2014 Outlook: Houston Astros

When you talk about the Houston Astros, the players that are not on the team are talked about more than the guys that are on the team.

The Astros are much like the Minnesota Twins, they have a few players on the big league roster you will want to watch. There's not many guys, but the one obvious guy is 2B Jose Altuve, who really broke out in 2012, and continued his success last year. Altuve is your typical second basemen who gets on base. With a lot of speed, he should continue to be a great tablesetter and his runs scored should increase in the coming years as these young studs make their way up.

Catcher Jason Castro had a break out year last year, and while his stats weren't eye-popping, the mere fact he overcome early career struggles is a great sign for the Astros. When you throw him out there with a guy like Altuve, that's a solid duo for a team that really struggled to score runs.

I mentioned the Astros are very similar to the Minnesota Twins, the big difference is the Astros young talent is slightly more developed than Minnesota's. You look the likes of George Springer, Jon Singleton and Mark Appel, and they are about as close to the big leagues of any top prospects any franchise has in baseball.

This trio of players are just the tip of the iceberg for what this team has coming up. Other than Byron Buxton, I believe Springer is the most exciting prospect in the minor leagues. The guy is going to be a 30/30 player, and at his best, I wouldn't be surprised if he's the league's next 40/40 player.

Singleton is a lot like Ryan Howard. He possesses tremendous power from the left side of the plate. Before a 50-game suspension to start 2013, it looked like Singleton might hit for some average, but never really found his groove as he finished out the season.

Singleton and Springer will likely start the '14 season at Triple-A, but I can't think it's going to be long before this dynamic duo is in the Houston lineup for good.

If you don't know the story of Mark Appel, he was drafted in the top 10 of the 2012 draft, didn't sign with the Pirates and elected to go back to Stanford.

He was then drafted in the summer of 2014 as the #1 pick by the Astros, and blew through Low-A ball in just over a month. I wouldn't be surprised if he finds himself in the big leagues by mid-summer. I would also think the Astros will limit his innings, but in 2015 and beyond, look out. Appel is an ace type pitcher with the work ethic to go with it.

Other than Appel, I've not really gotten to much of the pitching. Appel is really the highlight of this pitching staff. If (more likely when) the Astros draft Rodon, they will have a very dynamic 1-2 punch, and you will also be able to throw out a guy like Jared Cosart, who had a very good finish to the season last year, and if he continues to develop, Mike Foltynewicz will be a very solid player and make the rotation in Houston very, very good.

There is a tremendous amount of talent in this farm system for the Astros. You've got Delino DeShields son, Delino Jr. The Stros also have a pair of outfielders that could be very good bats in their lineup: Domingo Santana and Danry Vazquez. Vazquez is a little farther away from being a full-time big league contributor, but Santana could be a September call-up who makes an impact as soon as next season.

Like the Twins, the Astros are making some noise, and with the #1 overall pick once again in this summer's draft, they figure to take North Carolina State lefty Carlos Rodon, who will not be far from contributing once he is in uniform.

I don't look for the Astros to finish much better than they did last year. They will have a lot of talent coming to the big leagues this year, but talent can take a while to get acclimated to the bigs. I think Houston makes improvements, which may be hard to see, but the strides should get greater and greater as time goes on.

Like I said last fall, I do not think it is far fetched to say the Houston Astros could start to dominate the American League West in the not-so-distant future.