.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and those numbers in terms of EV, that stuff sustains it like 60 to 70 balls in play, which he far exceeded.

[SPEAKER_00]: you know, it's it's already at a level where, you know, it's, it's, it's still pretty good about yeah, we can, we can feel pretty decent about it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Even if it kicks down to a 107 or a 106.8, it's still really good tower.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's still really good.

[SPEAKER_01]: Second question with that.

[SPEAKER_01]: So how is this system better or worse than last year?

[SPEAKER_01]: You already kind of laid out a couple of different ways that it's better, I would say,

[SPEAKER_01]: Overall, just kind of asked that question.

[SPEAKER_01]: You feel like it's a better system that was this year, or a post-deast-deast trade, which did take away prospects number one and number three, and a little bit of the kind of fast moving close to the major skies, did that kind of knock it back down a little bit.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, I think,

[SPEAKER_00]: in a vacuum it did.

[SPEAKER_00]: In the short term it did.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think we could look back a year from now and say, this system was better than maybe we thought it was because these players performed.

[SPEAKER_00]: I do think there's still a lot of upside-guys in this top 10.

[SPEAKER_00]: We could talk about some of those.

[SPEAKER_00]: You see some of the names in the bottom of the screen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Kevin Alvarez was one of the top players in the DSL.

[SPEAKER_00]: They haven't had, you know, a

[SPEAKER_00]: international position player that really is broken out in quite a long time, especially one that they sign themselves.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I think that's that's one to maybe keep an eye on.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think you look at a guy like Ryan for Kooji, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who,

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, hasn't pitch yet professionally.

[SPEAKER_00]: We can get into that a little bit later.

[SPEAKER_00]: We talk about some sleepers and some breakouts.

[SPEAKER_00]: But a guy that's going to have a full healthy off season and be ready to go next year.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there are a lot of people on the amateur side that felt prior to his injury in early in 2024.

[SPEAKER_00]: That he was maybe a first round type talent and a guy that really would have performed out there on the west coast with the competition that he was facing really interesting stuff maybe even more higher upside than a lot of the astros guys that we've seen over the last couple of years that have broken out his pictures and gotten to the major leagues very quickly.

[SPEAKER_00]: Um, but a few of those guys were already in the system.

[SPEAKER_00]: I do think it's a little bit better.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think this was a better draft class.

[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I think the fact that, you know, I guess this time last year Kevin Alvarez had technically signed.

[SPEAKER_00]: Um, but, you know, was updated.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it was a late addition and I don't think we really necessarily had a great grant.

[SPEAKER_00]: We knew we got a lot of money.

[SPEAKER_00]: We didn't have a great grasp, especially as a player out of Cuba, as to what he was going to look like.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think right now it's trending in the right direction, even with the loss of Jacob Melton, which by the way, he could have graduated without an injury and wouldn't even be on the, you know, inside the top 10.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then an Anderson Brito was a guy who's

[SPEAKER_00]: He's still a five foot 10 right hander and I think there's a lot of questions on just how physically he's going to sustain over the, you know, the rigorous of potentially being a starter.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I wouldn't take that as, you know, huge losses though I do think they are certainly losses to the depth.

[SPEAKER_00]: It would be a much more clear answer of yes.

[SPEAKER_00]: If those guys were still in the system, but I do think there's a lot of side and it's upside that seems like it's on the precipice of potential breakouts.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I can't say that was something that I felt when doing this system last season.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that kind of, you know, does kind of lead us into the next one too, which is so this is the case.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes we have guys who are number one and you're like, oh, he's got a graduate.

[SPEAKER_01]: We know there's no scenario in any scenario where they've your nions graduates.

[SPEAKER_01]: So he's obviously logically in the pole position to be next year's number one because you have him number one right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: And

[SPEAKER_01]: barring the significant emergence of someone else, or a step back from him, logically, he should still be the number one prospect.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is not an Astros team.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're going to draft higher than they do in most, but this is not an Astros team that is going to be having a top two, top three, top pick, where you're like, oh, well, there's going to land them there.

[SPEAKER_01]: A number one prospect.

