He wasn't a miss. He was more a single or a double instead of a hone run, but he wasn't nothing for 2-3 years. I wanted him. Astros lucked out in taking Aiken instead of him.
[...] I lasted eight years with the club, which probably puts me in the 90th percentile in terms of executive time spent with one team. When I arrived, the Astros were rebuilding and were awful, but the team got better, and ultimately became a powerhouse that went to a pair of World Series, and even won one. And my career grew as well. After a year, I was promoted to Director, Pro Scouting and finally rose to the role of Special Assistant to the General Manager, Player Personnel. During my time with the Astros, I was exposed to a wide array of baseball operations responsibilities. I did in-person scouting within the pro, amateur and international disciplines, and helped to establish our ability to analyze players using data and video. I was in the war room for both the draft and the trade deadline, in the suite during the winter meetings, attended a handful of GM Meetings and even got to conduct a few trade and free agent negotiations over the past few years. I’m proud of my contributions on a baseball level in terms of building a consistent winner, and I’m proud of some of the stands I took personally, including speaking strongly against any trade for Roberto Osuna because of his history with domestic violence, as well as being the only member of the front office to turn down the invitation to the White House in 2018. At the same time, I wish I had done more to ensure the industry treated the people working in the game better than it does. Now let’s deal with the elephant in the room. I have no desire to run from it and pull some Mark McGwire-esque “I’m not here to talk about the past.” I also don’t want it to define me going forward. Astros. Cheaters! Yup. Believe me, I know. Maybe better than anyone, as I got caught up in it all, and for all the wrong reasons. Let me make this clear. I had nothing to do with any of the in-game sign-stealing or trash can banging the Astros were punished for. Knowing that is one of the reasons I can sleep at night. I didn’t even know about it. I found out about it when most you did, after the first article came out in The Athletic. Chances are you even found out about it before I did, as I was in a meeting when the story first broke. I was as horrified by the revelations as I’m sure many of you were and still are. My connection with it got really weird shortly thereafter. As you may know, an email that I sent to our scouting staff became a big story because it mentioned cameras and video. Combine that with the cheating scandal and all of a sudden I was cast as being part of the plot. Let’s back up a bit. First off, the email is real, no “fake news” argument here. I sent it, and completely forgot about it until it was released by the media. It was sent as part of a plan to do advance scouting, a plan that never came to fruition, as the organization decided to all but eliminate in-person pro scouting shortly thereafter. The plan proposed was one of using cameras to be able to better see signals coming from coaches on the bases and in the dugout. Theoretically, this was to be done by scouts in the stands at non-Astros games. Once those signals were later decoded (unlikely, but if they were), that information was to be passed on to A.J. Hinch and his staff, who would presumably use their naked eyes to pick up said signals during games. There was nothing concerning catcher signals (which scouts couldn’t see anyway), live relays or anything like that. It was just an idea, sent by someone new to the advance world who was a bit green in that area, and who didn’t think that trying to better pick up signals was even a problem. I later found out that, at the time, it was a gray area, which in and of itself is a bit embarrassing. Still, the story came out. Major League Baseball conducted an exhaustive investigation into the club’s actions. The league’s investigators spent hundreds of hours talking to players and various team personnel. They went through people’s phones and computers. They had multiple follow-up conversations with a long list of witnesses. I spoke to them once over the phone for less than 15 minutes, and told them what I just told you. I never spoke with them again. I don’t live in Houston and had zero involvement with game day operations, and it was quickly clear to all involved that I was just collateral damage. You can read the commissioner’s statement on the league’s investigation. My name isn’t mentioned, nor is the email that made me temporarily infamous. I received no punishment, no condemnation, no warnings. I made several requests to club officials to publicly clear my name by granting interviews, but was asked to take one for the team as it were, with the explanation that it would just put the story at the forefront again. I did so, which is high on my list of regrets when I look back on my time with the Astros. The individual cost in terms of my own mental health and personal relationships was considerable. Last year, I got whacked by the Astros at the end of October. It was inglorious, as most separations in baseball are. It was upsetting, but not surprising; if anything, I’ve always known how to read the room. There was a new administration, a new way of doing things, and I wasn’t being engaged at anywhere near the level I had been previously. [...]
Fangraphs Astros prospect list should have some good info now. I always liked Goldstein, and look forward to reading his contributions over at Fangraphs, which is the best baseball site in the world imho.
