...Not signing draft picks, drafting badly, and not getting rid of waning players at the right time are the sap in the tree. I meant, "Not signing draft picks, drafting badly, and not getting rid of waning players at the right time sap the tree. "
Sorry, I do not have a link, but he said it during the press conference after the St Louis game on July 11th. He originally explained it was to put Bud Norris between two consistent starters; when asked if it had anything to do with the record, he said no. It wasn't until a few days later that it was announced Roy made the request. You can why the original explanation raised questions on whether the record was involved, because even if shielding Norris was the sole reason, Roy could still serve as the #1 starter with Myers being #3.
My point is just that a winning team at the minor league level will definitely have more ability than a losing team, but it might not have more major-league talent. Don't misunderstand me, I go to Round Rock Express games, I want them to win games. And I think it benefits a young player to develop in a winning environment more than a losing one. And the Astros farm system is a cataclysm right now. But I don't think you can take a look at the records of the teams in the farm system and say that there's been no improvement. There are too many factors involved to look at it that broadly. And frankly, the Astros farm system is so bad that it's going to take a while for that talent to work it's way through the system. And it would help if the major league club wasn't so desolate of talent. Look at the roster and see how many players wouldn't have sniffed an at-bat for this team four or five years ago. Then put them in AAA. Then push down some of the players in AAA who were pushed up to fill in for the guys in the majors to AA. Both Round Rock and Corpus would improve a ton - but that wouldn't really effect the health of the farm system that much. It would just mean that fewer players were forced to play above their talent to fill roster spots.
Admitting it is the first step. Here are two of the points you seem to have glossed over or missed entirely: Often, not rarely, minor league teams carry players who are over-aged for their division, but who are there because they won't cut it at higher levels and are essentially filling roster spaces. These players can excel at the level they're at, and cause a team to win games, but aren't "prospects" and as such do nothing to indicate whether a farm system is healthy. See: Lane, Jason and Ireland, Eric for examples. Win/loss records are influenced by so much more than what draft moves or trades the big league GM has made. For example, if two good hitters and a pitcher get moved from Lexington to Corpus in the middle of 2010, it's probably going to negatively affect Lexington's W/L record. At the same time, it usually won't have as big an impact on the AA club as the players have to make adjustments at first to the higher level of competition. Does that make the farm system "less healthy"? Talent acquired in a draft takes a while to work its way through a system. Again, the players drafted by this regime largely still haven't even sniffed AA. You can't redraft your entire farm system; it has to be built. You also can't trade for a farm system. Think about it--the Astros' system was Jason Castro and a bunch of crap. When your headliner prospect, in all four levels, is Jason Castro, you have something bigger than a two-or-three-year problem. (and this is the big one) -- The Astros actually have some players in the lower levels who are being talked about as having some decent potential. On top of that, they seem to be winning a handful more games (not many, mind you). It's not that difficult of a concept to grasp. More prospects = better. More wins = better. It is invalid to say another organization has improved its winning percentage by a greater number, therefore the Astros are somehow "further behind". The Astros have no control over every other organization in the big leagues. The whole thing was a steaming pile of crap, and the GM has the daunting task of filling five or six minor league rosters and a major league roster with something better than the Bad News Bears, and to pretend that can happen in two years is simply uninformed. They've made progress, and that is undeniable. They could certainly have made a bit more progress, and they could absolutely have done much worse.
Yes, I glossed over that. And it was a good read, but not entirely unknown to me. Still, one good explanation requires another. It wasnt that a couple minor league teams had bad records, it was how sweeping the poor records were from each team. I remember a time when the AAA team was always doing well. I must have lost track for too long. Anyway, I get that everyone is trying to show how wrong I am to associate w/l in the minors to anything significant. It had been demonstrated all the ways ones record could be held meaningless. Conceded. But its one thing to look at just one team in this light and another to look at your whole minor league system.