[SPEAKER_01]: So assuming nine's, you think nine's has like you know, what do you think the odds are that nine's is the number one and who are the other players who could kind of compete with him to be that top prospect of year from now?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think we've talked a little bit about some of those guys already, but you know, I would probably put it on like a 70%

[SPEAKER_00]: chance that it's it's nions that's that's the number one going to next year.

[SPEAKER_00]: As we said, he's not going to graduate even if he had the most storybook season.

[SPEAKER_00]: He has a Connor Griffin type season.

[SPEAKER_00]: Connor Griffin's still a prospect right after having that season.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the Astro certainly earned a TV would force that guy up.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's not going to do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm almost positive.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's not going to do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's less than 1% that he would.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I do think that he could produce enough.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's the 17th pick and the draft that they have.

[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, they didn't make the playoffs.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're drafting earlier than they've drafted in a very long time.

[SPEAKER_00]: But...

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not the kind of pick, even in a good draft.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not the kind of pick that's gonna net a no doubt number one.

[SPEAKER_00]: That said, I think there's three other guys here that have logical case.

[SPEAKER_00]: We talked about Ethan Frey and we talked about his skills, I don't think I have to be redundant in that sense.

[SPEAKER_00]: If he hits and he really performs, it makes a big jump and is in AAA and puts up good AAA numbers before the end of the year, and looks like a guy that, hey,

[SPEAKER_00]: You could break camp next year or he could be in the mix in May of 2027.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a very reasonable case that he could be the number one prospect going in the next year.

[SPEAKER_01]: You'll have proximity.

[SPEAKER_01]: He'll have more upper level production.

[SPEAKER_01]: Those are things that we look at when we talk about this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Nions isn't like this no doubt defender.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, that sort of adds a little bit of, that leaves the door open a little bit for a guy like Fray.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think the other one we talked about is Kevin Alvarez.

[SPEAKER_00]: If he comes state side and does I cover the cardinals, does what Ryan L. Rodriguez did this year where

[SPEAKER_00]: He answered some questions about the defensive abilities.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe not clear cut, but like, there's more here than we thought there was.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he hits like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, really produces replicates those DSL numbers and maybe shows a little bit more raw pop as he gets bigger stronger is training here over a full off season in Palm Beach,

[SPEAKER_00]: I think he's another guy is a left handed, you know, hitter with a good balance of skills and a lot of power projection is a six foot four guy that, you know, has the physical friend 25 to 30 pounds of good weight over the next five to six years.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's a guy that could make that step.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then I think my outlier here, my outside one is Ryan for Kuchi who I talked about.

[SPEAKER_00]: Um, you know, it's a plus fastball, it's, it's in a above average slider.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some people have put pluses on that.

[SPEAKER_00]: He threw a ton of strikes and was a guy that really landed it to, to, you know, targeting zones and kind of zoning his pitches and tunneling and doing all those things.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a pitch ability element with this.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's a bigger guy.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's good stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: We'll see how it translates.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's coming off, you know,

[SPEAKER_00]: close to two years of no real game action, you know, outside of the stuff that was going on in the fall on the backfields and stuff, they more or less told me that if, you know, he had been healthier or one month ahead of where he was.

[SPEAKER_00]: You probably would have gotten into games in August and September.

[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't want it to debut in the fall, which I think with any pitching prospect that you value and doesn't already have some pro track record, probably a good move.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I think he's a guy that could certainly pitch his way

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, into that conversation, it is the Astros though, the do move these guys pretty fast.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's also a chance that maybe he's somebody that is like a blue bob that has, you know, 30 or 40 innings and just qualifies for the handbook and might be in the number one consideration because.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, maybe he made some starts down the stretch and looked really, really good.

[SPEAKER_00]: We saw that this year with Nolan McLean, and he'd trade a savage and some others.

[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I think those are the ones that I would queue in on because I think Bryce Matthews could graduate.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think Blue Bob will almost certainly graduate.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't think Petco or Yonic have that sort of upside.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I like Bryce Meyer, but I'm not, I'm not ready to go there either.

[SPEAKER_01]: So to our final question, I'm the video portion of this.

[SPEAKER_01]: When we talk about the Astros, and we say, what are they good at developing?

[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like you always have to kind of divide this, because I mean, we just had a piece up at baseball America recently looking at international production 2010 to present 2012 to presidency.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the Astros did extremely well in that.

