Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1239: The Astudillo Origin Story

Episode Date: July 6, 2018

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about the Rays using backup catcher Jesus Sucre as a pitcher to protect a lead, the return of Shohei Ohtani, Javier Baez’s exciting and silly steal of home, and what life would be like with deferred payments. Then (29:58) they bring on Phillies international scouting director Sal Agostinelli to […]

Yo, meet Mr. International on the runway more than a fashion show, you know? It's all love like macro, but sorry I have to go. One more time, yo. Meet Mr. International on the runway more than a fashion show, you know? It's all love like macro, but sorry I have to go. I've been so many classes in my life and time, and I know it's for sure I'm in life, life for me. Hello and welcome to episode 1239 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs, presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs. Hello.

Hello. So we are going to do an Astadio-centric podcast yet again today. going to do an Astadio-centric podcast yet again today. I'll explain a little later how this came about, but we're going to talk to the guy who had a hand in signing Astadio, kind of cover his origin story, and also some more general scouting questions. Anything you want to discuss before we get to that? So on Tuesday, this is before Wednesday, July 4th, on Tuesday, the Tampa Bay Rays defeated the Miami Marlins 9-6. Not interesting. Not many people were there. I'm not convinced anybody was there.

Who cares? So a few weeks ago, maybe it was one week ago, time flies, the Rays switched Jose Alvarado out to another position, and he played first base, and then he went back to pitching. And an unusual Waxahachie swap that the Rays pulled off. Well, on Tuesday, circumstances dictated such that the Rays took a five-run lead in the 16th inning. They were up 9-4 in that inning. Their pitcher, Vidal

Nuno, picked up his second hit in as many plate appearances. He had an RBI single. He also got hurt. He injured his hamstring while he was running. Seems to be a thing that pitchers are doing now. Nuno injures one. Tanaka injures two. Anyway, in the bottom of the 16th inning, to protect a lead,

the Tampa Bay Rays went to the bullpen and pulled out Jesus Sucre, their backup catcher. Jesus Sucre came in to try to protect a lead. He didn't not protect the lead, but he didn't get to finish the game. The Rays were trying to protect Matt Andres and Diego Castillo and Jose Alvarado, trying to preserve them for the following game. Didn't want to have to go to them, but Sucre came in, gave up a single, a single, a single. Reese and Diego Castillo and Jose Alvarado trying to preserve them for the following game didn't want to have to go to them but Sucre came in gave up a single a single a single and then a long

sacrifice fly and that was enough to convince Kevin Cash to go to Jose Alvarado position players pitching has become a little less interesting just because of how much more often it's been happening but it's definitely more interesting when position players come into pitch when the team isn't losing by like 13 runs. So I was going through some numbers and manually eliminating some guys. I pulled up all position player pitching appearances since 1950 that I could find. And then I eliminated the guys who like Rick Ankeel or Shohei Otani or guys who were converted to pitchers or knuckleballers like Jason Lane. So this is manual. I don't know if I have this exactly correct.

So this is manual. I don't know if I have this exactly correct, but I do have 373 total appearances here for position players pitching since 1950. And in those games, the teams using the position players, there's 373 games, remember, and the team has won nine of them. So nine times has the team won. Jesus Sucre was the most recent. And you can say, well, what a ridiculous thing for Kevin Cash to do.

Play for the game that you have. Use Jose Alvarado. Use Diego Castillo. Whatever. But over these 373 outings, the pitchers, the position player pitchers, have thrown 388 innings, and they have allowed 340 runs. That's less than one run per inning. That's runs per nine of 7.88 very bad this is chris tillman territory very bad pitching but not five runs in an inning territory especially in an

inning where the marlins used dan straley as a pinch hitter as the the tying the potential tying run in an inning with the marlins period period. Yeah, right. Full stop. Don't have to say anything. Also, the three singles that Sucre allowed, they were all grounders through the shortstop hole. So who really cares? But anyway, it's another just, I know the circumstances were extraordinary and Kevin Cash didn't want to end up in this situation.

And for some, many of you will remember that, of course, there was Chris Davis and what was it, Darnell McDonald pitched in extra innings in a game that the Red Sox lost to the Orioles 9-6. That was back in 2012. Just last year, Andrew Romine technically did throw a third of an inning in a game the Tigers won 3-2. But I'm going to guess that was a game where the Tigers were trying to get Romine to play every position. I didn't actually think to confirm that so you know there were there were some asterisks here same with shane halter in the year 2000 he faced one batter in a game that his team won by a run and again that gets an asterisk cesar tovar we talked about him on this podcast a

long time ago he got a start as sort of a stunt end of the season he played every position and the twins decided to start him on the mound for an inning so it's not unprecedented to have jesus sukri come out to try to protect the lead brent main in the year 2000 actually got a win as a position player pitcher these things generally end up being very long extra inning games but still within a few weeks kevin cash has done an atypical wakasahachi swap and used a position player to try to close out a win so that's fun that's a that's a fun thing that's happened yeah i used to talk years ago with sam about how this was happening more often or why it didn't happen even more often than it is because as you say there are a lot of

times when you could probably get away with using a position player pitcher and it would be fine and you'd save one of your regular pitchers but there's sort of an unwritten rules element to this i would think and that you are in a sense showing up your opponent by bringing in a position player pitcher particularly with a lead and saying that even if we put out a non-pitcher, you can't catch up to us. You will lose anyway. That is an affront, and I'm sure that teams would not take very kindly to that. So there's probably some pressure there that is preventing teams from doing this on a regular basis. But I would guess that if you looked, the margin of lead or victory has probably shrunk over the years in which teams have used this tactic

just because it has become more common and that's maybe partly just because of the way that teams use pitchers these days and run out of pitchers much more quickly than they used to although bullpens are also bigger of course as a result of. But it's probably also just a greater willingness to bring in these guys and, you know, at least concede a game virtually if you are already losing and you bring in one of these players. It's a white flag that you are raising and teams have become more comfortable with that. Yeah, I agree with that. I would like to see more pitchers being used to close out blowout wins, but I do understand the unwritten rule aspect of it but on the other hand every team has relievers every team doesn't want to overuse their relievers

every team has backup catchers i don't know i know it's not going to happen i know we're not going to see more of this i know it was a fluke and i know that kevin cash wouldn't want to do this again but still it's uh it's fun it's fun to see a team do this because it's so unusual but it does remind me of how good chris Chris Davis looked when he pitched back in 2012. Two strikeouts and two winnings. I mean, no one's got anything on that, not even Matt Davidson. So I wanted to mention we are talking on Thursday, the day after the 4th. That's the 5th, and it happens to be Shohei Otani's birthday. So happy birthday to Shohei Otani, who just turned 24.

