What to expect, a thread about things the Astros did differently.

[mdbdotcom]

34 minutes ago, AceKing said:

I just hope all of our players SHUT UP and LISTEN and TRY to do it the new way.

 

No Bitching from any of last years trainwreck players.

 

IF that happens, this could be a fun year

This team doesn't have any really good hitters, so they should all be open to learning new stuff.

[25 Nuggets]

Good stuff Luke!

It's great that the Orioles are catching up to the Astros but it's worth noting that so are other teams.  Once the Orioles are caught up, the next step is to forge ahead, or else they won't have an advantage.  Such it is with copycat competition.

[atomic]

On 1/12/2019 at 4:06 PM, Can_of_corn said:

Yep.  This one for example.

Saw that in person at the Prado and never even noticed the fish in the sky.   Not much of a Bosch fan though.

[atomic]

On 1/12/2019 at 2:50 PM, weams said:

It's always George Clinton. Always. 

We want the Funk...

[Cumberbundy]

19 hours ago, Luke-OH said:

Just a note about the tee thing, I'm not a baseball coach, but I don't think that philosophy applies to kids or relative novices. Tee work is important to develop swing mechanics in a controlled environment. I think it's more that teams are realizing that tee work isn't particularly important for pro playerswith well established fundamentals who are better off spending their time training against velocity and spin.

 

 

 

[Enjoy Terror]

Whether this fits with the thread, I'm not sure. It's something I observed:

Houston's AAA team is almost entirely homegrown players. Look at the non-roster players hanging out in Round Rock: 14 players, 9 drafted by the Astros. Also: None of those 14 have any Major League experience.  I only bring this up because it's completely unique from how the rest of the league is managing their AAA squad.

Another team that is handling their AAA squad similarly to the Astros are the Royals; out of the 16 players on their roster, 12 were drafted by the Royals and only two (Adam and Cuthbert) have MLB experience. 

By comparison, the Orioles have Long, Yaz, and Jimenez as the only players in AAA originally signed by the O's and nearly everyone (except these three, plus Ysla, Grover, and Wotherspoon) have Major League experience.

To maintain their rosters this way, the Astros and Royals are both doing the same thing: they aren't signing any MiLB free agents. The only player the Astros have acquired for Round Rock is a AAA Rule 5 catcher. The Royals have only picked up Michael Ynoa and Taylor Featherston as MiLB free agents and Chris Rabago in the AAA Rule 5 draft. They are content to continue building their AAA rosters from in-house with players they've drafted.

Again, this is unusual ... you can see that most teams sign MiLB free agents to round out their squads; the Cubs have signed 15 new MiLB free agents this offseason. The Orioles have signed eight. The only players the Astro's have taken in free agency are Chirinos, Brantley, and Miley... all major pacts.

The Astros were doing this last year too, I just wonder if once the farm system gets rolling if the Orioles become a team that elects to promote players internally rather than stocking Norfolk with journeymen.

[ExileAngelos]

What would be the ultimate BP would be to have a hologram or whatever you call it of an actual pitcher that allows you to go vs an actual windup with the ball exiting where his release point is.

[Ohfan67]

29 minutes ago, ExileAngelos said:

What would be the ultimate BP would be to have a hologram or whatever you call it of an actual pitcher that allows you to go vs an actual windup with the ball exiting where his release point is.

I think Matrix style brain stimulation that recreates reality will arrive before the hologram...and be more effective, cheaper, require less equipment, etc.