It was a very successful year for the Astros farm teams and players last season. So It thought I would have a little fun and go back over what the players were able to do during the season. I'm going to do five at a time.
1) Carlos Correa: At the very beginning of the season Carlos was struggling mightily make me question if the guy was possibly being advanced to fast. Here he is just 18 years old and playing in low A ball. Then he took off and never looked back. He finished the season with 117 games played and 450 at bats and a BA of .320. To say the least, Carlos exceeded everyone's expectations and made the move to draft him over Buxton seem a very good one despite Buxton having a very good year as well. The one thing lacking for Carlos was the Homerun ball. He only hit 9 of them. According to the scouts his power will develop and he will become a 25-30 HR type of guy. But despite the lack of homeruns, he managed 33 doubles and 3 triples so he showed plenty of gap power. We could very well be seeing Carlos in the Bigs as soon as 2015 but probably not till 2016.
2) Jonathan Singleton: To say the least, this was a very disappointing season for Jonathan. Banned for the first 50 games and when he was eligible to play he just never seemed to be able to get his swing right. He played at Quad Cities, Corpus Christy, and OKC doing progressively worse at each level. He has 110 K's to just 59 walks in 90 games 304 AB's. He struck out 1 out of every three times he went to bat. His power was down, his RBI's were down, and his OBP was down, but t could all have a direct correlation o his suspension. He also gained several pounds and many are wondering if that is what affected his numbers. To say the least, he needs to come out next season and put up the kind of numbers he had been able to do in the past or we maybe looking at a kid who going to be a bust.
3) George Springer: What an amazing year it was for George. The one question that has always and will always be asked abut him is if he can cut down on his amount of K's. He still struck out 161 times last season in 135 games and 492 AB's which is a high number, but surprisingly his K ratio decreased when he made the move from AA to AAA and his his BA, HR, RBI, OBP, and SLG all increased. He is 24 years old and it's time to see what he can do in the Bigs. He will get his shot in Spring Training. He is the prospect I am most excited about in the Astros system right now.
4) Mark Appel: Did not have as good of a season in his first year as I would have wanted him to, but to be fair it was not a bad season. He had just pitched for the Stanford Cardinal before he was drafted and then he pitched in the minors so his arm had to of been tired from not being used to the heavy workload. His K/BB ratio was 3 to 1 and while his BAA was higher than I wanted, we have no Idea if he was instructed to just throw a certain pitch to work on some things or if his stuff flattened out a little from arm fatigue but either way I'm not concerned about him. There is a reason the Astros Drafted him number one over all and that's because the guy is a undeniable talent who will be pitching in the Bigs some day and that could be sooner rather than latter.
5)Lance McCullers: He has a higher ceiling than Mark Appel but he is also a higher risk player. He had an amazing season last year at Quad Cities throwing 104.3 innings. Oh and you need to remember.... this guy just turned 20 years old in October!! He averaged more than a K per inning and had around a 3 to 1 K/BB ratio. Rarely did he pitch past the sixth inning and his didn't pitch past the fifth inning quite a few time. Not really sure if this had to do with the piggyback system the Astros had going or if he needs to increase his stamina, or if the Astros were just being careful with such a young arm. Still the guy had a great season and I hope to see him in high A ball next season.