"It's all... part of the plan...."

I don't think baseball is this complicated, to be honest.

For example, one of the Cardinals' best prospects is 20-year-old outfielder Oscar Taveras. Scouts roll their eyes at the idea that analytics could help in the evaluation of a young kid, especially when no data bank of statistics is available.

"You don't," Luhnow said. "My approach was that analytics has very little to do with it except for the fact you can study the market, understand what types of players have been successful. Are there common characteristics among those players that have been successful? Have they been signed at 16, 17, 18? Do they tend to be corner outfielders from the Dominican, shortstops from Venezuela?

"There's analytic work you can do to help focus your resources. Should we be investing in Australia? Taiwan? Brazil? What has history shown about how these markets develop? A lot of what we did wasn't to put numbers into a computer and see what we learned. There are 30 clubs in baseball. That means there are 30 different ways of doing everything.

"Let's take Venezuela as an example. Let's look at all 30 clubs' approach to Venezuela. Which clubs have been the most successful? What's their approach? Do they have four area scouts, five area scouts? How do they carve up the regions? Do they have a cross-checker? Do they send their American scouts down there? Do they have a dedicated guy down there? Do they send their Venezuelan players to the Dominican? Do they send them directly to the States?

"There's so much you can learn. This is management consulting 101. How are you doing relative to your competition? Are there any best practices from your industry, or outside your industry, that you can quickly apply to get better? That's really what it is."

I'm genuinely amazed that this kind of thing isn't standard practice. It's, as he says, exactly the stuff they test you on in a management consulting interview, let alone put into practice.

I'm not understanding what he thinks he's going to gain from this kind of interview.

From my limited experience, many "business folks" don't understand Business 101. I remember a huge lessons learned seminar we had afater a project eneded up costing 40 million rather than the 10 million it was projected to cost, and the solutions to make sure it did not happen again were "Business 101". My wife's companys have been in simialr situations, but they were not smart enough to even realize that they were just nowhere close to best practices. They boasted that they never went to business school, and they learned everything they needed on the job, and probably had the equivilent of an MBA by now anyway. These are the people who beleive in gut feel and dont even know how to spell analytics. Some people have sucessful businesses this way, but its a bad model to emulate.

(I know, I probably should not knock people for spelling... I suck at it)

Have they been signed at 16, 17, 18? Do they tend to be corner outfielders from the Dominican, shortstops from Venezuela?

This is moronic.

"Let's take Venezuela as an example. Let's look at all 30 clubs' approach to Venezuela. Which clubs have been the most successful? What's their approach? Do they have four area scouts, five area scouts? How do they carve up the regions? Do they have a cross-checker? Do they send their American scouts down there? Do they have a dedicated guy down there? Do they send their Venezuelan players to the Dominican? Do they send them directly to the States?

This is worth looking into.

this is all code for - we don't need to have any major league players on the major league team because our piece of crap owner wants a 25 mill payroll and wants to complain about how he's losing money and all this talktalktalk is getting enthusiasm from all the people who are obsessed with prospects and not with the performance of the ML team because they have this dream in which for some magic reason, all these prospects all mature together and produce a cheap, winning team and you trade them off for more great prospects after 3 years and gush about the new wonderful minors the 5 years with no decent major league players on the team

This is moronic.

What's so strange about a coaching setup in a country being biased in favor of the production of certain kinds of players? You seldom shop for technical wingers in Norway...

i wouldn't shop for no technical winger in norway neither. i WOULD look for some HOTTTTTTT blond skater/skiier. Skater preferred because of fewer and tighter clothes

I have a strange sense of confidence about the future of the Astros. I say "strange" because I know that luck plays such a large role in player acquisition results, no matter how good the research. But I feel reassured that every option and decision will be thoroughly studied and researched. That is the best I could ask for, if I was the owner of the team. I also am a big believer in hiring creative people to make strategic/tactical decisions. I like the idea of encouraging outside the box thinking. It sounds like the Astros' front office would be a fun place to work.

tricky

it might be FUN!!!! to work in the FO, but please remember that the owner is pocketing at LEAST 30 million dollars that he won't spend to put any actual major league players on the field.