[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of what you just talked about is the lead into this.

[SPEAKER_01]: We talked about that pitching staff that they had in the world series and all that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it was,

[SPEAKER_01]: I would say that if you said over the last 15 years, no organization has done a better job of developing international.

[SPEAKER_01]: starting pictures signed on the international amateur market.

[SPEAKER_01]: Largely, I would say a group of them who were often signed for low money for low cost bonuses, and we're not 16 at the time kind of that 17-h-year-old I case, and then develop them and they blossom into again successful productive long-term big league starters, which is

[SPEAKER_01]: I think for all that we talked about that line up, but was a such a key part of the success of those astros teams.

[SPEAKER_01]: And really, I would say if you said, what allowed them to sustain their success, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Because you had the first way with the astros, which includes like Carlos Beltron, in addition to the hitters we talked about, you've got Justin Berlin required in trade, you've got Dallas, Kaikul, you got all that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then as those guys kind of aged out,

[SPEAKER_01]: left in pre-agency or, in the case of white schoolers, Jr. kept struggling to stay healthy.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was the arrival of the front-brow houses.

[SPEAKER_01]: The least García's, the Roanel Blancos.

[SPEAKER_01]: They, the Christian Haviers, we could just go down the list.

[SPEAKER_01]: But that's kind of a, that's a previous.

[SPEAKER_01]: iteration of the Astros at this point is it not like what is I would say so to add slightly to this what do you think this current iteration of the Astros because that was kind of the still that the tail end of the Jeff will now regime that was you know that also campo you know the international director and guys like that what do you think is the current Astros iteration good at development.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think we have to see.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because there was, you know, some hangover in terms of the front office personnel, the analyst, the player development people, a lot of the co-half.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was left over from Lou now into the clicker gene, into the Dana Brown regime.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've started to see those guys matriculate out to other organizations, etc.

[SPEAKER_00]: over the last.

[SPEAKER_00]: two or three years, I think, particularly over the last like 24 months, so that's how to impact on it.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it's tough to know and I think they're kind of in this transitional period.

[SPEAKER_00]: It feels like it's more of the tooled up hitter position player.

[SPEAKER_00]: that has one really outlier tool nions, Kim Smith, I think falls into that.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can fray falls into that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Bryce Matthews falls into that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe Alvarez.

[SPEAKER_00]: And developing those guys, you know, into everyday players, I think a lot of the times with the players that they've gone after, it's kind of refining that hit tool, because we know they're good athletes, they're good runners, they get on base, they have power.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then it's just the matter of developing that hit tool.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think we saw it somewhat with a Jeremy Peña.

[SPEAKER_00]: Cam Smith and you know, a lot of it was a fly.

[SPEAKER_00]: He had very little minor league time as little as we've seen just about with a position player and he struggled at points in time last year.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I think the verdict is still out, but I would probably lean into it seems like we've done the acquisition side.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're going more.

[SPEAKER_00]: bring to these higher upside position type players with a lot of tools and then it's kind of refining the hit tool brace Matthew certainly kind of screams that and that.

[SPEAKER_00]: was sort of the beginning of this group that's in charge of the amateur side of things and the acquisition side of things.

[SPEAKER_00]: That was kind of like their first draft.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not fully, the next year was kind of the fully, the more forcute year, et cetera, but I think it's probably those type of players.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you want to hear more about that, we're going to keep talking exactly about that on the podcast portion of this.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you're watching on the YouTube, you can check out the podcast's feed for an additional probably 20 minutes or so of Astros discussion.

[SPEAKER_01]: But we do thank you for watching the baseball America video on the YouTube channel.

[SPEAKER_01]: But if you're on the podcast, we'll just keep rolling along.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right after this quick break.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we're back.

[SPEAKER_01]: So going a little bit further into that, Jeff.

[SPEAKER_01]: How has, like, you're said that this is now, this is now the Dana Brown Astros, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Which, and that was kind of a, as you said, that was kind of a transitionary period, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Because you had the Jeff Lunar Astros, and then, you know, then you had the James Click Astros, and there's a lot of turnover there in a multi-year part piece of time, where, but now Dana Brown's been around long enough has had this kind of been running things long enough

[SPEAKER_01]: his astros for an office.