But to blame the past two years as an indicator that the Astros are doing worse is absolutely ridiculous. Years of management led to the current situation. Years of not knowing when to concede (mostly due to miraculous comebacks in 04 and 05) allowed the team to continue to lose draft picks. Not signing previous draft picks continued to create a famine-like atmosphere in our minor league clubs. ML players flaming out and not getting any draft picks in return killed our ML roster. Now, it needs time to work backwards. You sign a GM that had a decent history in terms of building a minor league system. You pay for ML players to short contracts, hoping that they can become a type A or B free agent and get you more "assets" in the future. You draft players based on how you evaluate talents and put them in a system, hoping that the coaches would develop them as needed. Sadly, the Astros farm system was nothing like other minor league systems. instead of having a bunch of 18-22 year olds, they have a bunch of 23-28 year olds that are way behind and are there as placeholders. What's even worse, is that with the state of the current ML team, the Astros have to call up some of these players, and moving people up by promoting the placeholders to a more uneven atmosphere. You do NOT want to only promote your stars and prospects. Those players need to stay for a certain amount of time in order to develop correctly. Moreso, they need to grow within the system in order for the Astros to get the BEST years of a minor leaguer's career. If you bring up a 19 year old through the system too quickly and have them reach the ML level at age 21 or so, then you will lose the player to possible free agency after the clock stops in a few years. You wanted to make sure that you have a player that you can develop and have them come up when they're at their best, so you do not lose them for absolutely nothing if the time does come to that. Factor all that together and now you have a bunch of players with lesser potential playing out of their leagues. This, however, does not mean that the Astros are not developing their farm system and that the farm system is NOT getting better. The entire purpose for the farm system is to develop players and have them help the parent team, the Astros ML team. You try to gather as many of these players as possible and you monitor their advancements with a microscope so that you would develop the best player that would be beneficial to the team. Sure, winning a AAA or HiA title might be fun, but it does absolutely nothing for an organization outside of creating a winning atmosphere. However, even in a winning atmosphere, it does not mean that many of those players would benefit from that because only a small percentage would make it to the ML to begin with.
Good post. I will say this, although I think you've already gathered that this is my opinion--the sweeping poor records on each level of the organization, just two years into new management, are still more of an indictment on the last 7-8 years than of the current regime. Beginning with the 2003 draft, the Astros' ml system has been managed in a cataclysmic-ly (to coin an adverb) horrible way. Bummer, as they were #1 on everyone's charts in 2001.
I would say both of you guys are right. You can't really evaluate the AAA team this way because the Ed Wade drafts wouldn't really be at AAA yet for the most part. But the low-A type teams should be filled with those guys. You shouldn't have guys from 3 or 4 drafts ago still in the low-A levels of the minors.
Its not rediculous when you factor in their decision making over the last 2 years. Do we really need to lay out the bad signings? The unwillingness to trade veteran talent for young assets? The inaccurate assessments of the team?(as recently as late spring, Wade feeling were division competitors). How can one say the organization has turned the corner when their delusional? All of you that said the farm situation happened before Wades time are correct. When did I ever say Wade created this situation? What I am saying is, for the 3rd or 4th time, is that we are no better than 2 years ago and we are arguably worse. Some of you think we are better?, fine. Show me arguments. Saying we have signed some promising players and that we have won 2% more than 2 years ago is unconvincing to me. Does that mean a 10% improvement over 10 years is also an improvement?
Let me turn around the equation. If beginning 2 years ago the Astros: 1) Started signing more and better draft selections 2) Started trading major league assets for prospect talent 3) Realized this team was NOT playoff bound 4) Started playing their younger talent more in the field Then I would say we are/have been doing the best we can do given the inherited circumstances coinciding with Wades arrival 2 years ago. Let me grade what I see in terms the the 4 mentioned areas: 1)B (ok, ill agree progress has been made in this area) 2)D (done some, not nearly enough) 3)F (some recent comments indicate the cloud maybe lifting at last) 4)C+ (hard to make much headway here when still retaining and playing vets, but will concede this has improved)
Already have. Well ok then. Regardless of whether you're convinced, there is more talent in the system and they've won more games. The improvement you and I both want to see takes more time. It just does. Sure it does. I think you mean, "is a 10% improvement over 10 years enough improvement?" And the answer to that is, "no." Things should accelerate as more talent makes its way into the system (four to five years). If things don't accelerate, then it will certainly be time to question Heck's and Wade's performance. I agree with all of this -- I've never said they've done the absolute best they can. I agree, generally, with your grades you've given (I'll add that the compensation draft picks have helped with item #2). Where I think we differ is the amount of difference a B or B+ in either or all of those last three items would make. You're talking maybe a dozen more folks across the minor leagues, if that, and certainly not all of them would be "blue-chip" prospects. Again, it just takes time. The Astros, starting in the mid '90s, built one of the best systems in baseball (thanks in large part to the now-closed VZ Academy). Let us hope they can build it again.