WHY??? doesn't that matter?

you can't possibly think he is putting it in a savings account to use some OTHER year, do you?

so you have confidence because they are gathering possible FUTURE talent. lots and lots of supposedly SURE THINGS go nowheres in the bigs - see, for example, brandon wood. why is this so EXCITING!!!!!???!!! when there IS NO MAJOR LEAGUE TEAM THIS YEAR??? or next, for that matter

“You get ideas to bubble up from the bottom. People that are on the front line, whether it’s an automobile manufacturer line worker or the accounting guy that does the numbers, you actually communicate with them and you draw stuff out of them.

If more companies did this, and followed through with it, they would be better off long term, much better off than listening to the board and stock holders, that is for sure. Unfortunately, I don't think there are more than a handful of companies on the planet with that type of intelligence and gumption. They think the school learned guys are the only ones who can come up with a plan, regardless of the fact that they haven't spent even one day in the trenches.

The question of optimal signing age is one I'm hearing more about of late - idea is that players signed later than when they first become eligible to are undervalued by the market.

Right, country of origin determines position. It's moronic.

If more companies did this, and followed through with it, they would be better off long term, much better off than listening to the board and stock holders, that is for sure. Unfortunately, I don't think there are more than a handful of companies on the planet with that type of intelligence and gumption. They think the school learned guys are the only ones who can come up with a plan, regardless of the fact that they haven't spent even one day in the trenches.

There are lots of companies that do this. Certainly far more than a handful of companies on the planet. Granted, my familiarity is with companies where the employees are also "school learned guys."

why is this so EXCITING!!!!!???!!! when there IS NO MAJOR LEAGUE TEAM THIS YEAR??? or next, for that matter

It's exciting because it seems like the team is finally being run by a guy who knows what the hell he's doing. I'm certainly glad that the Pirates won't have to be competing against Houston in three or four years.

Compared to that, the owner's unwillingness to spend on what's going to be a losing year no matter what is pretty small potatoes.

Got that? One of Luhnow’s first hires—a guy with multiple advanced degrees in engineering, a guy who does not have a typical baseball background—stole the idea from, you guessed it, Google.

Darn it. I was going to guess Octavio Dotel.

why is this so EXCITING!!!!!???!!! when there IS NO MAJOR LEAGUE TEAM THIS YEAR??? or next, for that matter

It's exciting because it seems like the team is finally being run by a guy who knows what the hell he's doing. I'm certainly glad that the Pirates won't have to be competing against Houston in three or four years.

Compared to that, the owner's unwillingness to spend on what's going to be a losing year no matter what is pretty small potatoes.

Count me as an Astros fan who's on board with this. You know in fantasy baseball (keeper leagues) when you trade all your good (and even average) players for future prospects in order to get good in 2-3 years? The conventional wisdom is that no Major League team ever does this because they're afraid of the 1-2 year PR hit. Well, the Astros have done it, and I'm excited about 2015-2017.

Right, country of origin determines position. It's moronic.

So you're completely dismissing Luhnow's suggestion that this might be something worth studying because ... why, exactly? You just know better in your gut?

Recall that he's talking about teenage signees. It seems entirely possible that there might be national biases that have some influence on where teenage ballplayers get put in the field -- for instance, it may be that Venezuelan youth coaches in the aggregate tend to emphasize OF defence more than Dominican coaches and are thus more likely to put their best athletes in CF rather than at SS. Maybe they emphasize catcher defence and tend to stick strong-armed kids who would make great pitchers at C. Seeing as how tradition-bound baseball can be, it doesn't seem inherently outlandish to think that coaches in one geographic area might tend to copy what they see being done on the other teams they regularly play.

Maybe there is ultimately nothing to see here. But how can you know unless you look? That's all Luhnow is suggesting. I don't think his idea deserves to be rejected out of hand as "moronic".

Right, country of origin determines position. It's moronic.

Remember when like half the shortstops in baseball came from San Pedro de Macoris? It'd be kind of interesting to know why that happened, wouldn't it?