[SPEAKER_01]: How do you think like when you look at that, again, you're literally trying to, you know, put out pieces and hints from things, because we're still relatively early on in Dana Brown running the astros, but what are you seeing so far that is both, what is similar maybe and what is different from what we've seen under a past astros regime.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, I think a lot of sort of those under the radar moves that they consistently made, whether that was the under the radar, you know, low dollar amount, international signings that turned into a lot of good pictures, Framber Valdez, you know, Christian Havier, Blanco, whole, you know, gang of others, haven't seen those, we haven't seen any sort

[SPEAKER_00]: And frankly, that might be harder to do in 2025, 2024, 2025, 26 than it was 10 years ago.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you know, I think that there are like three trades that have essentially ruined that trade, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: No, you can't make in that trade in 2026.

[SPEAKER_01]: The number one on that list would be Fernando Tathis Jr, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Fernando Tati's junior and you're not going to live that one down.

[SPEAKER_01]: You just mentioned Josh Fields, who was productive briefly for the Dodgers, but Josh Fields for Yard and Alvarez who had not played a game in Pro Ball yet, but you're going to, that one leaves some mark.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then I would say junior camonero for Tobias Myers is the third one.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're now

[SPEAKER_01]: If you're a GM or a president-based well-operations, and you want to make that deal, and you have that target that you want, who's in the DSL, I feel like that you can't mention that name until you've gone through like 17 other iterations.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you just say, hey, you want to make this deal?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we like so and so who's in the DSL, they're just saying no.

[SPEAKER_01]: But you're going to have to be like much more like, yeah, we like so and so no, no, no, no, no, what about so and so he's far away is in the DSL I do think that GM's for one

[SPEAKER_01]: I do think that now they actually do have to pay more attention to what you know that it used to be viewed as that's far away that's not going to come back and bite me usually but to I really do think that those trades are like oh I can't be I would rather just reflexively say no then get job by one of those trades which will kind of hang around you know like you know it'll be a stench that kind of sticks with me for years to come.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, I think that's, you know, totally accurate and probably one of the reasons you're not seeing, you know, the astros be able to pull off a deal like that, which is totally fine.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, you know, I think that the Luna I want is a really difficult comparison because you went from sort of the lowest of lows when he took over an implementing processes and really being.

[SPEAKER_00]: on the cutting edge of so many things that were to come in the game, um, that, you know, we kind of operated in, in a different manner and they were able to acquire and develop a very much homegrown core.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, like, you even look at like the 2019 team.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, Ulyghuriel, they signed, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Jose L2, Ve homegrown, Carlos, Korea homegrown, Alex Braggman homegrown, you know, you're on Alvarez, maybe not technically homegrown, but for all 10% homegrown, 95% homegrown, George Springer, you know, you have sort of all of those baths that were constantly coming up, you know, at this point in time,

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, they had, like, like, room, uh, uh, uh, uh, Loreano was in this system, um, Tiosca or Hernandez around this time few years before that was in this system.

[SPEAKER_00]: So they were constantly kind of hitting on guys like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: There was always more depth than I think you even realized.

[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I'm not so sure that that's the case any longer.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think some of that is the international side of things.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some of that is the trading side of things has changed.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're leaning, I think, more into acquiring a lot of their young players via the draft.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're much, much more aggressive in trading away players that they've drafted.

[SPEAKER_00]: That was certainly something under Lunau and his regime, and we've kind of seen that play out with Elias and SIG during their time in Baltimore.

[SPEAKER_00]: they were not an organization that wanted to give up prospects for horses, you know, they believed in the prospects.

[SPEAKER_00]: They wanted to have as many players that they had drafted and acquired as minor leaders that came through the system and developed and pushed their way through and then they went to free agency and they walked and they had a whole new group of guys to fill it in.

[SPEAKER_00]: You read any of the books that have been written about this time in Houston,

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that I don't want to say panic, but I do think that there are times now that they are making deals that they would not have made in previous years and mortaging the future a little bit in order to get that right now player.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they've been more aggressive just in terms of making trades like I don't think the previous regime would have made that for a land or trade with Clifford and Gilbert.

[SPEAKER_00]: And to their credit, they didn't want to world series.

