DOB: 3/11/80, Age: 23, Height: 5’11’’,
Weight: 183, Bats: R, Throws: R. Acquired: Astros - Drafted in the 1st
Round of the 2001 Draft (U. of Tennessee). 2002 Stats: (AA - Round Rock)
.264 AVG, 481 AB, 19 2B, 8 3B, 3 HR, 16 SB, 39 BB, 61 K, .330 OBP, .356
SLG. 2003 Stats: (AA - Round Rock) .368 AVG, 117 AB, 7 2B, 1 3B, 1 HR, 6
SB, 11 BB, 9 K, .426 OBP, .470 SLG.
Chris Burke was probably
one of the few people in the Houston organization that was not terribly
excited about the Jeff Kent signing, since I’m sure he had designs on the
very job that Kent now possesses. A first rounder out of Tennessee in
2001, Burke is a compact middle infielder built, to some extent, in the
Craig Biggio mold with which the Astros are reasonably familiar. Burke is
a line drive hitter with enough pop to hit some doubles and triples, but
not enough to be a true home-run threat. Then again, Biggio only had 30
homers in his first 4-plus seasons, so there is always hope for “growth”
in the power department. His plate discipline was a bone of contention
last season when he only averaged a walk every 13.3 plate appearances, but
he already appears to be addressing that deficiency by reducing it to an
11.6 figure so far this year. (with much better numbers in every other
category as well) With his “all-fields” approach to hitting and his abiity
to make contact, continued development in his batting eye could definitely
result in a leadoff role with the Astros down the road. On the bases,
Burke has very good foot speed but struggled terribly stealing bases last
year, finishing 16 for 31, which would probably be unacceptable for Mo
Vaughn. He’s off to a 6 for 9 start in 2003, which is still subpar for
anyone with good speed, but improvement of any sort is of some value. In
my opinion, Burke’s best shot at a meaningful career in the bigs will
likely involve “small guy skills”, so continued improvement in his base
stealing and batting eye are more critical to his chances at future big
league paychecks than anything else. On defense, Chris Burke has gone from
being an adequate shortstop with a subpar arm to an excellent second
baseman in the course of one season. He is sure handed, has tremendous
range, and has proven himself to be rather adept at turning the double
play. His arm, which was not really adequate for shortstop, won’t be an
issue at second. In sum, Burke is a neat little player that would be
pushing for a big league job in many organizations within a year or so
(especially given the current situation league-wide at second base), but
probably will not be in Houston.
The Astros are an
interesting mix of youth and experience, with an offensive core that is
past its prime mixed in with a rotation that is still getting better and a
few important offensive cogs that are right around their peak years. This
mix, incidentally, is one that you would expect from a playoff caliber
team, which the Astros have been in four out of the past six seasons.
Unfortunately, the Cubs are on the verge of passing them by if they
haven’t already, and the Cardinals have battled them vigorously for the
past few years and show few signs of ceasing or desisting. Not only is
there intense competition in the NL Central at present, but the Astros are
not extremely well-positioned to compete past the next few seasons,
because replacement parts for their batting order are seemingly in short
supply in their system. Out of their hitting prospects that could be
reasonably considered to be potential major leaguers, two of them are
catchers (Buck and Gimenez), one is 26 years old (Lane), and three more
are questionable middle infield prospects (Burke, Whiteman, and Everett).
None of them, in my opinion, have the potential to replace someone like
Jeff Bagwell in the Astros lineup, which is the primary concern, so to
some extent the future is at hand for Houston. However, the pitching side
of things looks a lot better for the next five years, so if they can scare
up some bats (even just one big bat to go with Hidalgo, Berkman, Buck,
Burke, Whiteman or Everett, and Ensberg), they could still compete. Burke
could help, but he probably won’t be a lifesaver. He may or may not have
had his development slowed down by having to jump to AA (because of the
Astros’ lack of a High-A affiliate last year), but he seems to be back on
track this year. A good comp for Burke at this point would be Jerry
Hairston Jr. of the Orioles, who in fact needs to make the same
improvements in his game that Burke does in order to best assist his club,
and really is in a similar stage of attempting to do so. (the O’s are just
not in a similar stage as Houston in an organizational sense) Peak
performance for Burke would probably be 280/375/425 with 10 HR and 30 SB,
but finding the time to get to that at the big league level might be
difficult with Kent hanging around for the next few years. I expect that
Burke will see Houston by the middle of next year, but in what capacity is
the question. Jeff Kent was somewhat serviceable at third base earlier in
his career, and no one in Houston has nailed down the hot corner just yet,
so that could be an option if Burke continues to make strides. Just a
thought. I would expect, however, that Burke remains stuck behind Kent
until 2005 at least, at which point he might be able to secure the second
base job if Kent skips town after the 2004
campaign.