The Farm System is Doing Way Better Than I Expected

We all know our farm system has been depleted or left with weak contenders from a mixture of the sign-stealing pick losses, low lottery slots due to success, and trading to contend. However, I think it's only right to give credit to the regime for what the system has provided this year (and last) in the midst of serious injury crises.

2022: Worth starting our survey here, actually. We promote Pena and Meyers to the Majors, and Pena performs guns. Now, they're not what I'm on about here, really – they weren't pinch replacements in crisis – but they're a sign of a good system. Both were drafted by the Astros, both are key parts now. More to the point, in 2022 we give Hunter Brown and Ronel Blanco a few games, and that's much more to the point.

2023: The pitching falls apart, and Brown is promoted to start. He comes out at 0 WAR, but it's his age-24 season. Ronel Blanco pitches again, and is looking a bit more the real deal. JP France is promoted and earns 1.4 WAR. Shawn Dubin debuts here, and isn't really any better than he is this season, but he's taking innings. Parker Mushinski pitches in relief too, for his second season.

2024: This season is obviously really where we pick up. Blanco and Brown are blossoming, even after Brown's rough start; Bryan King has come up and had a really nice start (we didn't draft him but we did bring him into our system coming into this season, so that's a very good pickup and improvement); Forest Whitley even came and pitched a scoreless inning!; Spencer Arrighetti may be struggling but he's soldiering on and filling a hole in the rotation; and then there's Joey Loperfido! He's mostly been playing in the OF, which has had some injury depletion, though he was brought up in the context of the Abreu demotion, which in fairness wasn't an injury issue but was a crisis. Credit to Henley, too, even if he did get shelled. We also have Pedro Leon and a couple other nice prospects at Sugarland.

You can look at it in a different way: a lot of the current 40-man was "homegrown" by draft or international free agency. In the context of real injury problems in the SP slot, plus parallel crises in the bullpen (not just Pressly and Hader wobbling, but also Graveman), a depleted farm and some canny trades and journeyman FA signings have provided enough arms to keep Houston contending. That's without including Pena and Meyers – who were more normal promotions – or Loperfido.

You can get a lot of good picks, and either suck, or at least underachieve (my NL team is the Pirates, so), so there has to be something good going on the Astros farm system to produce the above on such limited resources.