Reason for some hope

I think that Drayton's seeming reluctance to sign any big FA pitchers this winter is going to be a little painful. So I'm going to list the minor leaguers from this year's draft (and any Latin signings) whose stats jump out at me.

1) Nathan Metroka - OF/DH, 21 y/o. I know I've talked about him before, but it bears mentioning again. He batted .327/.387/.531 in 33 games. He's in rookie ball with Greenville. Oh, and he was our 49th pick of the draft.

2) Phil Disher - 1B/DH, 23 y/o. Again, mentioned before. .304/.381/.536. Dude's hit 13 homers in 71 games, so that's good. What's impressive about both Disher and Metroka is that they're walking. It's not a lot of walks, but it's not like they're Tejada. Walking 6-8% of the time is pretty good.

3) David Flores- 3B, 21 y/o. 56 games, 11 homers, 17 doubles, going .266/.319/.495. He's also stolen five bases without getting caught.

4) Jack Shuck - CF, 21 y/o. .300/.385/.430 Undoubtedly has the coolest name in the Astros' draft class. And he's doing fairly well.

5) Daniel Meszaros - RP 21 y/0. In 26 innings, he's posted a 1.10 WHIP. What's cooler is that he's striking out better than two an inning in low A. Small sample size, I know, but it's pretty good.

6) Patrick Urckfitz - RP 19 y/0. Okay, this guy has the coolest name. Urckfitz - wow. Striking out better than one an inning in rookie ball.

7) Jose Santana - OF 19 y/o. He's Dominican. What's strange about this is he's a Dominican with a real batting eye. Look at this line: .289/.434/.330. He doesn't have any power, but that's pretty typical of young kids. In any case, he's walking almost 15% of the time. That's good.

8) Jacob Priday - OF/DH 22 y/o. Okay, his numbers aren't really there yet. He's only played 24 games in A ball, though. What I know is that he's an Adam Dunn clone (and Dunn's his "most similar player," according to him). He strikes out a lot, but walks enough and shows enough power that he might have a career. If he can walk more and improve his power, he'll be great. And we might see that next year, as the current class gets acquainted with wooden bats and develop further.

Have faith. The Stros farm system is improving. Give it time.