Insights on International Scouting from Oz Ocampo of the Astros

[justD]

This aired last week and I found it fascinating.  In looking through other items quoting him over the past couple of years, it seems the Astros' approach was that older players might be overlooked assets, and he mentions the disregarding of age a couple of times. 

I also found it interesting that he always talked about scouting as "scouting, development, operations, and analytics" as though you can't have success in any of the four areas without a collaborative effort between all four, and that you don't even talk about one without all the others. 

When you compare their international scouting staff to ours, we still seem to be working pretty thin, but hopefully Elias brought that same, (or perhaps an improved version of) approach to what we're trying to build up on this front. 

Quote

Oz Ocampo, Astros’ International Crosschecker

Jeff Joyce and Chris Gimenez, Power Alley 10/18/2022 on MLB Network Radio

 

JJ:           [Leads in by noting how often the Dodgers and Astros have gotten into the WS the past six or seven years. Notes that the Dodgers have “kept their window open” with their drafts starting in 2016 as well as free agency (Betts, Trea, Freeman), with a really good farm system and never really trading away anything big, and all this has been going on for over a decade. Then gets to the Astros, and how they’ve done it:]

Astros won it in 2017, and then they lost some of their core guys – Correa, Springer… But one of the big reasons that they have kept their window open is the pitching. They still have a good lineup, but you’re wondering, though, when Morton left and Cole left, how were they going to have a pitching staff that could win a World Series? And they went out and they made all these great international signings around 2015 – Urquidy, Framber Valdez, Cristian Javier, then Luis Garcia in 2017.

And the man that was responsible for bringing those pitchers into the organization, currently the Astros’ International Crosschecker, Oz Ocampo, joins us now on Power Alley.

[Greetings back and forth]

So we were just talking about the ability to keep this championship window open for the Houston Astros, and bringing these guys in and seeing how they have developed now, and the absolute bargain that you got some of these guys for. Like Cristian Javier and Framber Valdez you guys signed for $10,000 apiece back in 2015, Luis Garcia $20,000 in 2017. So, is there like a system, or something in your mind? Like, how did you find these values? What were you looking for in these guys?

Oz:         Yeah, I think it’s just what we always focus on, which is just great scouting, great development. And in terms of just a system or a way of thinking about these pitchers and what we look for, there’s a couple of things that stick out.

One thing that really does stick out is that we were fortunate to have Brent Strom from the beginning. So Brent was critical. He was our Major League pitching coach, and he would go down to the Dominican and that’s rare for a big league pitching coach, to come down to not only help the players but also to help the scouts and the coaches to figure out what we’re looking for and what we’re trying to develop.

And so, as a scout, you’re trained to look at the radar gun and all that, but we really focused on other attributes. We focused on arm action, athleticism, the delivery, the quality of the breaking ball, whether there was another secondary, like a changeup, whether they miss bats. And then, looking at those attributes and then also just overall, what did we see in terms of the physical projection, how the body moves, the stuff, the repertoire, the pitchability and command, you know, can this guy pitch – not just throwing and chucking up there but actually a feel for pitching, a feel for getting hitters out.

And then finally the visible makeups. The makeup is such a critical component to the scouting of these players. So, looking at the work ethic, looking at how they compete on the mound, their baseball aptitude and instincts, and then also their self-confidence.

All those things were really important in terms of figuring out a system to sign the players. And really just disregarding the age and disregarding that component, and looking at what are the attributes and traits that we see that we believe give this player a chance to be a Major League starter in the future.

CG:         You mentioned Strom going down to the Dominican, with you to Venezuela, to all these places where you’re doing International Scouting. How important do you feel it was, in just this general process, to not only have him down there but then to take that plan that you guys have come up with as a Scouting Department, as a Major League coaching staff, and apply that in the Minor Leagues in player development – and be on the same page with that?

Oz:         It’s so critical. I mean, you need to have alignment from the top to the bottom. And to have someone with the credibility and the experience and just the genius that Brent Strom has on the pitching side, and then to expand that to our pitching coaches up and down, to our scouts all across the Dominican, Venezuela, Mexico, all over Latin America, it’s so huge. Not only from an experience and capability standpoint, but also just what it signals to the organization, that these players are important to the organization. They’re important in terms of bringing them to the organization, from the scouting and signing perspective, but then also from a development perspective, all the way from the Dominican Summer League to coming to the States, Low-A, high minors, getting to the big leagues, making an impact in the big leagues, all the way through. And to have someone like Strom and then our pitching coaches and just support up and down the organization, to be able to do that, from a scouting, development, operations and analytics perspective – I feel fortunate to just be part of an organization that supports our players that way.