[SPEAKER_00]: It got to ALCS and they lost to the Rangers.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think it killed them though.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not like that's that those are two guys that would have been no doubt starting in their outfield through Gilbert is still a fringy major league or at this point, you know, maybe he's a 45.

[SPEAKER_00]: It still remains to be seen.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a power of one back to 20 v.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well, that's what it is.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's going to break it, you know, break about.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's going to be playing, you know, crazy.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was already a fun player, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: But I don't think one that's like, they're not kicking themselves that they made that trade.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think, you know, that's a difference.

[SPEAKER_00]: The way the organization is run is much more in the short term than it was in the long term.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that they're leaning more on the draft.

[SPEAKER_00]: They made some changes in the international side.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we'll see how this class comes to fruition.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if the next few change that, and they're able to find some undervalued sort of signings.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it's really tough to know that until your three years out from a signing class, more often than not.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because those guys need a time to develop and gel and all those sort of things.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it's different.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to be overly negative.

[SPEAKER_00]: But this was one of the more successful player development stories in history, regardless of the cheating allegations and all that sort of stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: They were a very successful program that put together a lot of talent that there's going to be some Hall of Famers and guys that'll be on that ballot, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to end up voting on a lot of these names that were around those, 2017, 2018, 2019, even through 2022.

[SPEAKER_00]: So,

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, it'll be interesting to see how this all comes together in in in an next few years.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think the borrowers trade was a good trade.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some of these other moves that they've made, but it's going to be interesting to see if they can sustain this.

[SPEAKER_01]: So kind of along this line, you've hit on a couple of these guys already, but if you want to expound more on Ryan for Koochi, for example, you can, but who are some sleepers that you like?

[SPEAKER_00]: I'll actually say that this was probably one of my favorite 11 to like 15 groups and of course before that, you know, before the trade for Kuchi was in that Miguel Yola was in that, they're now inside the top 10, but there's one player in particular that I'm fascinated by and that is Lucas Spence.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was a undrafted free agent.

[SPEAKER_00]: debut and signed after the 2024 draft out of Southern Illinois Edwardsville, you know, was a Juco guy, a two-way player for a couple of years before that, you know, while he was at Southern Illinois, hit 385, 473, 552, 14 appearances in the mound, he's now a full-time position player for the first time in his career.

[SPEAKER_00]: It had a pretty good year.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the slash line 244368403 doesn't look overly impressive, but I think when you consider, you know, went from low A, which I know it's low A.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not the easiest place to hit.

[SPEAKER_00]: High A made some swing adjustments to add a little bit more loft, gets up to AA and, you know, was impressive.

[SPEAKER_00]: a really good athlete, another guy who is a plus runner above average in center field can play all three outfield positions.

[SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of ways, he's kind of a poor man's Jacob Melton, a former Juco guy before he went to Oregon State and was State an extra year in college from when he could have been drafted.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I think there's some parallels there, obviously, there's a lot more pedigree with a guy like Melton, but I do see some similarities.

[SPEAKER_00]: The angles are the biggest question.

[SPEAKER_00]: He hits the ball harder than you think.

[SPEAKER_00]: He makes a ton of contact.

[SPEAKER_00]: The swing decisions are pretty good.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's a really interesting player.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's a guy that I could come back to a year from now and say, this guy's maybe a 45 or a 50.

[SPEAKER_00]: And might develop into their next sort of, I know Chasm McCormick hasn't gone great and Jake Myers hasn't gone great.

[SPEAKER_00]: But they've been big leagueers.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think there's a conversation we had on the 45s.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe in the right seasons, they were 50s.

[SPEAKER_00]: It wouldn't shock me if he turns into that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think that he is by the definitions, very much a true sleeper, a guy that came from not a lot of a pedigree in the background that performed right away, moved to bunch of levels.

[SPEAKER_00]: Is now age appropriate, has tools, has some power skills?

[SPEAKER_00]: This could go somewhere.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this is an interesting player.

[SPEAKER_00]: So he's one in particular that I would call out.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, to last thing to kind of before we wrap this up, you've touched on this also a little bit too, but you've kind of been hinting about this.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, if you look at this organization where it is right now, farm system wise, you could construct a case that says,

[SPEAKER_01]: This is about as bad as it gets right now if you're ranking all 30 organizations as far as talent.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that would largely be based on the top end is not comparable to most pharmacists in right now, especially post-rade.

