I'm not sure but I know he is in the East Coast League with his '07 numbers of:
4-5  4.84ERA  74.1IP  72H  40ER  45BB  81K's

I'll pass.

The Astros also have the worst farm system in all of baseball. I don't mean one of the worst, I mean #30. Outside of Patton and Towles, they don't have a single prospect. Those are the only two players they have that would be in the top 20 in the Rangers system. They won't have any problem fitting their prospects on the 40 because no one is going to want to take any of the spares that make up their minor league system.

Patton is not near the prospect Hurley is. Patton profiles as a #3 starter, Hurley profiles as a #2. While Patton throws in the upper 80s and occasionally touches 90 or 91, Hurley sits in the low to mid 90s. Patton has a very inconsistent loopy curveball, Hurley and has a sharp slider. About the only thing they have in common is that they both have developing changeups that could become plus pitches.

and to top it off, we have a couple of guys who are pittchers we need to know about

anyway at this point in time, why would we bring up hurley over volquez?

give hurley the rest of the year at AAA. honestly, who here thinks he will succeed at the major leaveue level if thrown into the rotation today?

Botts has been up and down a couple of times as well as Byrd and Diaz and I wouln`t call them AAAA players.
Would you call Danks season successful? I would, and he had a 4.33 ERA last year in AAA.

This is to all the people out there that sit behind a computer and look at a players numbers and dissect them every way possible to tell if a player can succeed.
I`m old school,go watch them,and more than once.
I`m also glad that the Rangers must see something that a computer can`t see when you call up a AA outfielder hitting .242 gets promoted to AAA and a couple weeks later you see them in the big leagues,or an infielder hitting .280 at AA getting a call to the big leagues,and then being sent back down to AAA to hit .148 and they call him back to the bigs and he has 8 RBI in a DH.
I`ve seen many of the Rangers young pitchers multiple times and I`m impressed in what I`ve seen.
Things you don`t see in a box score, here`s a few examples:
How they carry themselves with men on
How do they handle giving up a homerun in a tight game
Are they hitting their spots and a batter cheated and gets a hit
Groundballs hit soft or hard
Flyouts to the infield or outfield, fair or foul
The wind, blowing in or out, how hard
Will he challenge a hitter in a hitter`s count
Will he throw inside
What`s he like off the field
Is he a student of the game

I`ve seen Patton and Hurley a few times and I think they both will be successful big league pitchers if they continue to make adjustments and stay healthy.
Baseball is about cotinually making adjustments from rookie ball all the way to, and in the big leagues.
Those that don`t make the adjustments will eventually fail.
I`m all for Hurley getting to the big leagues as soon as possible so he can get an early jump in making some of those adjustments.
Andy Hawkins once said "you can`t learn it all in the minors,some you just have to learn when you get there".    

HurlerHurley, been to Clinton or Bakersfield?
Lucas can`t say that Patton and Towles are the only good prospects in the Astros org.
I`ve seen Douglas and Santangelo play and they are very good players.
Too many people put way to much stock in BA rankings of minor league players because they rely heavily on talking to scouts and stats versus actually seeing many of the players they rank.
Now I`m not saying they don`t see players, but guys like Sickels probably actually see more minor league players than the BA group.