JR House

I've been looking for the typical "Fallen top prospect who was playing college football just a year ago reaches majors again" story, but apparently no one in Houston has written it. In fact, this was the most I could find in the Houston papers. Still, JR House's return to the majors is a pretty impressive story. There's some rumblings on the message boards that DL screwed up by letting him go, but House made Ryan Doumit look like Cal Ripken Jr. in his last couple years in the top levels of the minors. And yet, I have no doubt in my mind that House will do something to make Pirate fans aware of his presence this weekend. If House does kill the ball in Houston like he has in the minors (his numbers this year have been reeeeeeediculous, though maybe not for a 26 year old in AA and AAA, then again he was fighting Pat White for the QB spot at WVU this time last year), well, I suppose it will just be another notch in the "Littlefield and co. have no ability to develop prospects" belt.

UPDATE (3:08 PM)- Just found this, which includes the laundry list of JR House injuries:
  • Abdominal hernia, unspecified torn muscle, and Tommy John surgery, all in 2002, limiting him to 35 games in '02 and 41 games in '03.
  • Rotator cuff surgery in '04 which limited him to 92 games for Indianapolis and 5 in Pittsburgh, leading to the Pirates cutting him shortly after.
Like I said, he makes Ryan Doumit look like Cal Ripken.

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