WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- It began with a series of posts about Brice Matthews, the Astros' first-round pick in last year's MLB Draft, and has since featured dozens of players in the Astros' system since it launched. Houston's player development department on March 5 started a social media account on X to highlight talent across the system. Astros assistant general manager Gavin Dickey said the account (@AstrosPlayerDev) was a collaborative effort from everybody in baseball operations and business operations, with a big assist from Houston's social media department. The idea is to showcase the players in a Minor League system that's been ranked among the worst in baseball in recent years but keeps churning out big league talent. The Astros have had top-five finishers in the American League Rookie of the Year voting in nine of the past 10 seasons, including catcher Yainer Diaz, who finished fifth last year. |
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"It's no secret that some third-party sites don't think our farm system is the best, but we like our players," Dickey said. "We thought it would be a good idea to showcase our players to the industry and also get them familiar with our fans." MLB Pipeline ranks the Astros' farm system 27th in baseball, an improvement from its No. 30 ranking at midseason last year. The Astros don't have a player in MLB Pipeline's Top 100 Prospects, but players like outfielder Jacob Melton (the top-ranked prospect in the Astros' system), pitcher Spencer Arrighetti (No. 3) and Matthews (No. 4) are among Houston's top prospects and are highly regarded across the industry. Many other players with lower profiles have been featured on the feed, with clips of highlights, often from a fixed camera, from Minor League games on the back fields that list stats, exit velocities, pitch speeds, etc. A Friday post highlighted pitching prospect Ryan Gusto. A March 19 post showed pitcher Misael Tamarez's six strikeouts in a game. |
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"We have a bunch of camera angles here in Spring Training and even at the facility that we use in player development, just like every other team, I'm sure," Dickey said. "We can also provide angles from defensive plays that fans may not capture on the live feed." Many other clubs have similar accounts, and Dickey said the reception from the players has been good. The account has more than 1,600 followers. "I see them retweeting the stuff, and I see players' moms and dads retweeting and sharing stuff," he said. "We obviously shared the site with all of our players. They like the content, I'm sure." |
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When the season starts, the account will grow. Dickey said it will post highlights from the team's Minor League affiliates, as well as expand the content to things like question-and-answer sessions with prospects so fans get to learn more about their personalities. "It's one thing to see the box scores or see the names of this prospect, and you never really see what he can actually do," Dickey said. "Hopefully, we'll continue to be picking at the back of the Draft, so some of our picks aren't the most famous guys or we're spending a lot of money on guys in Latin America, and it may be two years before they come over to the States, so you never get to see them actually play. That was the driving force behind it originally." |
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Here are some of this week's Spring Training stories you might have missed: - Billy Wagner, Octavio Dotel and Brad Lidge, who anchored Houston's terrific bullpen in 2003, talked about that season and the potential of this year's 'pen anchored by Josh Hader, Ryan Pressly and Bryan Abreu. Read more >>
- Justin Verlander, who will start the season on the injured list, faced hitters for the first time Wednesday and remains optimistic about his progress. Read more >>
- Colleague Bill Ladson reflects on 50 years of Tommy John surgery. By the way, who was the second player to have Tommy John surgery? Former Astros and current D-backs pitching coach Brent Strom. Read more >>
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ESPADA ON LOAD MANAGEMENT |
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Because the Astros have played in more games than any team in baseball since 2017, including the postseason, manager Joe Espada said keeping his players fresh has been important this spring and will continue to be during the regular season. Houston has played in 97 playoff games since '17 -- the year its run of seven consecutive trips to the ALCS began (the Dodgers are second with 73 games played, and no other team has more than 45). "I'm big on rest and recovery and giving them more time in the weight room than being on the field, doing things that I feel good about us doing in shorter periods of time," Espada said. "All those things I discuss with my staff and our medical department to make sure we are efficient in the time we are on the field." Espada will get daily reports in the regular season from the training staff about which players have exerted the most energy and might need rest, which could come in the form of a day off, a few at-bats at designated hitter or an early exit from a game. "It's hard to do," Espada said. "If they're in the red, the reason why they're red is they're on base and they're performing well. I think we've done that here in years past with the players and understand it's part of our model and process. We handled that here very well." |
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Espada said veteran first baseman José Abreu has made some adjustments in the spring to the volume of work he does in the weight room and batting cages. It's significantly lower. Third baseman Alex Bregman, who played in 161 games last season, has done a better job of limiting the amount of work he does pregame and hates to take days off. "[Bregman is] on base all the time and around the ball defensively all the time," Espada said. "I'll try to be smart about giving him days off, but he's one of our veteran players who does not like days off, which I like." |
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