Good morning.

Here are several links from the past week that will make your Monday a bit more bearable:

• The Astros’ fan base has had little to cheer about of late, but Thursday the club used the No. 1 pick in MLB’s 2013 amateur draft to select Stanford University senior Mark Appel. (All of the picks from the first and second rounds may be found here, courtesy of Baseball Nation’s Marc Normadin.) Nick J. Faleris of Baseball Prospectus summarizes the right-hander’s abilities thus:

Appel has always graded out well, but this spring he has dramatically improved his aggression in the zone—a hole in his game that often limited the utility of his stuff in the past.  This spring, the senior standout has taken his game to the next level, dropping one-half of a pitch off of his average pitches-per-batter and working ahead much more consistently.  The results speak for themselves, as Appel has improved his strikeout rate, lowered his walk rate, and decreased his batting average against.  To the extent Appel has run into issues with his stuff on a game-by-game basis, he has reacted admirably, rotating his pitch selection to find the most effective weapon and battling. 

• Meanwhile, David Schoenfield of ESPN’s SweetSpot asks, “Should the draft be abolished or changed?”
• Daniel Nava is coming into his own, notes Paul Swydan of Fangraphs, and the Red Sox deserve credit for being patient with the 30-year-old outfielder.
• High Heat Stats’ David Hruska profiles Alex Cobb and his success, noting that the righthander sports a new “harder, spiked-grip curve,” which he picked up from watching former teammate James Shields.
• When rehashing the Nationals brass’ controversial decision to shut down Stephen Strasburg toward the end of last season, Tom Tango reminds his blog’s readers that they should not confuse process with outcome.
• On a related note, the Washington Post’s Thomas Boswell argues that the Nats possess an “ultra-macho team culture of playing with ‘minor’ injuries,” which is backfiring on the underperforming club.
  
  

• Yasiel Puig continues to amaze. Here he is on Thursday evening clocking a grand slam in only his fourth MLB game.
• In response to Puig’s sparkling debut, Jay Jaffe of Sports Illustrated lists a number of players who made a splash in their maiden appearances, including Jason Jennings of the Rockies on August 23, 2001:

Jennings gets to stand as the lone pitcher on this list because not only did he throw a five-hit shutout against the Mets, he collected three hits in five trips to the plate himself, including an RBI single off Grant Roberts in the seventh and a homer off Donnie Wall in the ninth. That made him the just the ninth pitcher since 1916 to homer in his debut, and the first to do so while spinning a shutout. Jennings actually only pitched seven games and 39 1/3 innings that year, and so retained his rookie eligibility into the following season, when his 16-8 record with a 4.52 ERA and .306/.348/.371 showing with the bat was enough to win NL Rookie of the Year honors.

• According to Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic via NBC’s Hardball Talk, Brandon McCarthy, who was struck in the head with a batted ball last season, suffered a seizure last week. Thankfully, a subsequent CT scan showed no new head trauma.

That’s it. Have a walk-off week!