I had a post ready to roundup the reaction on Houston Astros prospect and Corpus Christi Hooks second-baseman Jose Altuve, but Appy Astros did a pretty good job of shoehorning everything everybody said about the 21-year-old.
On top of all the links that he provides, there is one more from Kevin Goldstein, who sums up the headliners from last night's Futures All-Star Game, with Altuve at the top:
I remain proud about sneaking him [Altuve] on to my Astros Top 11 entering the season, and in retrospect that ranking was far too low. "Think about it," said one scout in attendance on Sunday. "Now that Jordan Lyles is in the big leagues, you can at least make a legitimate argument that Altuve is the top prospect in the system."
Now this might be going a tad too far. But then again George Springer hasn't signed yet, and there isn't a whole lot of consensus on who is the top prospect after Lyles' elevation.
More after the jump.
Myself, Lee Street and some of the writers on The Crawfish Boxes have despaired of Baseball America's attitude on Altuve, constantly saying that his ceiling is a backup player in the majors. But as Keith Law pointed out:
It does look like these insanely high batting averages he's posting aren't a fluke, though. ... looks like he'll have only doubles power, but if you hit in the low-.300s with a handful of walks and solid defense at second base, you're at least an everyday player -- and probably a fan favorite.
Which is slightly better than the solid, if unspectacular Jeff Keppinger is doing for us right now at second base. Its not a ceiling that jumps out at a lot of prospect evaluations and he has zero chance of busting BA's top 100. He will have to continue to fly under the radar, but with the results he is getting at the moment, why knock it?