What I think could happen is this. If for simplicity sake we say all the above are a B or better. What this amounts to is a clear focus. A clear commitment. A clear goal. Its amazing what can happen when an organization actually captures not only its players, but its fans in a vision of what is to come. And this vision can only take form when all your component parts are on the same page.
Decision making in the ML and the contracts are atrocious. However, the minor league system is digging out of a cellar where Hunter Pence and Wesley Wright was no longer the be all end all in the farm system. Castro was the first sign and he's a MLer. With all that aside, there are pitchers in our system now. Lyles and Seaton are prospects that could be seen as an Astro in a year or two. That does not even include Giovanni Mier and he's barely even 20. Gaston had a crazy year last year, but we have to see if it's because of the A-ball ballpark. I'm not completely sold on Jay Austin, but his speed and defensive stats show otherwise. These are names of players that could have a chance; which is something that we can't say before after we brought up Wright. We were cheering for Chris Johnson and hoped that Manzella would become something. Those were never names to be excited about unless Johnson continues to breakout.
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/colu...cle_3c3b8ebe-9673-11df-a1f4-0017a4a78c22.html Home / Sports / Columns / Bernie Miklasz Dealing with Astros could be tough Share | .StoryDiscussionBERNIE MIKLASZ | Posted: Friday, July 23, 2010 11:45 am | (35) Comments Font Sizeefault font sizeLarger font sizeShare10 Gene J. Puskar Houston Astros pitcher Roy Oswalt. (AP Photo) . ..Related Stories Related: Round Two: Is Oswalt Cards' best option? Related: Oswalt wants to play for Cardinals Related: Tipsheet: Assessing the market for Oswalt, Haren Poll Which starting pitcher would you like to see the Cardinals acquire? Loading… Dan Haren Roy Oswalt Ben Sheets Jake Westbrook In advance, let me wish everyone a good weekend ... Reading Time 5 Minutes: * The imposing financial complications aside, here's another big problem in the Cardinals' efforts to obtain Oswalt from the Houston Astros: they're not exactly dealing with the smartest people in the room. Owner Drayton McLane remains in a state of denial, refusing to accept the obvious need to rebuid through drafting and player development. The Astros have old, declining players who make too much money. GM Ed Wade has signed too many marginal talent to silly free-agent deals. It adds up to a 63-98 record since last July 25. The Astros need to replenish their farm system but keep putting it off. This week I've read reports of the Astros wanted to be "overwhelmed" by an offer before agreeing to deal starting pitcher Brett Myers. This is hysterical. Myers is a free agent at the end of the season. He is not a franchise-piece player. He's a solid rotation guy. Why wouldn't the Astros invest in the future by accepting a couple of decent prospects for him? It's nonsense. But this is what Cardinals GM John Mozeliak is dealing with -- people that do not even understand their own team. Good luck.
If Myers leaves via free agency, and signs with another team - would the Astros receive a compensatory draft pick? Either way, there's no point in trading players to rebuild the farm system if you can't get decent prospects. Trading Myers for nothing has no benefit to the Astros.
Certainly true - but you don't need top tier prospects to make it worth it. If you collect enough middle of the road prospects, you might get lucky and find a Zobrist (not necessarily that good, but someone that develops beyond what was expected). It's better than not having prospects. And while Myers have been great, I hope the Astros don't plan to pick up his $8MM option next year. A compensatory drack pick would also work, but the Astros probably need to simultaneously start looking for players to fill out their team in 2012 or 2013 as well as the draft picks which are more 2015ish or beyond.
I agree with pretty much all of that. I guess it depends on what the Astros are expecting and what the Cardinals are offering. If they're offering a couple of arms in the low-minors who throw hard and not much else, I think I'd take that deal.