As a fan, I hope the players prevent an expanded playoffs. I expect they will concede the expanded playoffs for a bargaining chip. The only reason they are probably rejecting it is that that it helps the owners more than themselves, but think they can find something they want to balance it. As someone that loves regular season games, diluting their value in a full season or near full season would sting. I don't get as high in a winning streak or as low in a losing streak as most. Last season is about as bad as it gets regarding injuries, and Astros would have only been 3 games out after 60 games from the last spot in this scenario. A team that loses ace, has ~9 or so other pitchers spend more time on IL than field over a 60-game span, lose monster DH, star second basemen plays like a minor leaguer, MVP candidate playing like a good player, and 1B hobbled should not be in a good position to make the playoffs after 60 games.
Being a greedy Astros fan, I want a shorter season. I don't have faith in our pitchers holding up for 162 or 154 games.
Good take. I think the players would be smarter to concede the 8 games worth of pay to play 154 in exchange for the DH in the NL. Expanded playoffs are bad for the game and if the players are going to accept it they should demand something big in return (off the top of my head I can't even think of what that would be).
The Astros pitching didn't hold up in 2017 for 162 games and were able to make the playoffs easily in a much harder playoff setup behind the likes of Peacock and he who shall not be named.
My guess is that players will accept expanded playoffs for full-season salaries guaranteed except due to government intervention (i.e., Manfred shenanigans won't change their pay) and maybe a little bit more of that playoff cash. With a near full schedule, COVID breakouts will likely happen and those games likely won't be made up as the season is to long to have part of schedule compressed. Players will not give Manfred power to do this unless it doesn't affect their pay. Players aren't conceding 8-games worth of pay in this scenario is my understanding. My understanding is that the deal isn't explicit on what happens to their pay if a few games are canceled during the 154-game season.
1. The snitch had a history of throwing 150 or more innings 2 times before 2017. 2. Keuchel had 4 consecutive seasons of throwing 150 innings before 2017 and even being injured in 2017 he threw 145 innings. 4. McHugh had 3 consecutive seasons of throwing 150 innings going into 2017 but he got hurt and made 12 starts in 2017. 5. Charlie Morton had 2 150 inning seasons under his belt before 2017. 6. We traded for Verlander.... 7. We had a much deeper farm system to get innings from than now. The 2021 Astros have 1 guy headed into the season that has thrown 150 innings in a MLB season and that is Greinke. The pitching depth in the upper minors isn't close to what it was in 2017.
While I am happy for Cameron, the site has taken a few steps backwards since he left for the Padres, and the Padres have taken quite a few steps forward. Prospect guys do a good job of giving scout-based information, but it is no longer balanced by stat-based analysis of prospects as well (not sure who got KATOH, but Cistulli went to the Blue Jays). The guys that would discuss pitching have moved on as well(The Athletic and the Rays).
I agree the analysis of big leaguers has taken a step back. I mostly go for the prospects stuff, and that has improved (Longenhagen is great plus the way they organize their data via the big board is awesome). But even with the lower quality analysis I still think it’s the best site of its kind by far.
All those past contributions didn't matter when the players that did them got hurt. It was all about the guys that were healthy during the playoffs and the bats taking care of the regular season. If there is an expanded playoffs, bats will have a much lighter load to carry. On Verlander, Astros still have time to make trades before August 1st and possibly have him coming off the IL. On the 2017 farm, Astros rookie pitchers produced 0.7 fWAR over 177 injuries. I'm guessing Astros rookie pitchers help a lot more this season. Garcia, if he's healthy, will be more productive fWAR by himself than the "much deeper farm system". Not sure who it will be among Whitley, Abreu, Conine, Ivey, but expect Astros can top the 177 innings this year easily as well.
So they fired the FO guys that helped them have one of the best farm systems in MLB and are now doing things a new way? What could ever go wrong.
I agree that the behind the scenes guys doing the data work is still great at data presentation, fWAR is still the best IMO for most situations, and the data Longenhagen provides is still good. Though, I consider the MLB data more integral to the site or at least to what it was. Their articles are less about this cool thing they discovered and more about this cool thing someone else discovered. They are behind on the integration of statcast data. FIP and xFIP still work great, but teams using edgertronic cameras and statcast data will likely make them less useful in the future (though still useful for most pitchers). In other words, teams are trying to help pitchers control launch angle better which will likely undermine the assumption that pitchers don't significantly control the outcome of balls batted in play. I expect at some point the Athletic is going to buy themselves some quants, hire away Longenhagen, create tAWAR based on statcast data, and crush FanGraphs.
