Eleven players were released by the Astros from their minor league system last week. David Dinelli and Luis Pardo were among the 11. Dinelli was the 6th round pick and Pardo was the 9th round pick in the 2007 draft for the Astros. Three other members of the draft class of 07 were included in the releases: Kevin Carkeek (25th round), David Miller (32) and Jake Leonhardt (37th round). Let’s look at how bad things are now from that draft.
First 10 draft rounds:
No picks in rounds 1 or 2 (lost due to signing Carlos Lee & Woody Williams)
Didn’t sign rounds 3 or 4
5th round Colin Delome finished the second half of the season at Salem with a .232 average
6th David Dinelli released after repeating rookie ball
7th Russell Dixon played at Lexington and finished with a .237 average. Plan was to make him an 2nd baseman. That experiment has failed.
8th round pick not signed
9th Luis Pardo released after finishing a year in Lexington with a 5.57 ERA
10th round Matt Cusick traded to Yankees to aquired LeTroy Hawkins.
While none of these scream super prospect, the best hope lies in some of the later picks:
Kyle Greenwalt- 20th round pick showed good development in his second year in rookie ball. Was Greeneville’s MVP.
Albert Cartwright – 36th round 2nd baseman showed significant improvement in repeating rookie ball. Hit .306
Brian Pellegrini – 12th round pick hit 21 HR in Lexington but only hit .226 average and struck out 1/3 of the time.
Jon Fixler – 19th round pick showed some solid work behind the plate in Lexington and got a taste of Corpus in a back up role.
Robert Bono- 11th round pick has yet to win a professional game but showed improvement in Tri Cities. Will just turn 20 next month.
Colton Pitkin – 41st round pick had 45 Ks in 44 IP in his repeat of rookie ball. Won’t turn 20 until next August.
Jason Dominguez – 31st round pick jumped from the NYPL to the Carolina League last year. He fared okay. 5 Wins/4 Losses & 5 saves in 52 games with a 3.81 ERA. We will see if he can continue to develop as a bull pen arm.
Okay so was Carlos Lee worth a 1st round pick? Yes! Other than that, Matt Cusick being trade bait for LaTroy Hawkins is the only bright spot of the first 10 rounds of the draft so far. There are some bright spots in the deeper rounds but nothing that will bring returns in the near future. In fairness, this is a premature look at the production of this draft. But if it was a progress report, it would warrant a parent teacher conference.