State of the System 2019

[Nate Colbert]

A bit convoluted so not sure how well this will translate but here goes:

Lance Brozdowski @LanceBroz 3h ago
Amazing thread. @drivelinebases emphasized to a group of reporters and myself at the Winter Meetings how big the @astros player development advantage is compared to other teams. Everyday I see stuff like this [referring to thread below by Tyler Wolfe] and realize how correct he was. Will never forget that convo.

Tyler Wolfe @twolfie3 20 hours ago [Wolfe was a 39th round pick who last played in the system in 2017]
Some fun facts about my time with the Astros: In extended we had three cages set up just like this. One fastball machine in each cage paired with a lefty/righty breaking ball or change-up. Pregame BP was similar and also one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done.

Tyler Wolfe @twolfie3  20 hours ago
One group was in the cage with this same double machine set-up to match that days starting pitcher. The on field group involved a normal BP setup but the pitcher would throw different types of pitches and we would have certain situations and counts for each round.

Tyler Wolfe @twolfie3 20 hours ago
Other teams would be down the line laughing at us because we would be breaking bats and barely getting balls out of the cage. Then we would go out and score 6+ runs every game and kick the crap out of them. And of course we had a blast motion sensor on for every BP and game swing.

Tyler Wolfe twolfie3 20 hours ago
One last thing about the Astros that is my favorite to share: In extended spring we only had one tee in the whole complex. We couldn’t use it unless we were doing a drill with a coach, otherwise it was off limits. Usually the drills off the tee only involved a pvc pipe or towel.

[WVastro]

This is the best thing I’ve read here during the void.

[juliogotay]

Great post, Nate.

[Nate Colbert]

Not Astros-related but BA had an interesting article about the rapid adoption of technology at all levels regards the coaching of hitting:

But beyond that, front offices now have a tool to measure how effective their coaches are. Judging a hitting coach on the success of his hitters has long been a hard to quantify–even over the course of a full season normalized statistics can be incredibly noisy. Now it can be quantified by how hard his hitters hit and how much quality contact they make, pitch by pitch and swing by swing.

[Nate Colbert]

Just one man's opinion but FG's Kylie McDaniels with his take:

"Running a team costs anywhere from 500k to $1M a year depending on the exact situation. I’ve been stumping on here for awhile that every team should have at least 2-3 DSL teams and really should have more like 5-6. If you have a successful int’l dept, you won’t have to wait long to see value created. You’d have to add some lower level american clubs as an on-ramp to the higher leagues."

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/kiley-mcdaniel-chat-3-6-19/

Basically he's saying additional teams pay for themselves given that the more players you have in your system the more prospects you're eventually going to develop.

And remember you can sign as many international players as you want with bonus amounts up to $10K without counting against your international pool and as many domestic amateur players as you want up to $125K without counting against your draft pool. [As an aside, that discrepancy on max bonuses between int'l and US players makes absolutely no fucking sense. At the very goddamn least, increase the max on int'l players to at least $25K.]

I have no idea whether Kylie is right or wrong but it sure as hell is one fucking seductive argument. Which again leads back to the question numerous folks on the board have asked: why did the Astros decide to eliminate one DSL club and their Appy club last year? If you trust your analytics dept, if you trust your amateur scouts, if your organization has an extremely good reputation for developing players (particularly pitchers) , then why not increase your odds by adding rather than subtracting clubs?

If they do decide to reverse course and add clubs rather than subtracting, the Astros could hold down costs a bit by (in addition to adding a DSL club or two) adding a 2nd club in the GCL rather than trying to return to the the Appy. That certainly would hold down travel and administrative costs. The Yankees, Tigers and Phillies already have multiple teams in the GCL while the Padres, Cubs, Indians and Giants have done so in the AZL. And I think I read some other organizations were planning to do so for 2019.

Anyway, if I've touched on these issues previously, then just call this my annual rant.

[VirtualBob]

 Nice rant. Keep ‘em coming.

[Nate Colbert]

[Houston] now sends individuals with Edgertronic cameras to amateur games in lieu of traditional area scouts. While this style of scouting has yielded stylistic uniformity across Houston’s prospect population — they almost invariably acquire high-spin, four-seam/curveball pitchers with a 12:30 spin axis, most of whom are adding cutters early in pro ball, while targeting college bats who have performed on paper and have big exit velos — it has also yielded a bunch of talented players, and further use of the tech on the player development side has made those players better.

...the types of pitchers Houston seems to like are becoming more sought after by other teams as a better understanding of how pitching works permeates baseball. Fewer pitchers of this type will be available to Houston as a result, but of course, Houston is likely also identifying players who can be altered to become this type of pitcher, even if they aren’t one yet.

...it’s getting harder to learn about Houston from the outside, as paranoia and acrimony have begun to impact industry discourse about the Astros in a way that makes it difficult to know which rumors about them are true and which are BS. Some of the things that have been mentioned consistently, and which seem plausible and interesting, include experimentation with visual machine learning and work with topical substances to improve pitch spin/movement. Of course, all the Rapsodo and Motus sleeve stuff is already widely known or knowable with quick use of Google.


https://blogs.fangraphs.com/top-39-prospects-houston-astros/

[BUWebguy]

work with topical substances to improve pitch spin/movement.

What does "topical substances" mean here?

[Nate Colbert]

What does "topical substances" mean here?

Ask Trevor Bauer.

[jbm]

Ask Trevor Bauer.

Gotta give the followers something to think about.  Bauer’s their megaphone.

[Mike S.]

[Houston] now sends individuals with Edgertronic cameras to amateur games in lieu of traditional area scouts. While this style of scouting has yielded stylistic uniformity across Houston’s prospect population — they almost invariably acquire high-spin, four-seam/curveball pitchers with a 12:30 spin axis, most of whom are adding cutters early in pro ball, while targeting college bats who have performed on paper and have big exit velos — it has also yielded a bunch of talented players, and further use of the tech on the player development side has made those players better.

...the types of pitchers Houston seems to like are becoming more sought after by other teams as a better understanding of how pitching works permeates baseball. Fewer pitchers of this type will be available to Houston as a result, but of course, Houston is likely also identifying players who can be altered to become this type of pitcher, even if they aren’t one yet.

...it’s getting harder to learn about Houston from the outside, as paranoia and acrimony have begun to impact industry discourse about the Astros in a way that makes it difficult to know which rumors about them are true and which are BS. Some of the things that have been mentioned consistently, and which seem plausible and interesting, include experimentation with visual machine learning and work with topical substances to improve pitch spin/movement. Of course, all the Rapsodo and Motus sleeve stuff is already widely known or knowable with quick use of Google.


https://blogs.fangraphs.com/top-39-prospects-houston-astros/

Really glad you posted that, Nate.  Was going to post something about that FG article over the weekend until I saw yours. 

I'll leave it to people far smarter than myself to answer, but FG's implication that Astros may be pigeonholing themselves with very specific types of prospects is an interesting question to ask.