Tucker, the Astros' 7th Round pick in the heralded 2012 draft, had an encouraging start to his career in 2015, playing in 98 games and hitting .243/.297/.434 with 13 home runs. Tucker was hitting .306/.377/.516 after his first calendar month of the 2015 season including his first two home runs - both in a series at Detroit - where he tied the game. He followed that up with 48 games in 2016, hitting .164/.222/.328 and that was pretty much it as the Astros moved on to Josh Reddick.
Here are the draft picks in the Astros' first ten rounds of the 2012 draft, and their status as of this morning:
Carlos Correa (1-1): Hero
Lance McCullers (1-41): Hero, just rescued a dog from a speeding train.
Nolan Fontana (2-61): Anaheim
Brady Rodgers (3-96): Recovering from Tommy John
Rio Ruiz (4-129): Atlanta. Traded for Evan Gattis and James Hoyt.
Andrew Aplin (5-159): Seattle
Brett Phillips (6-189): Milwaukee. Traded for Carlos Gomez and World Series Champion Mike F. Fiers
Preston Tucker (7-219): Atlanta
Tyler Heineman (8-249): Milwaukee
Dan Minor (9-279): Playing in the Independent League since 2015
Joe Bircher (10-309): Playing in the Independent League since 2014
That's it. Three guys in the first ten rounds of the "heralded" (as I put it maybe three minutes ago) 2012 draft are still with the team five and a half years later.
*Apparently Jay Bruce wants to play for the Giants or Astros, but the Astros "don't have money for him," according to his agent Matt Sosnick. I'm guessing that they don't have the money Jay Bruce wants.
Side note: Jerry Crasnick wrote a book about Sosnick-Cobbe and it's really good.
*Do you live in the NYC area? Brent Strom will be at a Staten Island pitching clinic on January 12/13.
*Will Leitch looks at World Series champions' individual offseasons following a title since 2010.
*Minor League Baseball president Pat O'Connor is gross. Be sure to scroll down to the part where he says being a minor-leaguer isn't a profession and that there isn't some McDonald's worker making $550,000 at a Major-League McDonald's.
*Kevin Sherrington doesn't see the brightest future for our neighbors to the southern part of Oklahoma.
*Lookout Landing's Kate Preusser has a really good piece on Mariners fans and Jerry Dipoto. There's even a Star Wars theme running through it, if that's your thing. If it's not, it's still a good read.
*Metroplex Guy thinks Art Briles deserves a second chance.
*The baseball cards in A Christmas Story.