And he celebrates, I suppose, by being back on the active roster of the Angels. So he's been back for a couple days now, and he is just DH-ing. I'm sure the Angels hope to have him back as a pitcher before the end of the season, although depending on how far from first place they are or from a wildcard spot, they may not even risk it, even if they think they could try it. But he's back as a DH now, and I think there's a little less excitement about seeing Shohei Otani if he is exclusively DHing. We were also fascinated by him because he was a two-way player, and right now he's not a two-way player. So he came back in his first game. He struck out a few times. He looked a little rusty. But his second game back, he went two for four. He doubled. He looked like Otani again. And even if this isn't quite as compelling as what we were seeing earlier this year, it's still nice to have him back. And we're still learning a lot about him as a player, which I think is the silver lining here.

lot about him as a player, which I think is the silver lining here. Prior to this, we were only seeing him hit, say, three times a week or so, and it was sort of frustrating because you wanted to see him every day, and we weren't seeing him every day. And it was hard to judge him as a hitter just because the sample was small and because often he would be hitting after not hitting for a few days, and that's not really an easy thing to do. So now we're getting a more accurate sense of who he is as a hitter, and presumably he will be hitting for the rest of the season. That's a few months of everyday play, so we now no longer have to have the sample size caveats, we'll no longer have to have the, well, he's playing irregularly, so who knows if this really reflects who he is.

We can just see him as a hitter, and that is sort of exciting. Less exciting, but still exciting. Has it been determined that he's going to play almost every day? I mean, there's no reason not to at this point. Yeah, I guess they haven't said so, I'm assuming. So maybe I'm assuming incorrectly. I hope so, but you look at this lineup. Albert Pujols is bad.

Ian Kinsler is bad. Luis Valbuena is bad. Cole Calhoun, fun fact, since Cole Calhoun came off the disabled list in the middle of June, he's batted 54 times. You might remember that his WRC Plus at that point was like, what, three? I think it was. I think it was the number three. Anyway, since coming back on June 18th, he's batted 54 times. He's got a 964 RPS. Cole Calhoun, he's back. He's back to being good. good so that's fun but the rest of the team is bad or hurt so shohei otani should

be playing just about every day so yeah this this is a real silver lining because in theory at least this should give otani the ability to get more reps there was always more concern that he would bust as a hitter than there was that he would bust as a pitcher in a sense maybe he's already done the predictable bust as a pitcher in that his arm is partially busted but hitting is always a question of whether he could get enough experience with his throwing routine and well if if he's not going to be used doing his usual throwing routine then this is a chance for him to do an awful lot of of hitting for a team that is playing under let's say modest pressure to remain in the race,

if you can even say that they are still in the race. So there's something there. It's something there for Angels fans to watch down the stretch. There's something for Angels fans to point to and say, this is why we're not going to try to rebuild. So it's better than nothing. But, yeah, right now having just Shohei Otani as a DH, it's like, well, that's fine. But, you know, like the A's have Chris Davis as a DH.

I don't think people go to the ballpark because they're super excited to see if Chris Davis can still hit, you know like the a's have chris davis as a dh i don't think people go to the ballpark because they're super excited to see if chris davis can still hit you know so it's when you when you take away the part that really makes this sensational then you just have a good hitter and there's a lot of good hitters like williams williams estetio yes i wanted to say one more thing before we get to williams which is past weekend, Javier Baez stole home, and it was very exciting. And he made a somewhat miraculous slide around the tag and kind of had the backside of the base. And it was great. It was another compelling Javier Baez play. And Joe Sheehan made a point that I hadn't really considered because I had just watched the

highlight. I hadn't really thought of what the context was. But Joe argued in the latest edition of his newsletter that Javier Baez is in so many ways, he wrote the central conflict of modern baseball personified. And he's been kind of a divisive player because also, as Joe wrote, he illustrates the conflict between efficiency and entertainment that is at the core of our baseball conversation right now. And that's been the case more in previous years, I think, because this year I think everyone agrees that Javier Baez is actually a good player. And he has already bested his single season high in Fangraphs War. He has just hit really well. It's confusing that he's hit this well because he is not more selective.

He is not walking more. he still swings at everything, but he has managed to make contact with more things and had better results on that contact. So he's been good, but often that has been kind of the conversation about him. And there was a funny tweet that was passed around the Facebook group recently. Buster only tweeted something positive about Mike Trout, basically saying that Mike Trout was on pace for this and on pace for that. And the first response to that tweet was a Cubs fan who said something like, that's nice, but I'd rather have Javier Baez, basically, because Javier Baez is fun and exciting. And that is a just wrong opinion, but I'm comfortable calling that wrong.

But I get the sentiment, which is that Javier Baez is really fun and not always in a way that helps his teams. So sometimes it is. I mean, it's great that he is so good at tagging and evidently avoiding tags, too. But this situation, so the Cubs were down two to one and it was the fourth inning so he singled to start the inning he was picked off or there was a pickoff attempt and Francisco Liriano was pitching so Baez broke for second the throw was bad and Baez reached third because there was a throwing error so then Liriano walked Addison Russell it was first and third nobody out and with a 2-2 count Liriano threw to first to check on Russell and Baez broke for home and this time the throw was better but not good enough and Baez got around it and he slid safely and everything worked out well but

if you pull back a bit and think about this situation that is not at all the time to take that risk. I mean, no outs, first and third, two and two count. I think Wilson Contreras was a pretty good hitter. There is really no reason to risk stealing home here. I mean, I don't know what the break-even point for this to be a smart baseball play was, but has to be extremely high in that situation. And maybe Baez was really confident that he was like, you know, 95% likely to steal successfully or something, but I don't know how you could have that confidence. And so it was a very ill-advised play, but also a fantastic and exciting play, and I'm glad it happened. So it is kind of a good illustration of the conflict that sometimes arises between smart baseball and fun baseball from the spectator's

perspective. So while you were talking, I decided to go to my trusty old win expectancy calculator. And this is something I've had since like 2005. So I don't know how accurate it still is, but it's fine. It'll get us there generally. So the Cubs cubs had like you said they were down by a run they had men on the corners nobody out fourth inning game against the tigers so you already know the cubs are going to win this game almost regardless so according to fan graphs when bias advanced on a stolen base to score so when he stole home it improved the cubs odds of winning 0.8 percentage points so 0.8 percent so now according to my spreadsheet it should have improved the cubs odds of winning but about two percent i don't know there's there are a bunch of different variables here you can kind of try to control for but i went ahead and tried to

calculate the break-even rate that is the uh the rate at which bias needs to be sure he's going to score to justify the attempt and so a usual stolen base break-even rate is around like 70%, maybe 75% depending on the situation. And not coincidentally, you see the league stolen base rates usually run 70% to 75%. Runners are running roughly as often as they ought to. For Baez, stealing home, and he, remember, took a miraculous side to not be out,

his break-even rate was a little above 90%. He needed to be 90% sure that he would score in order to justify the attempt. So, no, there was not a 90% chance he was going to score. But I think this gets to something that is a much broader conversation to have. And I think that the viewpoint of owners, owners of front offices of a lot of analytical writers a lot of fans too is that there is nothing more there's nothing more entertaining better there's nothing better for the fans than winning and that the best way to win is to optimize your chances to win at every single situation i mean this is what the rays would say they're trying to

win as much as they can with almost impossible circumstances. And so they run their team in a way that's, you could say, very off-putting. But they are trying to be successful in the sense they've been successful this season. Same conversation with the A's. Winning, in a sense, is supposed to trump everything. But the counter-argument is, well, no, there's a lot that you can do that isn't optimal that is still very entertaining. And Javier Baez is kind of the example. Now, it's polarizing because I don't think that there is an actual answer. This is just something that appeals to one group of people or another.