Count me as an Astros fan who's on board with this. You know in fantasy baseball (keeper leagues) when you trade all your good (and even average) players for future prospects in order to get good in 2-3 years? The conventional wisdom is that no Major League team ever does this because they're afraid of the 1-2 year PR hit. Well, the Astros have done it, and I'm excited about 2015-2017.

Different sport, but as a Knick fan, I agree with the sentiment and wish the organization were run by people who had decided to do that.

I'm another fan who's optimistic about the direction of the club. It's going to be interesting to see how a group of bright people willing to use a comprehensive set of evaluation tools will fare at building an organization. Sure, prospects are only prospects, and there's no guarantee the Astros will be "competitive" in three, five or ten years, but at least there is an intelligent, coherent plan. The improvement in the minor league system in a fairly short time is encouraging.

Now Crane gives me pause for lots of non-baseball reasons, but I can't judge yet what kind of baseball owner he will be. That will be determined a few years down the road when free agent signings and increasing payroll could have competitive significance. His hirings, so far, indicate that he's going to try and hire qualified people and let them do their job. As a fan, it doesn't matter to me whether the team wins 55 or 70 games the next couple of years, but patience amongst the fan base is a concern when a team takes the approach Houston is taking. It was long overdue, though.

The big issue for the Astros (which comes out in #22 and Lisa's posts, and I know she's not the only Astros fan who thinks this way) is going to be holding onto a fan base that has good reason to be skeptical of Crane's intentions. I think everyone realizes that the Astros have nothing now; the bigger question is whether the talk coming from the front office will be supported by the budget in two years when we should have a really good idea of what Houston has coming. And that's a question for which we have no answer, and no real indications, right now.

-- MWE

Have they been signed at 16, 17, 18? Do they tend to be corner outfielders from the Dominican, shortstops from Venezuela?

This is moronic.

Not necessarily... I'd agree that essentially trying to 'prototype' a player based on age/locale probably is, but when it comes to how you allocate your foreign FA signing $$$ there's some value here.

I.e., once upon a time - everybody was signing themselves a nifty, smooth wiry SS from San Pedro de Macorís.

Stands to reason here that this means costs are going to go up to sign those types because everyone's in on it... Hence - you don't ignore SPdM necessarily, but unless you find a kid you think is the next A-Rod, you decided to go on the cheap there.

I suppose I'm not sure if this is what Luhnow is saying or not -- but the idea that does have some value is that if "everyone is signing 17 yo corner OFs from Venezuela", then 17 yo corner OFs from Venezuela are going to be overpriced.... so maybe we ought to look at 16 yo pitchers from Panama... or whatever.

Now that foreign FA budgets are controlled, too -- this means you have to more wisely allocate those dollars... it's no longer a matter of just scouting and spending. It's really no different than Beane's old moneyball idea of college seniors versus HSers... just because at the time you could get safer, wiser investment from a less exciting college senior doesn't mean it would ALWAYS be true... and I think, based on the way the A's have changed their drafting strategy - this has come to pass...

It seems entirely possible that there might be national biases that have some influence on where teenage ballplayers get put in the field -- for instance, it may be that Venezuelan youth coaches in the aggregate tend to emphasize OF defence more than Dominican coaches and are thus more likely to put their best athletes in CF rather than at SS. Maybe they emphasize catcher defence and tend to stick strong-armed kids who would make great pitchers at C. Seeing as how tradition-bound baseball can be, it doesn't seem inherently outlandish to think that coaches in one geographic area might tend to copy what they see being done on the other teams they regularly play.

Right, as and Swedish Chef pointed out above, in soccer/football this has a very serious effect. Many of the longer discussions we've had over in the soccer thread are criticisms of the US youth set-up, which tends to put size first as a gauge and to promote strength over speed and Route 1 Football over smooth, close passing. Similar trends can be seen in a number of nations (resulting in Swedish Chef's comment about Norwegian wingers). It doesn't seem too outlandish that something similar could happen in baseball: maybe certain youth teams/coaches promote specific schools of thought regarding emphasizing certain skills over others. There's no real reason to assume that this *necessarily* happens, but given that it is undoubtedly true in soccer/football, it seems worth investigating, at the very least, in baseball.

