April's Last Stand

Here's my last recap of April. Round Rock was off last night and Lancaster will be off today.

Houston starter Brian Moehler got absolutely bombed in his appearance with Corpus. He gave up 11 hits and eight runs in 5 innings in his first rehab start with the Hooks. According to the game recap, he started off strong but fell apart late. Maybe he needs to be slotted into a suddenly-thin bullpen when he comes off the DL.

Drew Locke and Collin DeLome continue to mash in Corpus. Jimmy Van Ostrand and Locke both had three hits for the Hooks on Wednesday. Van Ostrand hit two home runs and raised his average to. 408 in 49 at-bats. DeLome has been hitting more line drives, which has raised his average to .289. He's got about the same numbers both at home and on the road, with a little better power in Corpus due to the short right field.

As I mentioned on Wednesday, Jason Castro pinch hit last night a day after getting hit by a pitch. He stayed in the game to catch the last half-inning, which tells me he's feeling fine. T.J. Steele did not play, but that may have just been a routine day off. Jordan Powell was effective out of the 'pen for the JetHawks, pitching a perfect ninth in the loss. Powell has struck out 13 while walking one in 17 1/3 innings this season. His BABiP is a solid .333, so this is a good baseline for his performance. At 24, he's getting old for the California League, but not so much so that he can't develop into a nice prospect.

22-year old Henry Villar struck out eight in 3 2/3 innings for Lexington in his second start of the season. The right-hander has 26 strikeouts this season in five appearances and had a game score of 57 for his start on Wednesday, even though he didn't even finish the ninth.

21-year old catcher Federico Hernandez is hitting .467 in his last four games for Lexington. He's upped his overall average to .245 and has a weighted OBA of .306, which is the third highest on the team. His BABiP is a low right now at .237, so he should get better over time, but right now he's giving Lexington the offense it dearly needs.

That's all for now, as I've got to get my defensive stats ready for tomorrow's unveiling of my Hitter, Pitcher and Defensive Players of the Month for every level of the system! Get excited!

Ross Seaton Pitching Profile

First off, let's get a couple of things out of the way first. I'm using some simple metrics here, like Game Score and some more complex methods, like Pitching Runs Created. Both definitions to the methodology behind how I came up with these stats can be found at the links above. This way, I won't have to spend the rest of this post explaining what the stats themselves mean.

Before I get into the profile, here's some background on Seaton. Ross is a 19-year old right-handed pitcher from Second Baptist High School in Houston was selected in the supplemental portion of the third round in 2008. At 6-foot-4 and 190 lbs., the Sugar Land native has definitely got the frame to be a power pitcher. Plus, I just like rooting for players from my home town.

I dug up some video of him from MLB.com's 2008 Draft coverage here. His arm slot is definitely overhand and from what I could tell, it didn't look like his elbow was flying forward before his hand (one sign of potential injury problems). The scouting report on him mentioned three good pitches, with the possibility of his changeup becoming an average pitch. It also mentioned that he's an intelligent kid, which he would have to be to get into a school like Tulane.

When I started out looking at this pitching profile, I didn't exactly know what I was going to put into it. I knew I wanted to start out simply, by scoring all of his starts and getting an average Game Score. His four starts got scores of 55, 66, 62 and 70 in chronological order, so his average Game Score turned out to be 63 for the month of April (I'm assuming he's not starting tomorrow's game).

Seaton has been above average in all of his starts this season and in two of them, pretty spectacular. That 70 score came from his last start, when he only struck out three but threw seven innings of shutout ball. Still, how impressive has he really been? His G/F ratio is still too high on the fly ball end, though that has been trending downward lately. He still doesn't get as many strikeouts as you'd like to see, but he's been able to get consistent outs. Still, I wanted to dig a little deeper into his numbers.

Not having pitch counts to work with, I had to look at what was available in the box score. My next task was to isolate how good the defense has been when he's on the mound and what percentage of line drives and men left on base he has. I used another stat from the Hardball Times that I've worked into my rotation for my fielding metrics, the Defense Efficiency Rate. It basically looks at just the batted ball plays and creates a ratio of successful plays by the defense. Lexington, overall, has a DER of .679, but Seaton has been very lucky in his four starts. His defense has a DER of .815, which explains his luck on balls in play. He also has avoided giving up too many line drives, having just 19.6 percent over the four starts. His high mark there was the five he gave up in seven innings on Tuesday. In both the starts before that, he only gave up one line drive total.