But with Baez, you could say, well, no, it, of course, was not optimal for him to try to steal home, but how much more boring would baseball be if base runners always did what's optimal? And I don't actually know if it would be more boring or not there would still be extraordinary plays and people would still occasionally make daring attempts but you wouldn't have plays like this and and these are just fun to talk about even if bias is thrown out after the fact you could say well he's you know he he took a shot but boy he sure looked stupid he was out by 30 feet and it's a it's a talking point and it's an entertaining thing that happens so i understand when people say that the analytical approach the optimal approach is kind of dry and boring i do get it i think that maybe those people don't understand that you do

ultimately want your team to win and when the team is winning you'll find things to be entertained by but this is it's it's a compelling anecdotal counter argument i guess because yeah i would never design a player to be like Javier Baez, but then I would be missing out on this particular half season. Right. So one last thing I wanted to mention, we didn't celebrate it at the time. I think it happened on a Sunday, but this past week it was Bobby Bonilla Day, the day every year when Bobby Bonilla gets his check from the Mets, his deferred money, and it's, what, $1.2 million he gets from the Mets every year, and will continue to get that

every year through 2035. And he also, which I didn't realize, gets a second deferred payment of half a million every year that is split between the Orioles and the Mets. Anyway, I discovered that there are many of these kinds of contracts we always talk about and mock the Mets Bonilla contract. But Michael Meyer, who is the executive editor for Metsmerized and Mets Miners, he had a really fun thread just on Bonilla Day documenting all of the deferred contracts in baseball and all of these players that you haven't even thought of for years that are still making money from the teams that paid them. So for instance, well, Ichiro.

Ichiro is going to be paid by the Mariners. He is getting annual installments, I think, of interest on $25 million each January up until 2032. So that's an example. Another fun one was Bruce Suter who is still being paid by the Braves he's getting 1.1 million every year

from the Braves and will continue to get that every year through 2021 when he will also get a final balloon payment of 9.1 million Bruce Suter has not played for the Braves for 30 years and he is still getting This and anyway

I'll link to the thread because there are many Examples here the Mets are still Paying Brett Saberhagen Improbably and you know it's lots of Names on here that you just would not Know are still making money for being Major League Baseball players if You were on this kind of

Deferred contract from Fangraphs somehow, I don't know, that probably doesn't make sense, but if you were somehow getting these annual installments of something or other, how would you live your life? Would you live your life just without purpose because you were getting a million something dollars sent to you every year on the same date and you have to do literally nothing to support yourself would you be a happier person would you ever blog again would we ever hear from you again or would you just be on a different mountain every day except for the day when you had to come back to cash your check i think the podcasting schedule would be a lot more irregular we'd be yeah we'd be testing the wi-fi maybe i'd go out and try to discover the next russian baseball players but i mean now are we talking like what i make from

fangraphs or like a million dollar annual paycheck that i'm getting for fangraphs these are different i guess that yeah that does change things a little bit. But, well, does it change things? I don't know. I mean, would you live your life differently if you were making this much money? I mean, it seems like the thing that you enjoy doing most or that you try to do as your top priority when you are not chained to your keyboard is you just get to go travel and climb things and experience nature. And that can be an expensive hobby, but it's not the most expensive hobby. And if you had nothing else to do, then presumably you could do that with your current salary, I imagine. So would you just do that all the time or would you

actually pay attention to baseball? Climbing is cheap. Transportation is expensive, especially if you want to get international transportation. So that's a limiting factor. But I mean, if I'm getting a large, I don't want to call it a settlement, but just a large deferred paycheck, I would not be living my life in exactly the same way. But I could ask the same question of you. Now, I think everyone, this is a conversation that goes between do you want a federal jobs guarantee or a universal basic income, right? because people are looking for a purpose in their life as a and not just a paycheck but there's there's having a purpose and then there's working 60 hours a week towards your purpose yeah so that's a very different thing but how would how do you think that you would be living

your life if you had let's call it i don't know two hundred thousand dollars every single year i mean probably not that differently i guess I don't know. I kind of like what I do. It's a cliche to say that if you like your job, it doesn't feel like work, but there is some truth to that. And I think the fact that there's some variety in what I do, I can write about baseball, I can write about non-baseball, I can do podcasts, whatever. I might feel a little less urgency to hit a deadline or something or to pitch topics. Maybe some weeks I would just take the week off and say, what are you going to do? Let me go. Fine. I'll make more money than I'm currently making anyway.

So I guess I'd feel less pressure or anxiety, but I don't think I'd do anything differently because I don't know. I don't think I would like to live a life of leisure purely. I get a lot of satisfaction out of the work product I produce. So I think I'd probably novel or something, which is something I want to try doing and is tough to do when you're writing for a website. But I don't think I would stop writing or stop podcasting, so it probably wouldn't change my life all that much. Follow-up question. When is the last time you had just a day of leisure? I mean, yesterday was pretty leisurely. I didn't really do a whole lot of work on July 4th, but I don't know. I haven't officially taken time off for I don't know how long, but I have gone places and a week, but not always the same day. So I'll take a little trip sometimes and not do work and then do work in advance of that or do extra work when I come back or something. But I don't know. I just,

I'm not really the type of guy I think who would be lounging on a beach somewhere for weeks at a time. That can be fun for a while, but for me, I don't know. I'd kind of rather be doing what I do most of the time. All right. Highest Patreon tier, climb a mountain with Jeff or watch Ben type. Yeah. I enjoy climbing a mountain now and then. Probably not as high as the mountains that you climb. Yeah. Climb a mountain with both of us maybe someday if you want to support this podcast on your own for a year. All right. We have to get to our guest. So let me explain how this guest came about. So our guest today- This is so unreal.

It is. Our guest today is Sal Agustinelli, who is the Phillies International Scouting Director and has been the Phillies International Scouting Director, I believe, since 1997. But International Scouting Directors, not the best known baseball operations employees, not necessarily names that you would know if you're a casual fan of a team or not a fan of that team. And so I did not know offhand that Sal Agostinelli was the Phillies international scouting director, but he came up in an article that I wrote about Williams-Estadillo, the new twins catcher slash center fielder slash second baseman slash left fielder slash third baseman slash everything who never strikes out and never walks and is the antidote to the creeping rise of the three true outcomes rate.