#17 deserves some recognition. Well played.

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Griffin (Vlad) Posted: March 01, 2013 at 09:02 AM (#4378178)

why is this so EXCITING!!!!!???!!! when there IS NO MAJOR LEAGUE TEAM THIS YEAR??? or next, for that matter


It's exciting because it seems like the team is finally being run by a guy who knows what the hell he's doing.

- please explain to me, and I am NOT being sarcastic, why you say "knows what the hell he is doing"

if you are talking about the owner, he is someone who has said ON THE RECORD that he is losing money with a 25 million dollar payroll. you think he is going to spend any money like, EVER, like WHY? he wants to get rid of bud norris, one of the 2 actual major league pitchers, because bud is making more than minimum wage. and keep in mind, please, that this year ALONE he is making an absolute MINIMUM of 30 mill profit. where is your evidence that anything will ever change? this easy 30 mill a year in his pocket is more money than he has ever made in his LIFE and he is gonna give that up WHY??? you evidence is??? jeffrey loria is primo evidence that you can make gobs of $$$ with nobody in the seats.

if you are talking about luhnow, he is not a farm director/minor league operations director. he is the GENERAL manager of a MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL TEAM. we are not playing Fun With "Potential" Lists. where is your evidence that he has done ANYTHING to put actual MAJOR LEAGUE QUALITY baseball players on the field. unless you are counting serious crap like rick ankiel or fernando martinez and their ilk. of which there is plenty of ilk.

i am not into fantasy baseball and eagerly waiting all the - billy beane - churn the roster of 4th year arb guys to get more prospects!!! - fantasy stuff. and billy almost always has SOME actual major leaguers on HIS ball club every year, win or lose.

it actually matters whether or not the major league club has real actual major leaguers on it. just because there is no reason to block good young players with jeff francoeur does not mean that playing with drafts and trades in the minors for 3-4 years before any possible major league team is ready, is JUST GREAT!!!

fer shtt farm/poor development is really really stupid. this does not mean that it doesn't matter and is not equally stupid if the major league team has no major league players on it for years

and mike darling

i am not an astros fan no mo. they can go take a long walk offn a short pier.

hey, they DID!!!

i have a NEW LUUVVVV!!! it's a mystery team, like scott boras likes to say and no it is not the MFY

BBC, with your well-documented revulsion at the DH, we know your mystery team is not in the AL. The Dodgers are the anti-Astros and have Matt Kemp, so they are my guess.

whether the talk coming from the front office will be supported by the budget in two years when we should have a really good idea of what Houston has coming. And that's a question for which we have no answer, and no real indications, right now.

Well, it depends on what you call "indications", but Jim Crane is significantly undercapitalized for an MLB owner, and he paid for the club using quite a lot of debt. It's possible that he's going to have money to spend in a few years, but I would certainly bet against it based on what we know now.

The story I'm waiting on is the MLBPA filing revenue sharing complaints against the Astros and Marlins. There's no way they're in compliance with the new CBA restrictions, in particular with the rule that payroll must be at least 125% of revenue sharing money received.

please explain to me, and I am NOT being sarcastic, why you say "knows what the hell he is doing"

if you are talking about the owner, he is someone who has said ON THE RECORD that he is losing money with a 25 million dollar payroll.

Owners say this kind of stuff all the time. This doesn't concern me.

if you are talking about luhnow, he is not a farm director/minor league operations director. he is the GENERAL manager of a MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL TEAM. we are not playing Fun With "Potential" Lists. where is your evidence that he has done ANYTHING to put actual MAJOR LEAGUE QUALITY baseball players on the field. unless you are counting serious crap like rick ankiel or fernando martinez and their ilk. of which there is plenty of ilk.

I believe he is talking about Lunhow (I certainly was). And I don't wan't him to spend money on major league free agents right now. I want the kids to get as many chances as possible to see who sinks and who swims.

i am not an astros fan no mo. they can go take a long walk offn a short pier.