JJ:           Curious on some of these guys. You know, Cristian Javier, you signed him in 2015, he was your Minor League Pitcher of the Year in 2019, you guys signed him out of the Dominican Republic. Back then, he was only throwing like 84-86 mph when you signed him, and his fastball is such a big part of his repertoire now. So what was it that you saw in Cristian Javier that you could project to the guy that we see now?

Oz:         So Cristian was throwing 84-86, but he was still missing bats with that fastball, which was incredible. I mean, you don’t see that from a guy with that type of velo. And fortunately, our area scout at that time, in that area in La Victoria, Leocadio Guevara, he had known Cristian since he was a kid. So he had known and seen the progression moving on through. And Cristian isn’t this prototypical big, tall, physical guy, but he knew that he was a really good pitcher who had the fastball, had the fastball that missed bats. And then the attribute that stuck out was that his delivery and his arm action were really good, really clean.

I remember watching a game where he pitched against the Yankees and threw 7 innings of no-hit ball, and looking at the delivery from the side and looking at it from when he originally signed? It was practically the same.

So having really good movement patterns, and then also a fastball that missed bats even at that low velocity, was really impressive.

And then the other piece was just the makeup, you know, his mound presence. His nickname is “reptile” because he’s just cold-blooded, nothing fazes him. So it’s a combination of the traits and the makeup that really stood out for him as a young player.

CG:         One thing you mentioned was movement profile. That’s something that’s becoming so much more prevalent in not only scouting, but just in the game it its own right. And I think you guys were very much ahead of the curve in regards to that. Can you explain what that means, a little bit, to our listeners? Because I know what it means, and I think it’s such an integral part of making an athlete an athlete, I mean being an athlete, right? Just having that ability to do things, because not every body is the same – Luis Garcia’s body is not the same as Jose Urquidy, is not the same as Cristian Javier, right? So explain a little bit about what those movement profiles mean in regards to being a good athlete.

Oz:         Yeah, you’re looking at the delivery, you’re looking at the ease of the movement. And like you said, it’s something that, well, it’s actually old and new at the same time. It’s new in terms of sort of the biomechanics and how that’s advanced in the baseball world. But then it’s also old in like, that’s what scouts would always say, “Look for someone who does it easy and also look for the types of deliveries that have been successful historically.” You know, the Hall of Famers, the top pitchers that tend to have these sort of classic mechanics with a hip-first move, using the lower half well and then allowing the arm to work on its own.

There are a lot of ways to build a starter, as you know, but there are some starter profiles, in terms of the way they move, that portend better health, a better ability to make adjustments to your pitch profile in the future, and all that.

So yeah, the way the body moves both from a pitching standpoint and the hitting standpoint is really critical, as you know.

JJ:           Talking to Oz Ocampo, Houston Astros International Crosschecker, responsible for a lot of these International players you see on the roster right now.

Curious about Framber Valdez, who’s an interesting guy because you guys signed him at age 21, which doesn’t sound old for the average player, but for an International, you know, free agent guy, that seems pretty old comparatively when teams are signing some of these guys at 16. So I wanted you to give a little insight into him. Like you said before, you guys disregarded the age on these guys. Like, it didn’t seem to matter. But was he a heavy sinker guy back then as well? Give us a little insight into what you saw in him.

Oz:         So our scouts, our Area Scout David Brito and then our Supervisor in the Dominican, Roman Ocumarez, just did a great job evaluating Framber early on. He had actually been with other teams, and other teams had seen him, but Brito, when he saw him, the first day, the thing that stood out was Framber had a big league curveball from day one. Just the quality of the break, the late sharpness of the break, it stood out. So immediately when that happened, Brito called Ocumarez and said, hey, we’ve gotta see this guy and try and sign him. And they were really aggressive with that, just trying to get the spin into the system. He threw both 2- and 4-seams at that time, but the curveball really stood out, as well as just – you know, he was a big-body guy, but he was also very strong and athletic for his frame. You see some of the defensive plays that he makes now, there’s a real athlete in there. And so those things really stood out with him as well.

CG:         You know, you were very integral in Yordan Alvarez not only eventually finding his way to the Astros organization (I know you were big on him as an International Free Agent, but it didn’t end up working [out]) but then eventually being able to acquire him. What did you see in him that had you kind of jumping and pounding the table for this guy?

Oz:         So I have to give credit to Charlie Gonzalez who really spearheads our efforts on the Cuban side. Charlie saw him first, and he really saw just the frame and the quality of the swing and the quality of contact. And when he told me about that, I looked at the same and just saw a guy who, he actually wasn’t a power hitter then, it was more just hard line drives to all fields, was not a pull approach, was all fields. A really good clean swing. And then just projecting to the frame. And some sneaky athletic ability, arm, speed as well. It was just all those attributes.

