Why Miguel Sano won't be Rookie of the Year.

The future is now: Byron Buxton (25) and Miguel Sano (22)
before a game in Baltimore last week.

Miguel Sano hit another home run Tuesday night. That makes 12 dingers in 45 major league games for the 22-year-old.

It's been an impressive performance, even considering how anticipated (hyped) a prospect he is. And still, he has no chance at winning the Rookie of the Year Award.

That will assuredly go to Carlos Correa, the Houston shortstop. Correa's got a bit more than 100 plate appearances more than Sano, so his counting stats are ahead of the Minnesota DH, even though his slash stats -- batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage -- lag.

The long and the short(stop) of it:
Carlos Correa (left) is 6-4; his double play
partner, Jose Altuve, is is 5-6.

But Correa is also a shortstop, and a good one. You've got to give credit for playing a premium defensive position. Sano is primarily a designated hitter, which isn't completely his fault, but in terms of their defensive value, there's no way he matches Correa.

Correa, as you may recall, is the Puerto Rican the Astros took No. 1 in the draft the year the Twins landed Byron Buxton. The general consensus at the time was that Correa wasn't a bad choice for 1-1, but that Buxton was the better prospect and that the Astros went with Correa as part of a plan to game the new bonus pool system.

The Astros did game the system -- Correa signed for considerably less than Buxton did -- but Correa may have been the better pick anyway. A lot of scouts figured that Correa would "outgrow" shortstop and wind up a third baseman. That hasn't happened, and within a week or so of his midseason callup, there were people calling Correa the best shortstop in the American League.

And you know something? If Correa isn't the best shortstop in the league, another rookie -- Francisco Lindor of Cleveland -- might be. Lindor doesn't have the power of Correa, much less Sano, but he certainly hits enough to help a lineup, and he is a marvelous fielder.

Baseball Reference credits Correa with 3.0 WAR, Lindor with 2.1 and Sano with "just" 1.6. Part of that comes from the advantage in playing time the two shortstops have, and part of it comes from defense. But no matter how you slice it, Correa and Lindor have to stand ahead of Sano in the rookie rankings.

Which is no knock on Sano, certainly. This has been a golden year for midseason callups, when a guy like Eddie Rosario has no realistic chance of appearing on any ROY ballots.

The Astros' 1/1 problems

Carlos Correa, seen here hitting for the Quad Cities
River Bandits against the Cedar Rapids Kernels in 2013,
is currently shelved with a fractured leg.

The Houston Astros have had the first overall pick in each of the last three drafts. With the spectacular collapse of their negotiations with this year's 1/1 as the team indulged in apparent gamesmanship with its draft pool, it's worth looking at how they've fared with those picks so far.

2012: Carlos Correa.

This was a gamesmanship draft by the Astros. Correa wasn't expected to go that high; the consensus had Byron Buxton as the top talent and three college pitchers (Mark Appel, Kyle Zimmer and Kevin Gausman) as safer selections.

The Astros took Correa and signed him for considerably less than the Twins, who picked second, spent on Buxton. They then used their bonus pools savings to buy a pair of "tough signs," Lance McCullers Jr. and Rio Ruiz, out of their college commitments.

Two years later, Correa is a highly regarded prospect, albeit out for the remainder of the season with a fractured fibia near the right ankle. He's not as highly regarded as Buxton, however, and if the broken leg helps force him from shortstop to third base, his value will recede a bit more.

As for the gain downdraft, it's probable that the Twins did better with Jose Barrios than the Astros did with McCullers Jr.

Correa wasn't a bad selection by the Astros, but I think the industry would agree they'd have been better off taking Buxton.

2013: Mark Appel

When the Astros and Twins bypassed Appel in 2012, so did several other teams, and he slid to the Pirates at No. 8. Pittsburgh didn't have the bonus pool money to appease the college junior, and Appel returned to Stanford.

This time the Astros took him (over Jonathan Gray and Kris Bryant), and Appel signed.

He has been a disaster.

Appel was somewhat less than dominant for Quad Cities in the Midwest League last summer, but it had been a long collegiate season and he was shifting from pitching once a week for Stanford to a more frequent professional rotation. Nobody was concerned.

Moved up to high A Lancaster in the California League this year, Appel is 1-5, 10.80. Let me repeat that ERA: Ten-eighty. He's averaging a bit more than three innings a start, and he's allowed 69 hits in 38.1 innings.

Lancaster is a notoriously terrible place to pitch, but there is no sugarcoating those numbers. The Astros would have done better to take Bryant, certainly. At this point, they'd have done better taking anybody else. It's difficult to envision a four-year college pitcher doing this poorly in A ball and having a career.

2014: Brady Aiken.

Appel may not be what the Astros (and, to be fair, most everybody else) expected, but at least there's a chance he will contribute someday to the Astros. Aiken will assuredly not.

Whatever the specifics of the medical concerns, whatever the perceived risk, it is baffling that the Astros front office screwed up the negotiations this badly. And, of course, it wasn't just Aiken they lost, but Jacob Nix as well. I doubt that general manager Jeff Luhnow is in any real jeopardy over this, but there is a serious case to be made that this should a firing offense.

Houston will get the No. 2 pick next June in compensation for failing to sign Aiken. The Astros don't deserve it.

Two games in Cedar Rapids: Carlos Correa

Carlos Correa awaits a pitch Monday.

There were, of course, two teams involved in the games I watched, and the visitors, the Quad Cities River Bandits, are also laden with prime talent. Indeed, they had the No. 1 overall picks from the last two drafts in shortstop Carlos Correa (2012) and pitcher Mark Appel (2013).

Appel pitched on Tuesday, the day after our two games, and dominated the Kernels -- as he probably should. I'm not sure what the point is of sending him to low A. Anyway, I didn't see him.

Correa I saw. The Kernels probably figure they saw too much of him.

The Houston Astros took Correa over Byron Buxton in the 2012 draft, and while the general consensus held Buxton to be the superior talent, there were those who preferred Correa. And Correa signed more cheaply than Buxton did, which gave the Astros the budgetary wriggle room to draft and sign a pair of difficult signees.

With Buxton now widely considered the top prospect in the minors, Jim Callis of Baseball America has said the Astros outsmarted themselves, that they'd have been better off taking Buxton. But it's way too early to be sure of that; neither player has advanced out of A ball yet.

Correa reacts to a pitch at shortstop

In the two games I watched, Correa (hitting third) went 6-for-9 with a walk, two RBIs and two runs scored. One of his outs came on a popped-up bunt. He looked, in the old Dizzy Deam phrase, "mighty hitterish up there." The hits were all singles -- line drives and hard grounders. His slugging percentage this year is .478, which is the best on the River Bandits but well south of what Buxton put up in the Midwest League

Correa appeared comfortable and in control at shortstop. The most interesting play he made came Monday, when Cedar Rapids catcher Michael Quesada hit a grounder to Correa's right. Correa backhanded it and made a strong throw to first to nail Quesada by plenty.

Correa is certainly an excellent prospect. How good depends on whether he remains a shortstop. He's listed at 6-foot-4, 190 pounds; there are scouts who believe he's going to outgrow the position and wind up at third base. I'm not so sure about that; Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Cal Ripken have demonstrated that big guys can play shortstop. Certainly it will be easier to justify passing on Buxton if Correa remains in the middle of the diamond.