As for number of men he's stranded on base, that number is up to 93.8%, which is pretty incredible. Seaton has shown a knack for getting timely ground balls and for inducing double plays, as he has gotten one double play in all but one of his starts. Part of my profile meant I had to chart his games by lefty/righty matchups, essentially creating a score card of his time on the mound. Besides providing me with a wealth of information on his splits (.175 vs. lefties, .167 vs. rightys), it also gave me a chance to see just where in the field they were hitting the ball when they made contact. Seaton is a righty, so you'd expect him to be tougher on righty batters and for guys to try and pull the ball. From all the data I saw, no one really got around to pulling the ball at all on Seaton and most batters were hitting the ball either up the middle or the opposite way, which suggests he's got very good raw stuff. Probably a good to excellent fastball and some offspeed pitch like a slider to keep the hitters' timing off.

All that was a precursor to my analysis of his Pitching Runs Created. As the above article stated, this is basically a stat to show and easily compare pitchers to batters. Seaton has a RA of 1.52 this season and his PRC is 7.42. That's a little lower than it could have been, but he fell into the meaty part of the curve for the adjustment based on K/9 inn. He's just at 5.70 right now, and I'm okay with that, because at his stage of development, strikeouts are fascist. Groundballs are more democratic. Seriously, though, I'd rather him learn how to pitch, learn how to get out of jams by throwing double play balls than to try and strike everyone out. The ball's an egg, handle it with care!

So, how does his PRC compare to some of the Lexington hitters? Only one or two positional players had Runs Created over 10 and they've played in a heck of a lot more games than Seaton's four. He's been very, very good right now and one of the main reasons that Lexington isn't in the basement of the South Atlantic League, considering its offense has been so horrendous. His team has scored 6, 0, 4 and 4 runs for him in his three starts. His second best start of the season? Yeah, that's when Lexington got shut out. Just for comparison's sake, that's 3.5 runs per game of support for Seaton. The league average of runs scored per game is 4.07. Half a run can really add up over the course of a season.

So, what did we learn? Seaton is a very promising young pitcher who has great stuff. He may not miss many bats right now, but he's throwing hitters off-balance when they do make contact. He doesn't give up much hard contact, is starting to throw more ground balls and needs more run support. Not too bad for a kid who was in high school last year.

Wednesday's Rundown

Here's what happened in the Astros minor league system on Tuesday:

Bud Norris pitched a good game for Round Rock but took the loss, going 7 innings and allowing five hits and three runs, two of which were earned. He also struck out seven and walked six. Norris has a 2.28 ERA this season and has struck out 25 batters in 23 2/3 innings.

There was a messy, messy game in Lancaster, featuring eight combined errors by the two teams, five hit batters, one wild pitch, 24 combined runs and 35 combined hits. 2008 draft pick David Duncan started for the JetHawks and was bounced in the third, after giving up eight hits and eight runs, only two of which were earned. A parade of relievers including Sergio Severino, JJ Pacella and Fernando Abad also got hit hard, but that's nothing new. Only four of the JetHawks pitchers have ERAs under 4.00 and one of those hasn't even pitched in 10 innings yet (Bryan Hallberg, 6 appearances, 9 2/3 IP).

The Lancaster hitters continue to pound out base knocks. Jack Shuck followed up his perfect Monday by going 2 for 5 with a run scored and a strikeout. He's currently batting .346/.400/.423. His 27 hits leads all Houston minor leaguers....In Tuesday's game, Giants 21-year outfielder Thomas Neal hit for the cycle, going 4 for 5 with a four runs scored.

One hitter having an good season for Lexington is Albert Cartwright. The 21-year old was drafted out of Polk Community College in the 36th round of the 2007 draft as an outfielder. This season, he's playing second base and is one of the few Lexington players hitting the ball well. Cartwright is batting .293/.379/.500 in 64 plate appearances and has hit two home runs, a triple and four doubles and has been successful on all three of his stolen base attempts. Cartwright hit a home run in Tuesday's game, going 2 for 2 with two walks, two RBIs and a run scored.

Both Collin DeLome and Wladimir Sutil sat out Tuesday's game with Corpus Christi. Josh Flores started in DeLome's place and played center field. Flores missed all of 2008 with a knee injury and has struggled in his comeback this April. Currently, he's 10 for 55 with four walks and 13 strikeouts. He has managed to hit three doubles and steal three bases but he may be struggling to regain his timing.

