Series: Houston Astros Top 5 Starting Pitcher Lottery Tickets

Feb 21, 2014; Tampa, FL, USA; Houston Astros pitcher Mark Appel (74) poses for a picture during photo day at Osceola County Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports

2. Mark Appel

The golden boy of the Astros pitching prospects comes to us via the number one overall pick in the 2013 draft. Jeff Luhnow didn’t try to get cute with the 2013 draft like he did with 2012. He honed in on who he thought was the best player, and made sure he paid the man what he was worth.

Appel spent the 2013 campaigne between our short season Tri-Cities affiliate, and our full season Quad-Cities. So he is up to like, seven cities or something. Luhnow and company had him on an innings limit because of semi-barbaric way that college coaches run their best pitchers into the ground. He performed well in each arena and walked away from his first season with an ERA of 3.79 in 38 innings of ball while striking out 33 and walking 9.

Appel is a player that breaks the rules I pretty much laid out at the beginning of this whole thing. He is young-ish (22), hasn’t had the chance to prove himself at the higher levels of the organization. Despite this, all reports seem to confirm that Appel is on a fast track to the majors because of his very advanced control of the strike zone, as well as a repertoire that features an above average fastball and slider. He certainly looks the part at 6’5″ 225 and most categorize him as just under an ace, but still a top of the rotation pitcher. Which sounds like scout speak for, “we have no idea what we’re doing.” Can’t blame them though, if this baseball stuff was easy, we wouldn’t be building computers to replace them.

Appel is expected to start the season with the Double-A Hooks and that should be a good immediate test for the 22 year old phenom.