For someone who is 'not a fan', you certainly seem to care a lot.

Well, it depends on what you call "indications", but Jim Crane is significantly undercapitalized for an MLB owner, and he paid for the club using quite a lot of debt. It's possible that he's going to have money to spend in a few years, but I would certainly bet against it based on what we know now.

This, on the other hand, does concern me.

"Skip, I'm going to have to come out for the 9th inning. I've been encouraged by management to spend 10% of my time on this research project I'm doing."

stole the idea from, you guessed it, Google

Ummm, I think you mean 3M

http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663137/how-3m-gave-everyone-days-off-and-created-an-innovation-dynamo

3M launched the 15 percent program in 1948.

delorians

IF there were kids who were ready for the majors, i would agree with you. but there aren't. and, in fact, i have screamed loud and often for years and years how the astros won't give young players any sort of real chance when they are OBVIOUSLY ready and instead play some old over the hill person. this is different.

and as for my caring a lot, well, let me ask you this:
you ever been in a relationship, and your partner left you?
you do a little, uh, checking up see how they doing? wonder if the new guy is younger, hotter, richer, better job/car, larger youknowwhat? ever wonder if he can BBQ as good as you can? (that is, if you are a texan?)

so, this is me checking out the ex when i'm not busy with the One Who I LUUUUVVV Now

if you are talking about the owner, he is someone who has said ON THE RECORD that he is losing money with a 25 million dollar payroll.

'

Except this isn't remotely what he said. He said the team lost money the last five years. For four of those years he was not the owner. Last year the payroll was a lot higher than $25 million, the team was under a different TV contract, the revenue sharing arrangements were different, etc.

According to Forbes, Crane's group was financed with $385 million of equity and $225 million of debt. That's on the high side to be sure - and it certainly would have been higher without the reduction in price that Crane got for agreeing to move to the AL - but I don't know that it's excessive.

-- MWE

BBC, it does not matter how many games the Houston Astros major league baseball team wins this year, or next year, or probably the year after that. It just doesn't. So that's not something you have to worry about.

The story I'm waiting on is the MLBPA filing revenue sharing complaints against the Astros and Marlins. There's no way they're in compliance with the new CBA restrictions, in particular with the rule that payroll must be at least 125% of revenue sharing money received.

This is mostly off topic, but speaking of the new CBA and revenue sharing: will the new rule preventing the 15 biggest markets from receiving revenue sharing affect either of these teams? Miami ans Houston are both pretty huge markets in terms of both population and media market size.

mike

sorry, the team did NOT lose money before mclane sold the team in 2011. that is just flat out bullstuff. drayton mclane is not a guy who would agree to LOSE money every year for 4 years. can't speak for last year, i don't have enough info. but fact is that crane is the kind of person who i wouldn't believe if he told me the sun rises in the east.

and the fact is that crane WILL be making at LEAST 30 mill this year. he just can't lie his way out of that.

perhaps it was luhnow and not crane talking earlier this year about losing money THIS year, meaning 2013 - i HEARD it my own self. and if they lie about 2007 and 2008, why on earth should i believe them about THIS year?

vaux

yeah, i know. i'm just bittter and angry. it's not going away for a long LONG time

dan

i believe that houston is somewhere in 10-15 in the media market thing even though we are the 4th largest city in the country so no revenue sharing. it doesn't matter because craney-poo will still be making money by the gobsful as long as he keeps the payroll nice and low, which he will get away with for a long LONG time because nobody cares and the FA don't want to come here

This is mostly off topic, but speaking of the new CBA and revenue sharing: will the new rule preventing the 15 biggest markets from receiving revenue sharing affect either of these teams? Miami ans Houston are both pretty huge markets in terms of both population and media market size.

Houston yes, Miami no. The rule "phases in" over the next few years, so Houston is likely to be eligible for revenue sharing this year, but not by 2016 or 2017. I haven't read anything more specific than that about the implementation. Miami is not in the top 15 markets - it's a very poor city overall, so it doesn't rank as highly as a market despite the size of the metro area.

This talk of soccer got me to search and I found this article.