A scary half inning for Lancaster saw both Jason Castro and T.J. Steele leave the game after being hit by pitches. No word on whether they are injured; neither started the early afternoon game today, but Castro did pinch hit late in the game....In other news, Chad Spann, the 25-year old third baseman, was called up from Corpus to Round Rock and started Tuesday's game. He was little used with the Hooks this season, appearing in seven games and accumulating 24 at-bats. He didn't hit much in his limited time, but may provide an insurance policy if the Astros are calling up Mark Saccomanno.

I'm coming back later tonight with my first-ever pitching profile. This first one will be on Ross Seaton, who picked up his third win on Tuesday, but I have more scheduled for later.

Tuesday Brieflys

I'm going to be short and sweet today, partly because I'll have an analysis of Jason Castro's hitting profile going up later tonight and partly because, well, there just wasn't that much to talk about yesterday, as Lexington had the day off and two non-prospects (Brandon Backe and Chad Wagler, a 25-year old reliever for Corpus, who incidentally played college ball at Kent State) started the other games.

The unequivocal star of the show was Jack Shuck. The 21-year old outfielder reached base on all five of his trips to the plate on Monday, going 3 for 3 with a double, two walks, two runs scored, an RBI and a stolen base. He's currently batting .342/.400/.425 in 81 plate appearances with a 7/7 strikeout to walk ratio and an adjusted OPS of .790. His numbers have definitely been helped by the band box of a park he plays his home games in, but he has shown signs of being a good base stealer (6 for 6 this season) and could be a good top-of-the-order guy down the road.

Chris Hicks (3-1) also picked up his third win for Lancaster. His line (6 1/3 IP, 12 H, 4 ER, 2 K, 0 BB) was mediocre for most places, but at Lancaster, this was a gem. He gave up 12 hits, but also got 10 ground ball outs and has a nice 28/15 GB/FB ratio overall. His ERA is 3.86 and his WHIP is 1.52, both could be lower, but he's also got a BABiP of .377, which means those numbers are actually a bit higher than they should be. Overall, it's been a good month of April for Hicks.

That's really all I have from last night. Wladimir Sutil's streak didn't end (because he didn't play), Collin DeLome hit his first double and Brian Pelligrini crossed the 20-strikeout mark for the season. Back with more tomorrow!

Jason Castro Hitting Profile

Jason Castro was drafted 10th overall by the Astros in the 2008 draft. The junior from Stanford led his team to the College World Series semifinals against Georgia last season before beginning his professional career with the Astros. Castro hit .275 in 39 games with the Tri-City ValleyCats in the short-season New York-Penn League.

After hitting well in spring training, Castro jumped a level and started off in the hitter's haven that is Lancaster, which is in High A's California League. Castro originally shared catching duties with the JetHawks alongside Koby Clemens. I originally thought that they had more of an even split between DH and catching duties. However, with Castro's hitting profile, I specifically looked at how well he hit behind the plate and as the designated hitter. From the box scores I've been following, I expected that he'd been at DH too much and, with Clemens moving on to Corpus, that his return behind the dish would lead to an increase in productivity. Turns out I was wrong.

Castro had only been at DH in three games this season. All his extra-base hits came when he was catching and his average as a DH is .167. The real telling split was with his home and road numbers.

At home, Castro is batting .354 in 11 games with two home runs, one triple and three doubles. On the road? .179 with a home run and two doubles. He also has struck out a ton, but over the past eight games, he's only whiffed three times. The other very interesting split in his stats was his vs. Lefty numbes. Castro bats from the left side and throws from the right. Against lefties this season, he's batting .318 in 22 at-bats.

Does that really tell us much, though? There's not really enough of a data set to make huge conclusions on, but he's had a pretty good month at home in one of the best hitter's parks in the minors. The more interesting data comes on his hit chart.

As a lefty, you expect him to hit more balls to the right side of the field (much as we saw with Collin DeLome). With Castro though, we see that he's much more adept at using the whole field for his hard hit balls. He's got good numbers to center and to left on both ground balls and line drives, but it's his fly balls that really stand out. 21 of his 28 fly balls have gone to left or center field. He's hitting for a much higher average to right (5 for 7 with three home runs and two doubles), but he's still using the whole field, which is the mark of an advanced hitter.

