Random 2015 Minor League Stuff

[Cheddar Tom]

Paul DeJong is absolutely mashing.

[pioneer98]

All 4 of the Astros minor league affiliates have qualified for the playoffs (AAA, AA, A+ and A-). Also:

@jarahwright
Fun fact from QC broadcaster Marco LaNave: The River Bandits have had 60 different players suit up and play for them in 2015.

@jarahwright
And 25 of them have been promoted. #MiLB

Their minor league system is insane.

[pioneer98]

Sorry more on the Astros farm system:



4 of 7 of them are underperforming their pythag, two are right on on their pythag and 1 is over.

Quad Cities and Corpus Christi have the top 2 records in all of the minors.

[Cheddar Tom]

Luhnow has done a better job with the Astros system than he did with the Cards....STL has reaped the bounty of that '09 draft, but the follow-up drafts have given Sam Tui, Lyons, Greg Garcia, Wong and Maness.

[MrCrowesGarden]

Jose Martinez hit .384 for AAA Omaha, the best average in modern PCL history.

He's 26, but he was in A ball just a season ago.

[pioneer98]

Luhnow has done a better job with the Astros system than he did with the Cards....STL has reaped the bounty of that '09 draft, but the follow-up drafts have given Sam Tui, Lyons, Greg Garcia, Wong and Maness.

Piscotty and Wacha?

[pioneer98]

River Bandits lose 3-1 in 11 innings to lose the best of 3 series 2 games to 0. Tonight's game was like watching Cards vs Giants. Lost on errors, infield hits and bloops. No extra base hits.

Also our playoff format sucks. First round is best 2 of 3 with the lower seeded teams all hosting game 1. Win 1 home game, and immediately you put the higher seeded team's back against the wall. Three of the 4 lower seeded teams won game 1 at home and then won game 2 to advance. The 1 higher seeded team to win that first road game eked it out by 1 run.

[pioneer98]

A key play in the game: a guy led off the 5th with a leadoff double. The next guy was trying to bunt him to 3rd. He fouled one off, then the next pitch drilled him in the head. He was down for a couple minutes but did eventually get up and stay in the game. Meanwhile, the ump ruled that he had tried to bunt at that pitch, and did not award him first base. The Bandits manager went nuts but didn't get tossed. Now, how on Earth the ump could tell that is bonkers. He was trying to dive out of the way. Is there any room for discretion there, like "Yeah, he technically didn't get the bat back but it was because he was trying to protect his head from getting drilled"?

Anyway, instead of 2 men on and no one out, it was man on 2nd and now 2 strikes on the batter. He struck out, the next guy popped out, and then the next guy singled but the runner on 2nd was thrown out at the plate. If the guy had been awarded 1st, then the next guy would have been bunting, and who knows, maybe he gets it down. If he does, then that single would have scored at least 1, maybe 2. Ugh. And that's just the 1 inning. Like I said, Giants-like.

[pioneer98]

Well, next up is that the Cards affiliate Peoria advanced and will play the Kernels. I would have been pulling for them anyway with the hometown team eliminated but now I really want to see them win.

Fort Wayne and Kane County were the two other teams besides the Bandits I thought would make a deep run. They both had the top 2 records in the 2nd half. Both were eliminated already. So it's wide open now.

[Swirls]

Yeah, that playoff format is stupid.