https://t.co/vqNvzAwpKi

— Ari Alexander (@AriA1exander) June 11, 2024

Another full uniform bullpen from Lance McCullers Jr. pic.twitter.com/BSYxySm2DR

— Michael Schwab (@michaelschwab13) June 10, 2024

Ag_07 said:

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Needs to quit throwing BPs and get some work at 1B.

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MaxPower said:

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Ag_07 said:

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Needs to quit throwing BPs and get some work at 1B.

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Has a 1B ever gotten Tommy John? If not then Lance will join the record books.

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MaxPower said:

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Ag_07 said:

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Needs to quit throwing BPs and get some work at 1B.

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Has a 1B ever gotten Tommy John? If not then Lance will join the record books.

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Quote:

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1. Jacob Melton, CF
Even though he hit .364/.428/.660 throughout his career at Oregon State, Melton was one of the toolsy, enigmatic college outfielders in the 2022 draft whose swing made scouts worried about whether they'd actually hit in pro ball. Here at FanGraphs, we took the under and had a late-second/early-third round grade on him. In 2023, his first full pro season, Melton slashed .245/.334/.467 with 23 homers while going 46-for-53 in stolen base attempts. His 2024 was off to a very good start at Double-A Corpus Christi (especially from a contact standpoint) when Melton was shut down with a wrist issue a couple of weeks before list publication.

Melton has plus raw power and hits the ball hard with plus-plus consistency, though there isn't drastic loft in his bat path. The strength and athleticism in his lower body has leveled up since he signed, and he can move the barrel around the zone to make crude, imprecise (but hard) contact to all fields. It's a slug-over-hit profile to the eye, but it's more balanced when you look at Melton's statistical performance. He adds an additional layer of offensive value with his ability to swipe bags at an efficient rate. The problem here is that Melton has really struggled against lefties and is hitting about .185 against them as a pro. It's difficult to give him an everyday player's FV grade when this is true.

It becomes more plausible if you think Melton can do enough on defense to impact the game even on days when he faces a southpaw. He's an above-average runner who covers an average amount of ground in center field, with his ball skills and relative lack of athleticism at the catchpoint causing a slight downtick in his defense grade. He's not an ideal center field fit, but he can play there if you need him to, and we think he'd be a plus left fielder if he was deployed there all the time. That's enough to push Melton into the 50 FV tier and onto the Top 100 list. We expect production similar to what Kerry Carpenter has done except with better defense, an above-average rate of production but not an omni-situational player due to his issues versus lefties.

2. Jake Bloss, SP
Bloss was taken 99th overall in the 2023 draft out of Georgetown after spending his first three years of collegiate ball at Lafayette College. He coasted through A-ball and was given a quick hook to Double-A after the first month of the 2024 season.

Bloss throws from a high slot that, along with his plus extension, generates significant carry on his 93-96 mph four-seamer; the pitch has a 31% miss rate so far in 2024. He also has a deep secondary mix to back up the fastball. His 76-81 mph curveball is a very vertical breaker. He'll adjust the amount of depth on it, sometimes throwing a deep "freeze" type, while at others, he'll shorten it up for more drastic snap action. Bloss does something similar with his slider in that he'll throw ones with hard, two-plane shape while others are shorter, more cutter-like offerings; both shapes regularly show average teeth while flashing a tick above. Bloss' changeup has the furthest to go to be an average weapon for him, but he's a small school arm who we think is benefitting from pro instruction and we believe it'll get there. The best ones he'll throw have late diving action and a hint of fade, though he's still prone to frequently throwing ones that have very minimal action. Bloss is a fairly explosive, whippy-armed athlete with below-average body control and frame composition. We're skeptical the improvements he's made as a strike-thrower in 2024 will stick, but the way his fastball plays doesn't make that a strictly necessary aspect of his profile. He's trending up and tracking like a mid-rotation starter.

3. Joey Loperfido, CF
A seventh-round senior sign out of Duke in 2021, Loperfido has done nothing but perform since breaking into the pro ranks. He covered three levels in 2023 and finished at Triple-A Sugar Land, posting a cumulative OPS of .880 with 25 homers and 27 steals in 31 attempts. In 2024, he hit 10 homers in the first half of April, made his big league debut, and has been up and down depending on the health of Houston's other outfielders.

