You’ll remember way back last season when our starting rotation in the bigs was absolutely terrible, I went looking for some minor league talent that could help, basically for free. My favorite of those three options was Jack Cassel who signed a minor league contract with Houston this past season after being released by the Padres.
Well he got called up today and turned in a decent performance. Over 5 innings, he allowed 7 hits (1 double, 6 singles), walked no one and struck out 1. It took him just 68 pitches (I don’t think he was streched out in the minors) and he retired 9 of 13 on the ground. He was up against a decent Reds team (12th in OPS in the MLB) as well so it’s not like he just slayed the lowly Nationals or anything.
Basically the Astros picked up Brad Thompson on a minor league contract this offseason. Don’t believe me, take a look at their numbers. (Cassel / Thompson) Moderate strikeout guys with groundball tendencies and good command. Neither are them are much better than replacement level as starters but the point is you should never ever pay more than league minimum for these types of players because they are littered around the league. I’ll probably be keeping tabs on Cassel for the better part of this season just to see how he pans out. Too bad Colby Lewis got shipped out to Japan. . .
Future Redbirds 
If these guys are a dime a dozen this does not bode well for Wonder Brads trade value.
OH. Anybody know what’s up with VEB and when it will return?
VEB’s servers are having issues. It sounded like they were actual hardware issues (which can be a long time to get up if they have to have parts replaced) so there’s no timetable I know of for it being back up.
Do you view PJ Walters as a similar pitcher…or does he have bigger upside?
PJ Walters goes about pitching in an almost completely different manner. He lives off of having above average command and good secondary offerings that get graded up since he can locate them. Cassel and Thompson have one above average pitch (a sinker) and a few other average pitches. I’m still not sure that Walters can survive advanced hitters but it won’t be the same issues that Cassel or Thompson deal with.