I'll read these two sentences from my article. So I did a bunch of research to try to find precedents for Estadillo, try to find guys who had strikeout rates as low as Estadillo in the minors at some point. And spoiler, there isn't one, at least with the data that I had. So quoting here with the caveat that the stats aren't complete or official for all seasons and leagues, the database doesn't contain any record of a minor league hitter at any level striking out less often in a stay of at least 100 plate appearances than Astadio did when he went down on strikes just twice in 220 plate appearances in the 2011 Venezuelan Summer League. The only hitter who beat that rate relative to his league was a Bronx-born catcher with the extremely Bronx-sounding name of Sal Agustinelli, who struck

out once in 108 plate appearances in the 1983 Appalachian League and later topped out at AAA. So that was it. I didn't think any more of Sal Agustinelli. I should have. I regret it now, but I just thought, okay, Sal Agustinelli, player who never made the majors, had this one season where he really didn't strike out at all. So then I got a message from Matt Gelb, who had read the article, Matt Gelb, the Phillies writer for The Athletic, and he said, hey, you know, Sal Agustinelli, he's the Phillies scouting director, and also he signed or helped sign Williams-Hastadillo. So the one guy in history who has ever had, at least as far as I could find, a strikeout rate lower relative to his league than Williams-Hastadillo is the guy who signed Williams-Estadillo.

I mean, that's like the Johnny O'Brien, Ed O'Brien fun fact discovery for me, I think. Maybe, I mean, it's not a complete coincidence because as we talked about, I think there was maybe a tendency to look more favorably on Williams-Estadillo because he was so much like Sal, but that is quite a coincidence. Yeah. No, it blew your mind when you saw it. It blew my mind when I looked at my phone and you messaged that to me. I just couldn't.

And I wanted so badly to tell my fiance like, oh, my God, you have to. But then I realized like this is going to be like a 10-minute story and there's no way she could care at all. So it didn't go anywhere, but it made my Wednesday. Yeah, and if you're a Phillies fan, you should know Sal Agustinelli because he has signed a lot of players in his quarter century or so with the team. And yeah, like Astadillo, he is a 5'9 catcher, or at least listed at 5'9, who never really struck out.

So he is probably the closest comp to Astadillo and also the guy who is responsible or partly responsible for Estadio being a player. And he's alsoes, and the Phillies ranked fourth on that list thanks to Cesar Hernandez, Serenity Dominguez, and Michael Franco. And that's even with a negative six wins above replacement coming from Hector Neris, who is now back in the minors, I believe. So Sal Gastinelli, really good at his job and also really good at giving us Williams-Estadillo. By the way, we mentioned on this call that the Phillies entered the international signing period. That's the other thing. It just worked out very well that we talked to Sal because July 2nd, that's when the international signing

period starts. So we got to talk to Sal about international scouting and the Phillies have signed a bunch of players from all over the world. So we talked about that too. We mentioned that the Phillies entered the signing period with the lowest bonus pool because of the free agent contracts they've signed. I went to MLB Trade Rumors right after we wrapped up this interview. And during the interview, Sal said, you know, he's confident that Matt Klintak will get him more money. Well, that happened. So one of the top stories on MLB Truid rumors right now, Phillies acquire international bonus space from Cardinals for El Nieri Garcia. So the Phillies just traded for looks like half a million in international space for Sal to spend. So that is yet another testament to the Phillies' confidence in his scouting skills.

So we will take a quick break and we'll be back in just a moment with Sal. And by the way, I said bronc-sounding name, also bronc-sounding voice. Ha ha ha ha ha! So the internet has fallen in love with Williams STO this week, and we've been in love with Williams for a couple years, a few years, but we have not known him nearly as long as our to 150 or so days a year that he is actually home because he has just recently returned from the DR and has been busy signing prospects as the international signing deadline or opening day has just passed. Sal, hello, how are you? How are you guys doing today? Everything's doing good. Looking forward to a little bit of rest.

I can imagine. Yeah, so I want to ask you first, I guess, to provide a scouting report on yourself as a player. I know that you, like William Testadio, were a 5'9 catcher, still are, I suppose, and you didn't strike out a whole lot. But beyond that, what were you like as a player, and what were the similarities and differences? Well, William's a hell of a lot better player than me but i uh basically you know i i didn't i didn't strike out much i walked a lot

and i had no power but uh in this day and age you know having a over you know uh like a 340 330 you know on base percentage i guess is good these days so william, you know, he's a, he's a special kid. I mean, you know, I always knew that, you know, he had unbelievable back control for his age. He always, you know, hit the ball where it was pitched. Didn't strike out much from the day we saw him. I tried to find a position. I had him behind the plate, moving the second base,

moving the third base, finally moving the outfield. And then in winter ball, because of his bat, they always want to play him. In the winter ball, I saw him actually playing center field. So it just seems that when you have a good bat and you have a good bat control, you tend to find your way into the lineup, you know, and he did. Yeah. Well, what was the first moment that you laid eyes on him? Can you tell us, I mean, were you called in to see him by someone else? Did you see him? Was it a workout?

Yeah. Jesus Chalao-Mendez is my main guy in the Dominican. I mean, were you called in to see him by someone else? Did you see him? Was it a workout? Jesus Chalao-Mendez is my main guy in the Dominican. We've been together. We played together in the minor leagues with the Cardinals. So when I got the job, I hired him. But he went out to Porto La Cruz, and he called me, and he said, look, I saw this kid that I love his bat. You know, he's kind of a 5'9". He said he's the Sal Agustin.

He said, i like his body so well if he sees anything like me we probably shouldn't sign him then but uh anyway he came in and you know what i remember you know i remember him vividly because he was always really how can i say special to me simply because you know he was he was a grinder you know he was a guy that you know people would look at and say yeah you know is he really a prospect you know he's not that big he's kind of a chubby guy he's not good enough to catch he can't really run but he's not a bad player but you know every year he's hitting 300 and and you see the guys getting released all around him and and he was always standing there and you know the guys getting released all around them and, and he was always standing there and, you know, I mean,

he fought his way to the big league. So, I mean, you know, you know, like from the time I saw him in Porto, Porto LaCroix, to the time he came to our Academy in the Dominican and then, you know, to the time that he was a six year free agent, you know, and playing in the Florida state league, I always, you know, I was, I always had a thought. I didn't want to say I'm a great scouter or anything, but I knew he'd have a chance because he can hit.

So that's how I saw him. Obviously, for someone like Ben or myself, it's the numbers that bring Astadio to our attention, just the fact that he strikes out just about never, lowest strikeout rates that you can really find on record. But when you're actually scouting him, when you see him in the field, you see him coming up even in the in the lower minor leagues is there something you know it's one thing to say that he has really good bat control and that he's

always he's able to put the ball in play but is there something about him that you're able to spot that just says you know this guy isn't just a good bat control player this guy is actually exceptional in in how good he is at just keeping the ball in between the lines. He just, like, look, I don't know. As far as he understands himself, he understands the game, like, the psychology of hitting. I truly believe that. So, like, in my opinion, I truly believe that he understood throughout. You know, most guys have holes in their swings,

like on the outer part of the plate, on the inner part. You know, as a catcher, I've always, you know, been fascinated about pitch ability and how we get along. How do we go out? How do we get Joey Bell out? How do we get certain guys out? You know, when I played against him, you know, Albert Bell, you know, I was talking about whoever played that were the better hitters.

