Jeff Luhnow Continues To Bring Geeky Treasure To Astros

by David Coleman on Jan 4, 2012 10:33 AM CST in Stat Geeky

The past couple weeks have been a bit of geek overload for the Houston Astros. Not only do they bring in a new GM with solid analytical background, but they interview Keith Law and hire a Director of Decision Sciences.

I don't even know what that means! But it's awesome!

Look, as I've said in the past, I'm not thinking Houston has an automatic advantage over other teams. After all, there are plenty of teams (including Luhnow's former team in St. Louis) that have already been doing these same kinds of things for a while.

No, it's all about bringing the Astros back up with the big boys, so everyone is on the same page. No longer will Houston's GM make silly comments about Pedro Feliz hitting 20 homers because of the Crawford Boxes. No longer will we sign an over-the-hill Woody Williams as a rotation saver (oh, wait, that was more Drayton...).

It's going to make the going around here harder, though. How will we be snarky about the team when they're making good decisions instead of silly ones? We might actually have to start doing good analysis and not criticize the organization so much. Might as well shut things down now...

Seriously, though, it's very exciting to see Houston building up its decision-making base. Farmstros ran down all the cool conferences and places Sig Mejdal has worked with his decision sciences expertise. Add to that the quotes in the Chronicle about wanting to collect info in one place and you can start to see the infrastructure Luhnow is trying to build.

What I do wonder is whether Brad Arnsberg would have thrived more under this new administration. We know he was a film nut, but if he had all this other information at his fingertips along with the video, could he have been more effective? Would Luhnow have sided with Brad Mills in that argument?

Those are questions we can leave for another time. For now, I'm just stoked the Astros are going geek. It's about time.

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Just had to bring up Arnie eh?

Of all the changes in personel the last two years, I miss Arnie the most. We used to have a well respected and very legit pitching coach. Now…let’s just say I’m not a fan of Doug Brocail in that position.

As far as the Geek Squad coming in to de-bug the system, I LOVE IT! I am a huge fan of bringing in these guys to change the way of thinking and show us why guys like Jay Austin and Delino Deshields are not succeeding and who we should start targeting in the future.
“If we try to play like the Yankees in here, we will lose to the Yankees out there!”

by Its Gonna Happen on Jan 4, 2012 12:24 PM CST via mobile reply actions

I’m not ready to give up on Delino just yet.

Follow my ramblings on Twitter .

by Timothy De Block on Jan 4, 2012 2:50 PM CST up reply actions

Im not either

Nor am I ready to give up on Austin, but I do think that they were not the best picks at the time. (Don’t ask me to name the prospect we SHOULD have drafted.) DDJ was a surprise to almost everyone when we picked him.

by Its Gonna Happen on Jan 4, 2012 3:18 PM CST via mobile up reply actions

Not really, before the draft occurred we had a pretty good idea DDJ was going to be taken with the pick.

Follow my ramblings on Twitter .

by Timothy De Block on Jan 5, 2012 10:49 AM CST up reply actions

I vaguely recall reading about Sig Mejdal in the past. It may have been an old BBTF discussion thread or perhaps it was a blog piece about one of those baseball research conferences. The thing I remember is that he analogized the amateur scouting issue to the methods for investing in small cap stocks. There are thousands of the stocks and each has a high risk of failure but in the end a very small handful of the companies will be hugely successful. So, the challenge is identifying the characteristics that allow the investor (or scouting team, in this case) to draw a circle around a few hundred companies (players) that are most likely to include the companies (players) that will be big successful.

by clack on Jan 4, 2012 12:41 PM CST reply actions

last word “successes” instead of “successful.”

by clack on Jan 4, 2012 12:43 PM CST up reply actions

My undegrad was in Decision Sciences...

I wonder if they have any vacant staff positions under said director.

by Crzycjunx76 on Jan 4, 2012 1:36 PM CST reply actions

The best way to find out

is to ask them

Astros fan for life

by Joe in Birmingham on Jan 4, 2012 2:10 PM CST up reply actions

Very exciting, if it were 2002

Yes, the Astros are a decade behind in signing up for the Stats Inc. baseball approach. Great…at least we’re there now. But so is every other team. A “decision sciences” director? C’mon. I wish her the best and all, but that’s a little patronizing.

by frisk_d on Jan 4, 2012 7:58 PM CST reply actions 1 recs

The decision sciences director is male (the “rocket scientist,” as someone said in another thread), and the scouting coordinator is female.

by clack on Jan 4, 2012 9:01 PM CST up reply actions

Notes and Quotes from Luhnow's Astroline appearance....

Alyson Footer’s footnote column has the highlights of Luhnow’s answers to questions. These answers are pretty informative.

by clack on Jan 5, 2012 12:54 PM CST reply actions

The only thing of note for me was him essentially saying Norris was not on the block, which I would’ve assumed anyway. I was also glad to note that he eventually plans to have a top 10 payroll. Other than that, everything jibed with what he has been saying all along. He is coming across as extremely intelligent and very fan friendly. In that regard, he’s already trumped Wade.

by Snake Diggity on Jan 5, 2012 2:58 PM CST up reply actions

Loved hearing about the top 10 payroll. I had a feeling that would be the case once the team had repaired itself, but still great to hear.

by MadMartygan on Jan 5, 2012 3:41 PM CST up reply actions

I’m all in as a Luhnow fanboy. It was a pretty good listen.

by MadMartygan on Jan 5, 2012 3:42 PM CST up reply actions

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