Kevin Goldstein Joins Astros Front Office

In quite possibly my favorite move made by Jeff Luhnow since being named GM of the Astros, Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus and ESPN has been hired to serve as our Pro Scouting Coordinator. Goldstein’s hire becomes the second hire Luhnow has made from the Baseball Prospectus team as he hired Mike Fast earlier in the year. Fast is currently working under Sid Mejdal on his analytics team.

I’m a huge Kevin Goldstein fan. I follow him on twitter, read his articles and listen to his podcasts. This man truly knows the game of baseball and knows how to scout it. Anytime I know he will be on Houston sports radio, I do what I can to get near a radio and listen in. Back in 2010 when the Astros traded Roy Oswalt to the Phillies for J.A. Happ, Jonathan Villar and Anthony Gose and then flipped Gose to Toronto for Wallace, while everyone was lauding the Gose-Wallace flip, Goldstein was not. I remember seeing him tweet that Brett Wallace was a very overrated prospect who would need to learn how to hit inside pitches and make several adjustments if he was going to be successful in the big leagues. Literally no one else was saying this, not even the “great” Keith Law. Sure enough, Goldstein was right. (Luckily though, it seems like Wallace has made those adjustments and has learned to hit inside pitches.) I’m not saying he is never wrong but that story has always stuck out to me. I also can’t put into words just how thrilled I am with this hire.

This move marks yet another hire after the front office and scouting departments have been turned over from top to bottom within the past 10 months since Jim Crane, George Postolos and Jeff Luhnow have taken over. I’m not even sure if anyone that worked in those departments under the previous regime is still with the team. Either way, the Astros are clearly the leader of the pack here in the creative, new style of their hiring scouts and front office.