[Ringer] On the Astros Revolutionizing Player Development

He's still there and Dorsey has made moves to try and speed up the process once they got Mayfield. I wonder how much input DePodesta had in the moves they've made this offseason? The smartest thing Dorsey did was hire Scot McCloughan and take McCloughan's recommendation to draft Mayfield. McCloughan may have some issues, I think they are way overblown BTW, but the man knows how to find a QB. In the NFL analytics only works if you find your QB, then everything else will fall into place.

I wish the Texans would hire a guy like McCloughan and then hire a bunch of smart analysts that love football to give McCloughan the info he needs to even further his great eye for talent.

What are the chances of the McNair's being forward thinking enough to doing something like this? Listening to Cletus McNair I would say those chances remain around somewhere between a negative number and 0%

 

Question: Why hasn’t the system worked as well for pitching on the farm vs the majors… yet.

I'd say the trades for veterans Verlander, Cole, Pressly, Osuna, (and Giles) was a necessity given that the pitching player development/talent was far behind the position player development/talent, and we had luxury tax room. However, the system has yet to reliably produce pitching on the farm, especially w/ Whitley, Martin, Bukauskas, Bielak, Abreu, Perez underachieving recently (aside from Ivey who is on IL). Luhnow did a good job of this with St Louis though, so I trust the system in the long run. Being at the luxury tax limit has largely influenced the exit of Keuchel, Morton and soon Cole and probably Miley, while extensions for Springer and Correa loom. 1-2 year starter rentals are costly in both trade value and extensions, so we’ll have to develop our own starters soon, or trade positional players not named Alvarez, Tucker, Straw (and Beer) to keep us producing while under that luxury tax.

 

Look at the 2017 draft and be amazed.

 

Developing Pitching is hard even for the best evaluators. That said, these pitchers were developed in Houston’s farm:

Peacock
Devenski
James
Valdez
McCullers

I would still bet on Martin and Whitley becoming rotation mainstays eventually.

 

This may be my brain short circuiting but I feel like the minor league pitchers have undergone a lot more injuries in our system as well, compared to position players.

 

Referencing the prior flow state work, and that our positional player development is well ahead of pitching as far as results go, I do notice the struggling pitchers seem to wear their frustrations on their sleeves IMO. No way you're going to perform well if you're not locked in 100% vs only when you're pitching effectively. It does surprise me every time I notice that, because they are definitely not optimizing peak performance that way. Pressly, Osuna, Verlander, Harris, Miley all seem to be in the zone no matter what. Martin, McHugh, James, Whitley (from what I hear), even Cole... you can see the instant triggers and frustrations, thinking too much - they need to breathe through their eyelids, for those of you who know what I'm referencing Our hitters definitely seem more locked in across the board IMO, and even having fun. Verlander is the only one I've seen smile on the mound.

I realize this is getting into woo woo territory for some, but this is backed up by hard neuroscience, and increasingly so. Age and experience helps, but not when it comes to extreme sports that are life or death if you lose focus. That same science can be applied to baseball.

IMO the moment Martin lost it, was when he kept falling behind in counts, and with yet another 2-0 count it almost seemed he forced a fastball straight down the middle out of frustration. It was all over his face. Not surprisingly, it resulted in a HR. Addressing those mental breakdowns and learning to stay locked in 'the zone' no matter what is an area of growth in the system IMO. It needs to balance high IQ with high EQ.

ps For those who are going to take that eyelid comment literally, it's about doing whatever it takes NOT to think.