Meoli on Holt

[Sports Guy]

 

[Moose Milligan]

It'd be nice if he could build the foundation for a new "Oriole Way."  Pretty good article.

[higgybaby]

These are the kinds of articles that I love. There’s a lot of meat in it. 

[Sports Guy]

One thing that I will be interested to see is how much does all this info and technology help the pitchers.

I wonder what @Tony-OH has heard in terms of the wealth of knowledge and things like that at the hands of these guys now back what was around before?

Part of the reason I ask this is because it’s fair to ask how much good it did in Houston.  For all the AstroBall stuff and whatnot, the team really didn’t produce/develop much pitching.  This has been discussed on here before but that’s the reality.  Most of the pitching that they have used to be successful has been FAs and guys they traded for.  It really hasn’t been guys they developed outside of McCullers.  We have been waiting on Whitley for years and of course Aiken never signed and Appel wasn’t developed.  

Its  interesting that we put so much stock in Holt and his teachings and yet we can question how much it has actually worked.

[Just Regular]

I think the extra gear out of Verlander and Cole is the claim to fame, but even Verlander (basically Apollo) after 11 rental starts and two full years of raising the arm slot with brilliant results gave quotes about changing back down before present injuries erased his 2020/2021.

Next time he's on one of those team podcasts, I hope somebody digs into....pitching in Austria?

[Sports Guy]

4 minutes ago, OrioleDog said:

I think the extra gear out of Verlander and Cole is the claim to fame, but even Verlander (basically Apollo) after 11 rental starts and two full years of raising the arm slot with brilliant results gave quotes about changing back down before present injuries erased his 2020/2021.

Next time he's on one of those team podcasts, I hope somebody digs into....pitching in Austria?

Yea but it’s not like Verlander and Cole were reclamation projects either and maybe Cole had some other “assistance” in his renaissance (at least according to some of those reports out of LA).

Btw, maybe some help for Morton as well. I’m just saying, we have seen very little evidence that it has helped to develop young arms and that’s what we are banking on.  We aren’t banking on him “turning around” former CY level pitchers.  

[Aglets]

4 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

 We aren’t banking on him “turning around” former CY level pitchers.  

Have you seen the reports of the last two FA pitchers we've signed? 

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, Sports Guy said:

One thing that I will be interested to see is how much does all this info and technology help the pitchers.

I wonder what @Tony-OH has heard in terms of the wealth of knowledge and things like that at the hands of these guys now back what was around before?

Part of the reason I ask this is because it’s fair to ask how much good it did in Houston.  For all the AstroBall stuff and whatnot, the team really didn’t produce/develop much pitching.  This has been discussed on here before but that’s the reality.  Most of the pitching that they have used to be successful has been FAs and guys they traded for.  It really hasn’t been guys they developed outside of McCullers.  We have been waiting on Whitley for years and of course Aiken never signed and Appel wasn’t developed.  

Its  interesting that we put so much stock in Holt and his teachings and yet we can question how much it has actually worked.

I think these are completely fair points.   The proof will be in the pudding.   We did see significant improvement in MiL pitching results in 2019, and I believe every Astros farm team led its league in K/9 in Holt’s last year there.   But major league success is where the rubber meets the road, and we’ll see how that goes.    

[Sports Guy]

6 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I think these are completely fair points.   The proof will be in the pudding.   We did see significant improvement in MiL pitching results in 2019, and I believe every Astros farm team led its league in K/9 in Holt’s last year there.   But major league success is where the rubber meets the road, and we’ll see how that goes.    

Right.

We are hearing all the right things and there has definitely been some positivity in the minors.  That being said, since it’s such a SSS, it’s also fair to question if that’s a one off, if it’s sustainable and/or if those guys would have shown some development/improvement anyway.

It’s not like the organization hasn’t developed some young pitching or dealt with their own reclamation projects in the past.  I mean, they did turn guys like Rodrigo Lopez, Guthrie and Gonzalez into something and it’s not like they had the pedigree of Verlander or Cole.

[LTO's]

1 hour ago, Sports Guy said:

Part of the reason I ask this is because it’s fair to ask how much good it did in Houston.  For all the AstroBall stuff and whatnot, the team really didn’t produce/develop much pitching.  This has been discussed on here before but that’s the reality.  Most of the pitching that they have used to be successful has been FAs and guys they traded for.  It really hasn’t been guys they developed outside of McCullers.  We have been waiting on Whitley for years and of course Aiken never signed and Appel wasn’t developed.  

Its  interesting that we put so much stock in Holt and his teachings and yet we can question how much it has actually worked.

I think this an extremely incomplete look at things. It's curious you didn't mention Keuchel who was 14-5 with a 2.90 ERA during their championship year and was a development marvel as he was a 7th round pick with not much prospect pedigree. Brad Peacock is someone they were able to maximize value out of after they took him from WAS. He was a 41st round pick. You mentioned McCullers. Collin McHugh was a non prospect they took and immediately developed into an elite pitcher. Cole and Verlander did immediately improve after going to Houston as well. 