The biggest concern? His line drive percentage is sitting at 9%. Over a couple weeks, that's not worrisome, but with nearly a month's worth of data, it shows he's getting hits, but he's not hitting the ball well. He's also not getting anything through the right side of the infield. While DeLome hits a ton of ground balls to the right side, he is still hitting around .400 on those plays. Castro has hit 15 ground balls to the right side and only gotten one single to show for it. I'll explain this by his lack of speed compared to DeLome, but that doesn't account for all of it. DeLome isn't fast enough to turn something out of nothing in the infield. No, what I'm guessing is that DeLome hits the ball with enough authority that he can find the gaps in the defense along the foul line or in the right-side hole. Castro, while he's hitting .289 overall, is just not swinging the bat well.

I'm going to list the data I'm basing this analysis off of. I gathered all this by sifting through all of his box scores. If you have any questions, please leave a comment!

	AB	Outs	H	AVG	1B	2B	3B	HR
GB - Left	4	3	1	0.250	1	0	0	0
GB - Center	5	2	3	0.600	3	0	0	0
GB - Right	15	14	1	0.067	1	0	0	0
GB Total	24	19	5	0.208	5	0	0	0
LD - Left	1	1	0	0.000	0	0	0	0
LD - Center	2	0	2	1.000	2	0	0	0
LD - Right	4	1	3	0.750	3	0	0	0
LD Total	7	2	5	0.714	5	0	0	0
FB - Left	10	9	1	0.100	1	0	0	0
FB - Center	11	5	6	0.545	2	3	1	0
FB - Right	7	2	5	0.714	0	2	0	3
FB Total	28	16	12	0.429	3	5	1	3
Total Left	15	13	2	0.133	2	0	0	0
Total Center	18	7	11	0.611	7	3	1	0
Total Right	26	17	9	0.346	4	2	0	3
Total Abs	76	37	22	0.289	13	5	1	3
% GB	31.58%
% LD	9.21%
% FB	36.84%
	AB	H	BB	K	R	RBI	2B	3B	HR	HBP	SB	CS	SF	TB	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
Home	51	17	4	9	6	9	3	1	2	0	1	0	1	28	0.333	0.375	0.549	0.924
Away	25	5	0	5	3	2	2	0	1	0	0	0	0	10	0.200	0.200	0.400	0.600
Totals	76	22	4	14	9	11	5	1	3	0	1	0	1	38	0.289	0.321	0.500	0.821
	AB	H	BB	K	R	RBI	2B	3B	HR	HBP	SB	CS	SF	TB	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
at Catcher	64	20	2	13	7	9	5	1	3	0	1	0	1	36	0.313	0.328	0.563	0.891
at DH	12	2	2	1	2	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	0.167	0.286	0.167	0.452

Weekend Leftovers

Better late than never...here's a rundown of the weekend's notable performers.

Corpus Christi's Mitch Einertson hit his fourth home run of the season. We've talked about him here before, but it's good to see his power coming along. He hasn't gotten consistent playing time this season as the Hooks try to find time in the outfield for Drew Locke, Collin DeLome, Einertson and Josh Flores. Still, Einertson's bat has been strong this season and he's batting .300/.378/.650 in 42 plate apperances.

Speaking of DeLome, he was involved in a very strange play this weekend. He bunted a single to the first baseman, who fielded the ball and threw it to the shortstop. Apparently, DeLome tried to take second because the shortstop threw back to the first baseman who threw to the second baseman to tag DeLome out. This is either an overthrow that was backed up by the shortstop or DeLome got caught in a rundown. Now, how you get caught in a rundown between first and second on a bunt single is beyond me. Still made for an interesting box score....DeLome also hit his first triple of the season to lead off Sunday's game.

Shortstop Wladimir Sutil has reached base safely in 12 straight games heading into Monday night's contest. He's been hitless twice during the streak, but walked both times to keep it alive. Sutil has been splitting time at shortstop with regular third baseman Jhon Florentino.

Locke came over from the Dodgers system this off-season and has hit almost since his first time in the lineup. One of the reasons the Hooks are having such a hard time finding at-bats for everyone in the outfield is that Locke is hitting the cover off the ball. He is 23 of 56 this season with three home runs, five doubles, three walks, 19 RBIs, 10 runs scored and 13 strikeouts. He's not really a prospect at 26, but he is having an excellent month of April.