[SPEAKER_01]: There are not as many top-hundred prospects here.

[SPEAKER_01]: There have not been as many top-hundred prospects here as there are most organizations in recent years.

[SPEAKER_01]: But you and I've talked about it, and you've kind of hindered on here,

[SPEAKER_01]: Again, not that we're trying to just put on rose color glasses here to talk about this, but what is it about this and where the astros are right now, that kind of has you encouraged about kind of this farm system and kind of where it could go.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because I think there's a lot of guys that we can call out with upside and it's kind of throughout the list.

[SPEAKER_00]: We talked about Nions, we talked about Frey, we talked about Kevin Alvarez, we talked about Ryan Furcucci.

[SPEAKER_00]: We talked about Lucas Spent, Zach Cole, I don't get's gonna sustain in the big leagues, but Zach Cole wasn't bad in his short sample at the end of the season.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of swing and miss.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of a Spencer Jones-ish kind of profile with a different type of body, but

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe equal athleticism and outputs going in terms of the power and some of those things.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think you've been looking at guys like Joseph Sullivan, Anthony Hueso.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of upside with those guys.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't really know what we've gotten with Jason Chilget.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're just continually, there's continuously guys in this system that have upside.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then after the trades, I had a couple of guys and it's always tough with some of these DSL players that aren't super performers and

[SPEAKER_00]: Anthony Milan, an outfielder that debuted was assigning out of Venezuela for a little bit under $500,000 in January 2025.

[SPEAKER_00]: He had a phenomenal year in the DSL for the Astros.

[SPEAKER_00]: 279, 407, 419, the underlying EVs are pretty good.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's decent enough bats of ballability and some swing decisions.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's a decent athlete, plus runner.

[SPEAKER_00]: Got the complete all three outfill positions again.

[SPEAKER_00]: a risky player, not the biggest body, but I think you look at that and you're like, all right, that's kind of exciting.

[SPEAKER_00]: I haven't seen that with the Astros in a while.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some of that I actually believed in with the underlying data back some of the hype that I was getting from guys that had seen them.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because I think sometimes with, you know, evaluators that cover particular systems, especially ones that toward the back end or a little bit thinner, like the Astros have been in years, they're certain for guys.

[SPEAKER_00]: You had your your hermoan

[SPEAKER_00]: And then the other one is Omar Damian, who actually did make Josh's DSL list if I'm not mistaken.

[SPEAKER_00]: Another guy sent it to the DR in 2025 under $400,000, but decent signing, really like a lot of IVB.

[SPEAKER_00]: interesting pitch mix, really good change up.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how much command is there, but you never know.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's six two with some projection remaining.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think he's kind of interesting.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I think I have some enthusiasm, because I can dream on this system a little more than I used to where it was like, I see a lot of relievers, a lot of number five starters, and a lot of fourth-out-fuelers.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's kind of what it was for a lot of years, which was help them sustain what they were able to do.

[SPEAKER_00]: By the same token, by the trade deadline of things go well with some of these guys we've talked about, they can have three or four players that are interesting trade chips for teams, you know, as whether it's as a lead player or some of those secondary and fiduciary players that get added to bigger deals, they might be able to go out there and do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think they've really been able to outside of the older expiring vets that might be expensive that they're willing to take on the expensive.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that is our look at the Houston Astro's farm system, a system that is very interesting in a lot of different ways, has made some changes and all that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And as one is Jeff laid out, that would be very interesting to watch in 2026, because there are some players here who could pop.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you enjoyed this one, we have deep dives either out, a lot of teams already, or coming.

[SPEAKER_01]: for every organization, all 30 MLB organizations, we are rolling these out.

[SPEAKER_01]: Fast and furious, by the way, we also have the top 100.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're gonna take a deep dive break for at least a day because we have some top 100 videos to give you and produce also producing as a key part of that as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: So you hope, but okay, if you're enjoying any of these and I don't feel like you're gonna be angry at us because we're giving you top 100 prospect content on the podcast feed.

[SPEAKER_01]: So for Jeff, I'm JJ, it's a long everybody.