Loperfido hits out of a crouched, square stance with his hands set up high, and has a direct, adjustable path that sprays contact to all-fields. He can really elevate pitches with authority in the lower quadrants of the zone and hits the ball hard with meaningful consistency. He swings through a lot of in-zone fastballs and is striking out about 30% of the time at Triple-A. A lack of consistent contact is what stands between Loperfido and an everyday grade.

A big part of why we're this high on him despite his hit tool issues is Loperfido's very versatile defensive profile. He has the ability to play all three outfield positions at an average level, while also showing he can handle first and second-base at a passable level. The way Loperfido can move the ball around the infield at first base is actually quite special. While he does many things at an average to solid level, there's no single aspect of his bat or defensive ability that grades out as plus; this is a profile where the sum is greater than the raw parts. Loperfido projects as a high-end bench utility player for a World Series contender and could sneak into the lineup every day for lesser clubs.

4. Alberto Hernandez, SS
Hernandez has a pretty exciting bat-to-ball and infield defensive fit foundation, and he has begun to layer on pro strength in the weight room. He didn't have a huge 2022 DSL (.235/.332/.349, a 90 wRC+) but he did make a lot of contact (14% K%), and Hernandez had a 24-to-31 BB/K ratio and posted a .789 OPS in 40 games in his first taste of stateside action in the 2023 Complex League.

The twitchy, rangy shortstop has a lean, projectable frame and already swings pretty hard. Hernandez hits out of a slightly open stance with a high-hands setup before utilizing a leg kick trigger to bring him back to square. There's average bat speed here right now, but Hernandez does tend to get lengthy in his path, resulting in too much weak groundball contact, as reflected in Hernandez's 48% groundball rate from 2023. While he projects to have average raw, barring an adjustment, Hernandez's inability to keep the ball off the ground will make his solid-average hit tool play a little lighter than most.

Hernandez has played all over the infield defensively and has progressed significantly with his glove, to the point he projects to be a solid-average defender anywhere on the dirt. He's acrobatic but his hands are a little inconsistent. The range and athleticism to play shortstop are clearly here, and the other stuff should get polished as Hernandez gets stronger and more experienced. For now, Hernandez is tracking like a high-floored utility guy, but there are some right tail outcomes where he hits enough to be an everyday shortstop.

5. Brice Matthews, SS
Matthews was one of the more polarizing prospects in the 2023 draft, an unpolished collection of huge tools and mixed results. His exit velos were as high as anyone's in the class, including Dylan Crews, it's just that Matthews' feel to hit was not good. He didn't swing and miss excessively in college, but the visual evaluation of his hit tool wasn't great, and Matthews especially struggled to get on top of high fastballs. He is a plus runner and will show you a max-effort plus arm, but Matthews is also a crude defender at short and isn't a lock to stay there. He's often slow to approach choppers in front of him and has to rush once he has the baseball, and his throwing accuracy is a mixed bag. The last time the Astros took a player whose scouting report read like this huge tools college guy with hit tool risk it was George Springer.

Matthews got 156 plate appearances after the draft last summer, primarily with Low-A Fayetteville, where he had a 26.7% strikeout rate and only produced 10 extra-base hits. He spent nearly a month on the IL with a lower back issue early in 2024 and has been white hot since returning. Matthews hits out of a square, balanced setup with a simple stride and his bat path tends to be on the flatter side, with solid bat speed through the zone. We want to let him air out in pro ball for a while before revisiting his FV grade. He was always going to be a bit of a slow burn, a toolsy dev project typical of Houston's high-variance style of drafting when it comes to hitters.

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tjack16 said:

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Melton with a 2027 ETA is wild.

I'd imagine he'd be up next year

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tjack16 said:

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I'm okay with not extending Framber. But if Tucker walks that tells me all I need to know about how Crane is running things

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cc10106 said:

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I bet this guy is licking his chops right now:

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MaxPower said:

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Not sure it matters. Tucker has the leverage because we have too little talent to let him walk. I really don't know what Crane would plan to do in 2026 otherwise. Blow a bunch of money on some more Abreu's and Montero's?

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iBrad said:

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cc10106 said:

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I bet this guy is licking his chops right now:

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For everyone who was strongly against Ausmus as manager, would you swap Espada for him right now?

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Beat40 said:

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iBrad said:

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cc10106 said:

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I bet this guy is licking his chops right now:

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For everyone who was strongly against Ausmus as manager, would you swap Espada for him right now?

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No way.

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iBrad said:

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cc10106 said:

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I bet this guy is licking his chops right now:

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For everyone who was strongly against Ausmus as manager, would you swap Espada for him right now?

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