Astros Minor Leagues Update
The Astros named Al Pedrique as the head of their Latin American Baseball Camp. He's been a special assistant to Tim Purpura most recently and a manager in our minor leagues before that. He played in the majors and is a native Venezuelan. You can read more here:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/sports/4268490.html
But the real story centers on the Astros and their minor league development. At one point we had one of the best minor league programs in baseball. We were consistently in the Top 10 year after year. At the core of our system was our Latin American camp. We were the first to really setup camp in Latin America and we reaped the benefits for years to come. Whether they played for us-Bobby Abreu and Richard Hidalgo-or were simply signed by us-Johan Santana and Melvin Mora-we mined a nation of great players. Unfortunately, other teams quickly copied our system and our floodgate of players slowed to a trickle. Since 2000 the only player I can think of that made it up was Fernando Nieve.
So what are we doing to get that edge back? Apparently nothing. We are still drafting with about the same luck as we did in the past but we aren't getting that influx of foreign players to supplement the draft. Maybe we need to open a camp in Australia or some other country where no one else is. We need to do something. And we need to do it now. Purpura has the opportunity to put a stamp on our team. His legacy will tell you if it was a good stamp or a bad one.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/sports/4268490.html
But the real story centers on the Astros and their minor league development. At one point we had one of the best minor league programs in baseball. We were consistently in the Top 10 year after year. At the core of our system was our Latin American camp. We were the first to really setup camp in Latin America and we reaped the benefits for years to come. Whether they played for us-Bobby Abreu and Richard Hidalgo-or were simply signed by us-Johan Santana and Melvin Mora-we mined a nation of great players. Unfortunately, other teams quickly copied our system and our floodgate of players slowed to a trickle. Since 2000 the only player I can think of that made it up was Fernando Nieve.
So what are we doing to get that edge back? Apparently nothing. We are still drafting with about the same luck as we did in the past but we aren't getting that influx of foreign players to supplement the draft. Maybe we need to open a camp in Australia or some other country where no one else is. We need to do something. And we need to do it now. Purpura has the opportunity to put a stamp on our team. His legacy will tell you if it was a good stamp or a bad one.
posted by christopher at 2:41 PM
2 Comments:
maybe in Japan...didn't the win the World Championship?
the only problem is they already have those over there. but they are run by the japanese leagues. so we have to just throw money at them if they want to come over now.
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