This story was excerpted from Brian McTaggart’s Astros Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Astros assistant general manager Gavin Dickey, who oversees player development and Minor League operations, took some time Friday to answer some questions about the state of the Astros’ system, which was the only team without a prospect in MLB Pipeline’s preseason Top 100 list.
Q: Do you believe people are undervaluing the quality of your Minor League system?
A: We do think our system's better than the third parties do. I spend a lot of time talking to those guys about the rankings, and honestly, the only reason I care is that they've sort of monetized it -- they've attached a [Draft] pick to the rankings [prospects eligible for Prospect Promotion Incentive, or PPI, Draft picks have to appear on at least two of the three Top 100 Prospect rankings released by MLB Pipeline, Baseball America and ESPN]. So I care a lot more about it now. Teams lobby for players to get on there, and we definitely feel some of our players are deserving to be Top 100 prospects.
Q: You were able to sign some impressive talent when the international signing period began in January, and you’ll have two extra picks in this year’s MLB Draft -- a PPI pick at No. 28 overall for Hunter Brown’s third-place AL Cy Young finish and fourth-round pick for Framber Valdez rejecting a qualifying offer. How will those help replenish talent?
A: It reminds me a lot of the 2015 Draft where we had so much Draft capital and obviously, that Draft went tremendous for us (They drafted Alex Bregman at No. 2 overall and Kyle Tucker at No. 5.) I think we have an opportunity this year, with our amateur scouting staff, to infuse a ton of talent. We've already done it in the January 15 [international] signings and the Draft is another opportunity to flood our system. I think we have somewhere around $20 million in amateur spending between the two, so it’s going to be an exciting year.
Q: Speaking of the Draft, how has shortstop Xavier Neyens, last year’s first-round pick, looked in his transition from high school to pro ball?
A: Xavier's come in and he's made a lot of adjustments so far. The power jumps off the page right away. It's a quality at-bat, knows the strike zone really well. We're just focusing on getting him dialed into professional-level pitching. Obviously, it's a huge gap between Washington [state] high school baseball and pro pitching. And Xavier's adjusting fine. Defense looks solid on the dirt as well. We’re just going to progress him through Spring Training and then see where we'll send him at the end of camp.
COMPLETE ASTROS PROSPECT COVERAGE
Q: What’s the biggest area that you’d like to improve upon in player development?
A: We hired a new director, player development this offseason, Sam Niedorf. I thought it was important to get someone in with fresh eyes to take an overall look at how we're operating, what we can do better. And he's come in with some new ideas, ways that we can streamline our process better, get more player-facing information more quickly turned around. Video is one of the most powerful tools we have in player development, and we're just working to get it more easily accessible for our players.
Q: What other new ideas has he brought?
A: Sam does a tremendous job of staff development. He's gotten some of our Major League coaches to come in and do some Q&A's with some of our Minor League coaches and talk about the process -- the things that we want for our players when they get to the Major Leagues, but also career development stuff for them as well. Aside from all the newer things that he's brought for us on the player development side, he comes from a pitching background, so he has a lot of unique pitching ideas and looks at things probably how we may have not looked at it in the past and being able to help us get stuff turned around in a more efficient way than we may have in the past.