Basically, he doesn't, for me, he doesn't, other than probably the fact that because he doesn't try and turn on the ball as much as he should, like most guys do, he's, you know, put himself in a position that he'd rather make good contact on balls that, you know, he'd rather handle more pitches in the zone than look at one pitch in one part of the zone and hit it for more power. You get what I mean?

So he understands the psychology of being a good hitter, and he understands that he has to hit the ball to all fields to be a good hitter. And that's me. He understands that part of it. You can't, like, you throw him a good pitch, he knows how to foul it off. He stays in the zone. His bat stays in the zone all the time. So he's just one of those pesky hitters that pitchers don't like going to, you know what I mean? Yeah. So when you

are a scout who is a former player, as many scouts still are, do you have to battle a bias toward players who are like you were? I mean, is there an extra fondness there that you have to say, yeah, you know, he's not like me, but he's good? Or yeah, he's like me, but he's not good? Is that something that you have to be mindful of? Yeah, one of the parts in our reports is that player comparison. So we have to have a player comparison. And, you know, whether it's me, or, you know, he looks like or you know he looks like you know a former player he looks like you know braun or harper or anyone you know you kind of put that player comparison you know with him you know it was always you know he's not going to be because of his body size and

his strength and i'm a sick body guy that you know and and and people just tended to um when you do a body you know comparison just it's not the body comparison that would you know that you can look at in the big leagues and say god who does he really remind you of in the big leagues and you know there's not a whole lot of guys that have that type of body that play every day in the big leagues that's i guess what his tool said you You follow what I'm saying? Yeah. So how, when you, when you're out there scouting, how do you, obviously we know what the ideal sort of classic baseball bodies look like at different positions, but how do you reconcile what you're seeing talent-wise versus what you're seeing body-wise? I mean, obviously you're looking at the Phillies, you've got Cesar Hernandez, who's an undersized guy who's developed into a hell of a

player. Very clearly there's Jose Altuve in the American League who's shorter than anyone from the 19th century and he's still he's a batting champion so you're looking at someone like Williams Estadillo and I mean he's already played center field for a couple innings I think now with with the twins clearly not a classic center field and no one thinks he's a center fielder but how do you look at a skill set and either separate it from the body or or determine the right amount of weight to put on the body next to the actual baseball skill? Well, first off, I'd like to tell you that I think Carlos Ruiz was an atypical, you know, five foot seven. I mean, it said he was 5'10", but he was my height. He was 5'7", 5'8". So, I mean, there's a lot of good players. Me personally,

the way I scout is, look, bodies mean a lot to me, but, you know, to me, it's about hitting. It's about back control, which I keep bringing that. I know I say that word a lot. It's about guys who can, it's just hard to find. The hardest thing to find in baseball is guys who can hit. I mean, you know, it's funny. It's like you either sign guys that look the part or guys that have to prove themselves to look the part. I don't know if that makes sense.

or guys that have to prove themselves to look the part. I don't know if that makes sense. I mean, like, just because a guy's a thick body guy, once, all of a sudden, once he starts hitting, guys go, God, he don't look that bad anymore. You know what I mean? So that's how it works. A guy's hitting 330, he looks good.

So I kind of don't even, I don't worry about those things at all, because for me, it's more about, can he play a position, and how good is the bat? So when a guy's bat's really good, believe me, even if he's not a great outfielder or a great infielder, somehow or another he finds himself into the big leagues. And that's just the way it is, because for me, hitting is the hardest thing to find. There is just not that many guys who can handle balls in different parts.

As you know, with all the strikeouts in the big leagues, you know what I mean? It's hard to find good hitters. And I think that, you know, with the advent of, you know, obviously you guys with Fangraph and, you know, we start doing statistical data on all this stuff, you start realizing it's really hard to hit. You know what I mean? And that's, for me, how I look.

I look at the bat as a major component, you know, on the grades. And then of course he moved on to the Braves and the Diamondbacks and never made the majors with them. At this point, it's been almost a decade, I guess, since you first saw him and he is just making the majors now. So did you personally think of him as a prospect in the sense that if you're going to make the majors, that makes you a prospect relative to the typical minor league player? So, you know, if Baseball America had known even that he would make the majors and play a few positions in the majors, then probably he would have been higher than 28th or unranked. So did you personally think of him? I mean, I guess you sign him or help sign him and then it's kind of out of your hands to a certain extent and that, you know,

he gets developed and he's kind of the the farm directors and the coaches and and they're taking him on but did you kind of think of him all along as yeah he's going to make it someday maybe not with us but someday somewhere yeah i mean i look look one thing about william you know i'm gonna you know i'll be lying if i just said yeah i knew he was going to make it 100 i always thought he had a chance to make it because he can hit. Our people in minor leagues always gave him an opportunity. I mean, we moved him around. He always hit well.

And then, you know, at one point you get to be a six-year free agent. Then, you know, he probably thought I wasn't sure about how, whether we offered him something or he felt better past year. I think what happened there was is that the Atlanta Braves offered him a major league spring training inviter. I forget. I talked to him about that.

But anyway, long story short, he's just a guy that when I looked at him, I actually thought he had a chance to play in the big leagues because of the bat. And I think that he just had to find his way to the big leagues. And it wasn't going to be in a conventional, you know, way. It was going to be through hard work. And it's just simply, it's no one's fault. It's just defensively, he's fair. And now he's probably a little bit better.

But I think when you're fair, they always look to tendency to want to get a guy better. So they're always like, well, yeah, he does hit pretty good. But, you know, we might have this guy who might wind up being a better player at the big league level. And you always get caught that, you know, that's just something that happens, you know, and, you know, other players have had that happen to them too. I mean, Wade Boggs spent a long time in the minor leagues. You know, they didn't, they thought that Wade Boggs needed to hit for more power, but he came up, had a great career and, you know, just some guys need to work harder to get there. hour. But he came up, had a great career, and just some guys need to work harder to get there.

So this is kind of about Estadio and kind of just a general question, but since you are signing and making decisions and evaluating guys who are often 16, 17, how do you judge their body type? Because when you saw Estadio, if he's 16 or 17, you don't necessarily know for sure that he's not going to grow at some point, but how do you gather information on, you know, trying to project a guy's body type because it's just so hard to do at that age? You know, it's a really good question. Basically, the way we do it is basically look at the parents, you know, you look at the mom and dad, you try to get a feel for the grandpa, you know, just the family overall. You look at the body structure, you look at the hips. I mean, you know, when we signed Cesar Hernandez, you know, I mean, like, for instance, Freddy Galvez. We signed Freddy Galvez.