Lancaster's Craig Corrado had the first four hit game in the Astros farm system this season on Friday. In the same game, Clemens the Younger hit a walk-off two-run homer in the bottom of the 10th, right before his callup to Corpus Christi. Corrado is batting .227 in 66 at-bats with a slugging percentage of .333 this season. Drew Locke became the second farm hand to collect four hits in a game on Sunday for Corpus.

Lancaster pitcher Chia-Jen Lo continued his torrid strikeout pace, fanning his 20th batter of the season over the weekend. Lo has pitched 12 innings, giving up four hits, two earned runs and walking five. He has three holds and one win to his record. The Taiwanese pitcher was the first player signed by the Astros new Pacific Rim scouting team, headed by former big leaguer and Astro Glen Barker.

Jonathan Gaston has an impressive raw stat line this season, as he hit three home runs in one game earlier this month. However, his adjusted OPS is just .875, which is good but not great. He walks quite a bit, but he also strikes out a ton and his power is probably a bit of a mirage at this point.

Lexington's Kyle Miller is the first farm hand to wear the Golden Sombrero, striking out four times on Sunday.

Uber-teenager Jordan Lyles had an okay fourth start on Sunday, recording a game score of 48. His strikeouts were down from last start, but he still has 20 in 18 innings, which is tied for the best mark in the Astros system.

Jay Austin continues to hit better, as he stole his second base over weekend. Austin is batting 7 for 28 in last eight games, with an OBP of .344. The numbers are not great, but much better than his .175/.242/.211 overall line. Needless to say, he was pretty horrendous early on.

One bright spot in Lexington's order? Outfielder Russell Dixon has only struck out three times in 47 plate appearances. Granted, he's repeating the Sally League this season and is old for the level at 23, but still...

Tomorrow should be a nother two-post day, as I'm interested in doing a hitting profile on someone...maybe Jason Castro.

Who's Catching?

Mike Cameron's collision with Humberto Quintero on Friday night shook up the Astros minor league system just as much as it shook up both participants.

J.R. Towles was called up to the big leagues after Q went on the 15-day disabled list with a sore shoulder. I'm not sure what the Astros plan to do once Q is healthy, since they made numerous moves in the minor which suggest the call-up may be permanent. However, Pudge isn't one to take days off very often, and Towles needs to be playing. He only had 34 plate appearances in the minors this season and though he went 11 for 32 with a walk, three doubles and a home run, he also struck out seven times. Eventually, he'll break into the starting lineup for the Astros and hopefully provide some punch, but as long as Pudge keeps getting game-winning hits, that's not happening soon.

To replace Towles in Round Rock, 31-year old Brian Esposito got the call from Corpus. He's hit .244/.311/.415 in 41 at-bats this season and caught most of the Hooks games. I guess he's a guy that could be released to make room for Towles if the much younger backstop is sent down again. He most likely won't be sent back to Corpus since Clemens the Younger, Koby, was called up from Lancaster. I've already talked some about the talents of young Mr. Clemens, so I won't go into more detail now. I will probably have a hitting profile of him go up sometime this week.

To fill Clemens' roster spot with the JetHawks, 23-year old Jordan Comadena was called up from Lexington. The former Purdue player spent time behind the plate and in the outfield for the Boilermakers. He went undrafted after his senior season in 2007, but a chance encounter with former Astros great Jimmy Wynn last August at an alumni game provided an opportunity. It's really cool story found here and here.

Comadena didn't play much for Lexington before getting the call-up, but the Astros farm system lacks depth at catcher. They have some top-end talent in Towles, Clemens and Castro but lack those second catchers every team need. Currently, the second catcher in Corpus is a 19th round selection from the 2007 draft. The two catchers at Lexington right now? Federico Hernandez and Pedro Gonzalez, both products of the Astros Venezuelan scouting department.

So, hopefully no one else will get hurt on the big club, forcing roster shake-ups. I mean, no one decent. I'd feel bad personally if Jason Smith, Jeff Keppinger, Jason Michaels or Darin Erstad got injured, because no one wants to wish pain on another human being. For the Astros thought? A roster opening to call up some more talented kids is just what that team needs.

Speaking of talented kids, Alyson Footer of astros.com finally posted a story on Chris Johnson's injury (reported by yours truly as it happened). So, not as severe as I'd feared but it still looks like he'll be out for a little while. Maybe by August, he'll be ready for the big boys. I'll be back later today with a look at the weekend's top performers.