Zachary Levine with this bomb shell:
Astros have named
— Zachary Levine (@zacharylevine) August 31, 2012@kevin_goldstein pro scouting coordinator.
This is the second time the Astros have gone to the Baseball Prospectus pool for front office talent, the first being Mike Fast.
Kevin Goldstein was contributing to Baseball Prospectus, ESPN and Baseball America in the Minor League prospect arena. His knowledge and contributions as a prospect writer I'm sure make many of you prospect fanatics giddy with excitement at his hiring.
Goldstein wasn't the only hiring made, As Zachary Levine reports in his article that the Astros also added Oz Ocampo as International Director and promoted Stephanie Wilka to Coordinator of Baseball Operations.
Campo comes from Major League baseball, but also (surprise, surprise) worked for the Cardinals from 2005-2009 as a Dominican Academy Administrator, Manager of Amateur Scouting in the Midwest Area, and was Coordinator of International Player Development.
Wilka was highlighted in this ESPN article back in May, as the Astros Coordinator of Amateur Scouting.
Both Kevin Goldstein and Oz Ocampo can be found on Twitter.
Here's what Brooks had to say about him:
Upper tier prospect analyst. Being a Baseball Prospectus guy, he's definitely a sabermetrics style analyst with use of advanced metrics for evaluating prospects. However, he has done a great job creating a lot of relationships with high end scouts so that he doesn't overuse advanced metrics. He's basically the perfect guy for a Luhnow ran organization because he heavily uses advanced metrics but still loves the scouting side. A very good balance between the two sides of the coin, but leans more toward advanced metrics.
I think a big thing is that his title puts him in the professional side of scouting where the advanced metrics are more accurate and reliable as opposed to amateur scouting. Also, he is going to be a coordinator, so I think he'll likely be doing some of the same things he was at Baseball Prospectus.