I saw his dad. I knew it was Freddy Galvez. You know, his dad's at my height. You know what I mean? I knew he wasn't going to be really big, but, you know, I mean, you know, I knew he was going to play in the middle of the infield, and I knew he would stay there. So, you know, I figured that, you know, he wasn't going to, you know, go. So I think it's a little bit of just investigating the family and then have an experience look at him and like you said

comparing like saying okay you know i remember a guy like caesar hernandez when he was you know younger so now if i see another kid with that thin frame structure and i think about him and i say well you know guys or call suiz or you know colos kowalski when i saw him at 16 years old there's many guys that were excited over the years. When you piece it together, you kind of look at them and say, yeah, this guy, I remember it. And, you know, generally, I guess over a period of time, you know, you kind of figure out, and sometimes you're wrong.

Some guys you look at, and then all of a sudden, you know, they don't get stronger. You know, you do the best you can. But at 16 years old, making decisions is a very difficult thing. But, you know, that's basically, you go on past history and try to stick to your gut on the number of plays you've signed over 21 years of doing international baseball, you know? So when we're writing, when we're analyzing baseball, we're talking about what's going on at the major league level. We're talking about team strategies, player improvement,

pitch development, all this kind of stuff, all culminating in the playoff hunt trying to win the world series but how how do you measure success in in your own role and how connected do you feel to say the the gabe capler on field product with the phillies are you judging success by how many of the players that you sign and scout make it to the major leagues anything beyond that how uh how closely related to the actual major league Philadelphia Phillies are you? Well, first of all, I speak for Kyle quite a bit. He's a great guy. You know, he is really engaged in what I'm doing.

And Johnny Almaraz is, you know, the amateur director. Joe Jordan, minor league. He's a, you know, he keeps, I mean, he always gives us credit. He knows what we're doing. He knows the July 2nd date. He's a, you know, he, he, he, I mean, he always gives us credit. He knows what we're doing. He knows the July 2nd date. He knows the draft. I mean, he, he gave us, you know, during the draft and inspirational speech. I mean, you know, yeah, we do a lot of work together, but you know, how do I, you know, with cap, but how do I judge what I do? My, my job is just to try to bring the best, you know,

international players to the Phillies and utilize my cap space for the best amount from that, Clint Tack and Brian and the guys that are my superiors, and just to continually be ahead of the game. I challenge my workers, my scouts and our people to make sure we're seeing the players first, getting an early look at them, getting a lot of looks. Let me know who the best players, you know,

I deal with our area scouts a lot. I deal with our cross checkers a lot. I'm on the phone with them constantly. I want to know who the best Cubans are. I want to know, I want to know guys that I want to know guys early, so I can get a good look at them and know, know their makeups and stuff. And like, I don't want a guy that's, you know, 16 or 17 years old that we might have to give money to that we don't have a good background. And it's a challenge for each area scout to know their players so the cross-checkers could see them and then I could see them.

And you have to constantly – our guys know, since we've been together so long, how to do it. And they understand, and they understand it, and they take it serious, and they know, you know, this is a competitive business. If you don't know the players in your area, you're not going to be on top of your game, and, you know, you know, I was a little catcher, you know, I always had to work hard to do everything I did in my life, you know, I wasn't blessed with the greatest skills, but, you know, I guess in this field, if you work really,

really hard and you do your job and you do due diligence and you investigate and you see the kids and you're working hard, you're going to get good players. And I truly believe that. And I think all of our employees, all of our workers, all of our scouts understand that. So I'm just a part of the puzzle. They're a big part also. And together, we come up with a good product. And I think that we've done a good product and you know i think that

we've done a good job and you know like i hopefully continually can continue to do it but i think it is a process and it's it's an intriguing process people always ask me a lot of questions where people come from where they go but it you know it's it's really a process especially doing the world but it's the area scouts within these individual countries in these small areas have to know their players. And it's all the way up the line, you have to be on your game. So that's basically how it works.

I mean, I don't know. I know that was a long dissertation, but it's just the way, that's how we do it, you know? Yeah. Well, this year you've had a handicap to work with in that because of the Jake Arrieta signing and the Carlos Santana signing, the Phillies had the lowest or smallest bonus pool of any team, just under $4 million.

And as you were just telling us before we started recording, sounds like it hasn't stopped you from signing guys. You've signed 14 guys, four from the Dominican, 10 from Venezuela. You've had a history. I was talking to one of our prospect guys, Kylie McDaniel, and he said that under your tenure, the Phillies have done really well, often with some low to medium bonus guys who really exceeded their expectations, whether it's Sixto Sanchez or Michael Franco or Galvis, you mentioned, Cesar Hernandez. So how has your job been affected, I guess, both by the international

restrictions on spending that were put in place a few years ago and this year, particularly with so little available to you, how have you made it work regardless? Well, you know, number one is we're a team and, you know, Matt is really, you know, engaged in what we do down here, just as Cap is. And, you know, we have to do more projecting when you have less money. Sometimes you'll hit on a guy. Like, the more money you give a guy, the closer the guy is, you know what I mean, to the big leagues and to having the type of stuff,

whether it be a pitcher or, you know, bat speed. Or sometimes you sign a guy for $70,000, you're really dreaming. or sometimes you sign a guy for 70 grand, you're really dreaming. So you may sign three or four of those guys and one or two winds up being the guy, but you're projecting a lot more. And, you know, sometimes people go, God, some, you know, you look at him and go, man, I don't see it, you know, but you do project. And sometimes you hit on that. And when you don't have enough money, you have to spread out your money the right way.

Or you might, instead of going after a $3 million guy, you go after a million and a half million guy and you wind up getting that guy. And then you have to take the rest of your money and be creative with it. Okay, let's get a couple of good arms. Let's get lucky and get a 16 Sanchez. Let's get a Medina for 75 grand. We got a kid named Guzman for 49. And that's a testament to the scouts in our area. So I want to give them credit because, you know, guys like Carlos Salas and Jesus Mendez and now Aquino and all our area scouts, you know, they are really, really good at digging players out. And I think that that's a testament to those guys. So even though we have a small bonus pool, we'll make it work because I don't matter.

Try to get me money another year. We'll make it work and we'll get players. We will get players. It's just, you know, we do the best we can. That's all we can do, you know? But I think at the end of the day, I have confidence that with our guys, we're going to, every year we'll get a guy

that no one thought would play and he kind of plays up the line a little bit. So I remember about 17, 18 years ago, it was brief, but down in Everett, up in Washington, the Mariners had a low-miners pitching prospect named Oleg Korniev, and he was out of Moscow. And he was the first Russian prospect that I remember hearing about. And just by coincidence, the day we're talking to you, Megan Montemurro had an article on The Athletic

talking about the atypical places where the Phillies have been able to find some prospects. And one of them, I don't know how many Russians there are in affiliated ball right now, but one of them is Anton Kuznetsov, who's pitching the low minors for the Phillies right now. So are you able to speak to just how, what's different about not only scouting a player from somewhere like Russia, but also just

developing him along the way and helping him sort of assimilate into a clubhouse culture that he never would have been exposed to where he was playing before? Well, you know, number one thing is no matter where in the world, in the world, there's, believe it or not, there's baseball being played all around the world. Italy has a professional team. France has a professional team. Germany, Holland, you know, Russians. The Russians come over. MLB has done a good job.