Building an elite rotation through the draft alone is practically impossible. The volatility involved is much greater than drafting position players. That explains his draft strategy. Aiken and Appel were bad looks for that FO but Houston definitely still had/has an elite player development system. Pitching included. Look at their rotation last year. Most of those guys were signed/developed under the Elias regime.  

[Sports Guy]

6 minutes ago, LTO's said:

I think this an extremely incomplete look at things. It's curious you didn't mention Keuchel who was 14-5 with a 2.90 ERA during their championship year and was a development marvel as he was a 7th round pick with not much prospect pedigree. Brad Peacock is someone they were able to maximize value out of after they took him from WAS. He was a 41st round pick. You mentioned McCullers. Collin McHugh was a non prospect they took and immediately developed into an elite pitcher. Cole and Verlander did immediately improve after going to Houston as well. 

Building an elite rotation through the draft alone is practically impossible. The volatility involved is much greater than drafting position players. That explains his draft strategy. Aiken and Appel were bad looks for that FO but Houston definitely still had/has an elite player development system. Pitching included. Look at their rotation last year. Most of those guys were signed/developed under the Elias regime.  

Was Holt even there for those guys? And if he was there, did he have any organizational influence at that time?

 

I don’t see any evidence that they are an elite pitching development system. 
 

As for last year, not sure you can take much from it.  Valdez was good but his ERA was close to 6 the year before.  Javier had a good year but his FIP was 1.5 runs higher than his ERA.  You need more of a sample size than that.

I like Urquidy but again, developing a few arms only means so much.  I mean, everyone does that.  Even the Os fell into that at times.

[Just Regular]

Valdez, Urquidy and Javier or Means, Kremer and Akin?

Some pressure on those Houston young guys this year to keep the team solid enough to be a '22 and beyond home a good player would want to spend FA years in.

International pipeline-wise, B-Ref has:

Framber IFA signed March 2015 when he was already 22

Urquidy IFA signed March 2015 when he was "already" 19

Javier IFA signed March 2015 just a week shy of his 18th birthday.

When I started these three, I wouldn't have guessed same month - Houston must have liked those Beyond Age 16 pitchers that winter.

[LTO's]

17 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Was Holt even there for those guys? And if he was there, did he have any organizational influence at that time?

You said the "team" didn't develop pitching. I think you are grossly underrating their system in that regard. Most teams don't have 4 or 5 pitchers originally drafted/developed by their system in their starting rotation. Especially, when that team is a WS contender and had the farm to trade for elite talents like Verlander and Cole. Who, again, were much better in Houston than they had been in the recent years before they got there. 

The Red Sox won a world series without a single drafted player in their rotation. Same with the Cubs in 2016. I guess I don't really understand the complaint. The Astros have had good to elite pitching for about 5 years now. It doesn't matter to me where they come from. Even still, I disagree with your characterization of their pitching development. I doubt you'd find very many people in the industry that would be even close to as down on it as you are. It's was (is) an elite pipeline. 

[Can_of_corn]

3 minutes ago, LTO's said:

You said the "team" didn't develop pitching. I think you are grossly underrating their system in that regard. Most teams don't have 4 or 5 pitchers originally drafted/developed by their system in their starting rotation. Especially, when that team is a WS contender and had the farm to trade for elite talents like Verlander and Cole. Who, again, were much better in Houston than they had been in the recent years before they got there. 

The Red Sox won a world series without a single drafted player in their rotation. Same with the Cubs in 2016. I guess I don't really understand the complaint. The Astros have had good to elite pitching for about 5 years now. It doesn't matter to me where they come from. Even still, I disagree with your characterization of their pitching development. I doubt you'd find very many people in the industry that would be even close to as down on it as you are. It's was (is) an elite pipeline. 

In five season in Pitt Cole had a FIP of 3.33 or lower in four of them.

I would not say he was "much better" in Houston.

[Tony-OH]

2 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

One thing that I will be interested to see is how much does all this info and technology help the pitchers.

I wonder what @Tony-OH has heard in terms of the wealth of knowledge and things like that at the hands of these guys now back what was around before?

Part of the reason I ask this is because it’s fair to ask how much good it did in Houston.  For all the AstroBall stuff and whatnot, the team really didn’t produce/develop much pitching.  This has been discussed on here before but that’s the reality.  Most of the pitching that they have used to be successful has been FAs and guys they traded for.  It really hasn’t been guys they developed outside of McCullers.  We have been waiting on Whitley for years and of course Aiken never signed and Appel wasn’t developed.  

Its  interesting that we put so much stock in Holt and his teachings and yet we can question how much it has actually worked.

I wish could help but not being around the major league team or minor league players for over a year now, it's made it hard to really know what's going on besides what we read.

I would say that technological advances are being deployed that were not available back in the Astroball times so some of this is totally new so I don't think we can make just an apple to apples comparison. The Astro did find some hidden gems while Holt was there but you are right, some of there draft picks that were pitchers did not really pan out. Makes me wonder if that's why Elias has drafted so hitter heavy in his first two drafts. I wonder if he thinks he has more metrics on hitters or if hitters are a safer bet coming out of high school and college than pitchers. The first pitcher he gave a significant bonus to was Baumler and he's already on the shelf with TJ surgery.