And then on top of that, one thing that’s really critical with the Cuban market is that you have a better chance when guys have performed on the highest stages – so whether that’s the Cuban National Series (their equivalent Major Leagues in Cuba), or International tournaments where they play all the time, whether that’s Japan, Mexico, Taiwan or whathaveyou – and Yordan had a really good track record as an 18-year-old, as a teenager in the Cuban National Series playing against guys that were, you know, an average of 28, 29, up to 39-40 years of age.

So all those things combined really stood out.

I remember the last day, the last day of the signing deadline on June 15, just on the phone with Jeff [Luhnow] just trying to get him signed. Unfortunately, we didn’t get over the hump there, but fortunately soon after, a couple of months, we were able to get him in a trade.

So yeah, couldn’t be happier, for Yordan, for the organization.

JJ:           So getting Yordan Alvarez for Josh Fields, and obviously the Dodgers needed bullpen help that trade deadline and they went after Fields. But were there some kind of issues or concerns with Alvarez, like positional-wise, that made them give him up? Or was it that maybe they just missed on him?

Oz:         Yeah, I couldn’t say. I mean, I couldn’t speak from the Dodgers’ perspective, but just from our side we were pretty enamored with him and were just happy to bring him on board.

CG:         So what is it like in your eyes, seeing a lot of these guys come up to the big leagues and have initial success, and then have that prolonged success that has helped keep the Houston Astros’ window of World Series contention open for these last 5 or 6 years?

Oz:         It’s just been pretty special. It’s been pretty incredible. I mean, you know, to say that, we certainly had high expectations for our players, but to see what they’re doing at this level of not only making it to the big leagues but then performing in the big leagues and then performing at the postseason level? It’s just an incredible feeling, and it’s something that I have, but I share with so many other people that have been involved from a scouting, player development, operations, and analytics perspective across the organization. We really share in what they’ve done and what they’ve done together, because it’s really a homegrown team. These guys have been together, and we’ve been together for such a long time and we all pull for each other. It’s really just incredible to see these guys doing what they’re doing and continuing to do at the highest level.

You know, I think about Luis Garcia and the last 5 innings that he pitched against Seattle, and I actually shared this with David Brito who signed him and is now a Crosschecker with the Mariners, but it’s just a source of pride that it’s hard to even explain or even imagine, that these guys that we saw and we clearly remember from the time they were 18, 19, 20, 21, and to see what they’re doing now, at the big league level? It’s really special to watch.

JJ:           It is kind of amazing. I wanted to ask you about another guy too, because I saw that you tweeted this out the other day, another guy that is starring right now in the postseason. Now, he’s not on your team, but he’s a great story, 31-year-old Robert Suarez, and just the filth that he’s bringing out of the Padres bullpen. I saw you tweet the other day that you tried to sign him back in 2015 when he was pitching in Mexico, years before he went to Japan. What did you see in Suarez way back then, apparently that nobody else saw?

Oz:         Oh man. I’m sure people saw that. If they saw him, then they would’ve seen it. Because Suarez – big frame, big arm, spin and just aggressiveness on the mound, and yeah, just someone who got after that big stuff. And he was just coming into his own then, I remember it was in Saltillo, the Saltillo Seraperos in Mexico where Raul Lopez and I saw him. And yeah, we were really aggressive trying to sign, you know, Mexican pitchers in general, just because it’s one of the big 4 markets, and certainly with him we were aggressive. But he got a better opportunity in Japan, and to his credit, he put in I don’t know, 5 or 6 years there, and now he’s at the big league level performing in the postseason.

So there are stories like that everywhere, if you’re looking at them and paying attention, and I just love these stories of guys that come out of “nowhere” but they did come out of somewhere, and it’s fun to watch those guys go from where they started to where they are now.

JJ:           Yeah it is. Congratulations, it’s impressive to see what you guys have been able to do there. Thanks a lot. 

 

[Tony-OH]

Great stuff hear @justD. I need more time to really go through the whole interview but this stidd out early on when he talked about scouting pitchers,

"We focused on arm action, athleticism, the delivery, the quality of the breaking ball, whether there was another secondary, like a changeup, whether they miss bats. And then, looking at those attributes and then also just overall, what did we see in terms of the physical projection, how the body moves, the stuff, the repertoire, the pitchability and command, you know, can this guy pitch – not just throwing and chucking up there but actually a feel for pitching, a feel for getting hitters out."

These are things I've been looking at closer when trying to evaluate pitchers. With stats like swinging strike rate % available (wish it was broken down by pitches) it makes it helpful to know if they are missing bats.