They do camps every summer. Actually, I got most of my guys going around to camps. Obviously, you know, the kid Gift from Nigeria who played with Pittsburgh in the big leagues. You know, there's guys in the big leagues from everywhere. You know, and's guys in the big leagues from everywhere, you know, and you have to exhaust, you know, one of our guys, believe it or not, saw, you know, Anton up in, you know, he saw him at a work, MLB workout, called me up and says, look, I really,

really want to sign this guy. And I said, oh, well, you know, he sounds good. And I, honestly, I never saw the guy, but I trust our scout Claudio in Italy. He's been a pitching coach for years. You know, you know, Sherato, his name is, and said, I really want to sign the guy because I think the guy's got pitch ability. He said, you know, he reminds me of, he, he, he, he threw out the bow floor, you know, bow for the guy that's been around with the lefty.

He said, that's who I think he is. I said, well, if you think he's bow for that guy's been in the big leagues for 10 years, we'll take a shot at him for whatever it was, 20 grand or whatever we gave him. So, you know, the bottom line is wherever their players are, we have, we have scouts in Taiwan. We just signed a Taiwanese player. We signed a French player, a right-hand pitcher that's six foot nine. I don't know if you know him, he's another Anton, but we just signed him. And, you know, we signed a player from Australia,

a couple of players from Australia. So, I mean, we're out there. I mean, there's players out there and we're going to go ahead, you know we signed a player from australia a couple of players from australia so i mean we're out there i mean there's players out there and and we're going to go ahead you know from the standpoint of communication anton speaks the russian anton speaks english and so does the french anton speaks english and these guys are believe it or not they're engaged in baseball because they play baseball these guys are like like you go go to Germany and go to Regensburg, Germany, there's an academy there that people play baseball, and they're out there on the field every day playing. So I know we look at Brazil as a country that has only soccer,

but they're complex in Ibuena that Otsuka is the head guy there. He's a Japanese gentleman. He owns this huge academy and they have all baseball players playing there. We know where to go to see the ball players because they're in those areas, whether it's Brazil or it's Colombia, which is Cartagena and Bonnacchia has a lot of players.

And Panama, all these countries have their specific areas. So it's not unusual to go to these countries and have baseball. It really or two. And a lot of them are in international markets that didn't really used to be fertile baseball markets. And so in Megan's article, she mentioned that the Phillies hired 17 international scouts this past off season and have full-time scouts in South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Mexico, Australia. So do you tend to hire natives from those countries to scout those countries or not? Because you're a guy from the Bronx, obviously, who's ended up spending a lot of time in the DR in Venezuela, and you've gotten to know those

territories. So is it advantageous to have people who are from those countries and are familiar with those markets and the language and the culture? Or do you often send people into a new market knowing that they can scout but not necessarily having experience in that area? Well, I think what happens over a period of time when you do an area, it's all about experience. I mean, first getting to the fact about the analytic stuff and the number of scouts and all that. first getting to the fact about the analytic stuff and the number of scouts and all that, first of all, you know, for me, as a guy who's been through Odyssey's transitional phase between the regular baseball guys and the analytic stuff, and people have always asked me that question.

For me, I think you need both. I mean, to me, numbers make sense. You look at the numbers, they give you something and you're able to use those numbers and utilize them to your best of your ability. They mean something., numbers mean something. And, you know, calculating, you know, important information, whether it be on base percentage or, you know, the bit, whatever, you know,

all the numbers that they've come up with over the years for me, you utilize it and then you take your baseball common sense and you put it together and you come up with a good, you know, it's like a computer spitting out a good, you know, some good information that you make good decisions on. And I think that more the more information like I don't feel when you're going to give a person a lot of money, there's too much information. You always need information. And I think that's what it gives us. That's number one on as far as that. The second is, is when you when you have experience and you go around and you've been in these countries, whether it be Taiwan in 1997, I went to the World Championships there,

and you go to these countries and you get to meet people. You meet guys at games. You meet coaches. You meet people. And when it's an opportunity to give a guy employment, you go back on your Rolodex in your mind or you might stick a guy's number in there that you thought was kind of interesting with some baseball background and you go in and interview those guys and it comes from experience of over the years of being you know you go to Italy um I saw Claudio Strada was working for another team they let him go I said you know I like

Claudio he's a pitching coach on the national team he knows baseball he's a smart baseball guy you know when you talk to him he has baseball high iq i liked him so i hired him i think it's kind of an experienced thing to hire good guys you have to know them and be around them enough and little by little you put together a staff you know of guys that you know that have a chance and you know overall you need to know the guy because for me work ethic is probably you know for me, work ethic and evaluation, but if you don't have a good work ethic, it's really difficult to do good at this job. By getting to know the people, I think that's how you can put a staff together of guys, but you need to have some experience of not just hiring anyone that someone just throws your way. You have to know them a little bit. I don't know if you get what I mean. throws your way. You kind of have to know them a little bit. I don't know if you get what I mean.

So work ethic, clearly, it's important for the people scouting the players, and it's obviously of vital importance to the players themselves. And so if you have someone who's very talented at baseball, has zero work ethic, he's not going to be successful. You have someone who has a very strong work ethic and no baseball talent, he's also not going to be successful, or at least not at baseball. But I understand work ethic is it's sort of captured under the makeup umbrella, which is part of what you're scouting for. But how, where do you at least personally have your sort of balance between how talented a guy needs to be versus how driven and sort of maybe not one track minded, but committed to improving at baseball and really understanding baseball. How important is the work ethic and determination aspect of a player to you to sort of help raise the career ceiling of someone who's already fairly talented?

Yeah, you know what? That's a great question. I mean, you're giving me really good questions, I'll tell you, because I'm very analytical about trying to pinpoint things that are going to make a difference for me to get, because everything I do, it's calculated. You know, because, and that's what I see analytics, they're trying to get that one specific, trying to get a good answer to the best. And when I look at the whole process of a guy who is makeup,

I look at in terms of how much ability does he have. If you don't have good makeup and you have marginal ability, you're not going anywhere. If you have average ability and you have bad makeup, you're not going anywhere. You're a minor league player. You're not going to get to the big leagues. It's going to be difficult even with average talent to be there

because, you know, I see it all the time. I see guys with a lot of talent. Even the coaches get tired of looking at you when you don't have good work or you don't drive. But you have other people there that have the drive, and the coaches themselves want to put that guy in. They tend to like that guy better. I don't know.

They don't want that low-motor guy around. They just don't want those kind of guys better. I don't know. They don't want that low-motor guy around. They just don't want those kind of guys around. I don't know if you get what I mean. So it's, yeah, talent. Yeah, you need talent. Now, if you have an above average talent, you're really talented and you're a jerk

or you're lazy, they'll deal with that. And that happens at the big league level. Because your talent is so much better than everybody else. But if you have average talent and you're lazy, they'll deal with that. And that happens at the big league level because your talent is so much better than everybody else. But if you have average talent and you're compared to a guy with average, you know what I mean? Or even a guy with marginal talent, he winds up being better than the guy

because the guy with no work ethic, he winds up, his ability goes backwards. You get what I'm saying? And that's where the main problem is. If you don't have the work ethic even if you're good you wind up not being that good simply because you have to work at this to be good at it it's not an easy game so i know that i don't know if you can understand what i was trying to say but i did the best ability i mean it's a little bit confusing but i truly believe

guys with bad work ethic or that are not driven have a very difficult time being a good player at the big league level. So this is sort of a question of, I guess, personal preference. But if you can speak not only for yourself, but also various other scouts in general, player development people in general. You look at Aaron Nola. Aaron Nola has always been a very good pitcher. He's developed into the ace of the Phillies, one of the better pitchers in the National League. He's healthy and he's followed the trajectory so that now he's around his ceiling. And now you can compare that to a guy like Cesar Hernandez who is not really off the radar. He was more of a quiet prospect, undersized, second baseman. You know, people say there's not really such a thing as a second base prospect. Anyway, he's come up and he's turned into a very good everyday player. So from your perspective, just in terms of, you know, it's the end of the day, you're reflecting on how things are going. Do you find yourself more satisfied by the really good prospect who turns into a very good major league player or sort of the off the radar prospect who turns into a solid major league player? You know, the off the radar, look, I mean,

into a solid major league player? You know, the off-the-rate, look, I mean, it's very simple. Number one is, I don't know, his makeup is off the charts, and he has every intangible to make it. And, you know, let me answer your question this way. I believe when a guy, you get a guy out of nowhere, and he's not an undersized guy, and he winds up making it, it's always a little more satisfying because you kind of dug him out. The good player that winds up being the good player,

people expect him to be good. The other guy, it's almost like, you know, the diamond in the rough. That's what they always say. Scouting, everybody's looking for that diamond in the rough, and I think that that's more satisfying. Obviously, we want both of them to be good, but I think it's more satisfying to have a guy, to get four or five guys to the big leagues that weren't supposed to make the big leagues at all, and they make it.

I mean, let's face it, that makes every draft, that makes every international signing period. That's what we're all looking for. So I think there's a little more satisfaction in finding the diamond in the rough. So I know that you do some domestic amateur coverage too, and you'll go look at some of the top guys before the drafts presumably you were doing that a couple months ago and then you switch to going back to the dr event as well and seeing these very different guys so that must be just two completely different types of scouting in some senses and that even if you're looking at guys who are around the same age even if you're looking at high school players often here you're looking at guys who've been in good programs.

They've had good coaching. They've been on travel teams. They've had all the best equipment and conditions. Then you're going to the DR Venezuela. You're seeing guys who are playing on the proverbial bumpy field with the glove and the ball that they made out of tape or something and just adverse conditions. And then you're going to some of these really international markets that haven't produced a whole lot of players. And there the guys may hardly even know how to play baseball.

You're looking almost at their athletic talents and physical gifts as much as their kind of baseball smarts. So how transferable are the skills there? How much do you have to kind of recalibrate what you're looking at or looking for when you're in these very different markets? I'm very, very fortunate, first of all, that I'm able to go do a lot of amateur stuff, give myself enough time. Matt, Brian, and Johnny, they allow me to go out.

I'll be honest with you, what it does is it sharpens my look at these different players. I, you know, I look at the long projections in Latin America. I look at the difference in educational in certain countries, you know, seeing where these guys from these programs in the States, LSU, all these other, I mean, it's just, it's just a tremendous opportunity to make me as good as I can be to be able to make good decisions. When you see a guy and you look at a guy at 21 years old that's going to be, you know, we're taking him to the top round or second or third round, and he's a heck of a player and he's polished. And then I kind of look at those international guys and go, you know what?

You know, this guy, everything clicks right. You know, I know it's a long way away, but if we can polish this guy up a little bit, he could look like this guy. So it's always the comparison. And, you know, I look or I look at a shortstop at, you know, Stanford, the guy who went for, you know, Nico. And when he went in the first round, now I look at a guy, I said, you know what, if this kid gets a little stronger, he can be that type of kid.

And, you know, it's all comparing and just really projecting on those Latin players compared to the American guys that have a polish to them. And you know what you're going to get. You see a guy pregnant at LSU, you know, good player, Team USA. You're looking at him and you say, okay, this guy's a good player. He's going to be a good player in the big leagues. And you turn around and you look at a guy in Latin America and you say, well, I'm hoping that guy could wind up being a Bregman someday.

So all these things together, you know, kind of make you better and it gives you different perspective and sharpens your, you know, sharpens your ability to scout, in my opinion. So, you know, it's really, really, perspective and sharpens your ability to scout, in my opinion. I think what we talked about earlier as far as the overall procurement of talent either comes internationally or it comes from the draft. If you see all the best players in the world, hopefully over a period of time, you make good decisions. Hopefully. best players in the world, hopefully over a period of time, you make good decisions. Hopefully.

So last thing I wanted to ask you, Astadio, of course, is from Venezuela. You've had a lot of success signing players out of Venezuela, but of course there is a lot of political unrest there. There are safety concerns. I know players even in the majors are often sort of distracted by looking at what's going on in their native country and can they even go back there over the offseason or is it too dangerous? So how has that affected what you do and what teams in general do as far as ensuring the safety of your scouts, your players? You know, you have Venezuelan Summer League players there. You have to make sure that they're taken care of. What kind of additional challenge does that present well you know number one we you know we're one of the last teams to have an academy organization is really you know back us as far as keeping that you know

as much as we can i know with the political unrest but the one thing i can say is i have a visa to go that i do i go to uh venezuela quite often you know at least three times a year um i have many of my you know workers we have five scouts year. I have many of my, you know, workers. We have five scouts there. We have a cross checker there. Jesus Mendes is a good friend of mine. They take care of me. I land at the airport.

I go to their complex. I mean, I'll be honest with you. In the sense of being in the baseball, quote, unquote, world, it really things haven't changed as far as baseball is concerned. Like, you go to the field, people love baseball. I mean, you go to a winter league game and it's just like you got cheerleaders there and people love baseball. So, you know, yeah, is it a little bit scary thinking about and I feel really bad for the people down there. I know they're going through a lot. It is difficult.

You know, I worry about my wife, my family worries about our safety. But overall, you know, the people there, you know, I've been going there for many, many years. And when I go there, I just basically do my job. And I don't want to give myself bad luck if they haven't had a problem. But generally, we're in safe areas watching baseball. And the people down there respect what we do. And it's never really been an issue. But, you know, I hope that they can resolve all their problems

and get back to where it was years ago. But I'm not quite sure, you know, when that will happen. But as far as baseball is concerned, Major League Baseball has given us, you know, numbers to call. They've done a good job of doing showcases and changing the venues around. You know, but overall, you know, obviously it's changed a lot. But we're still going in there. We love Venezuelan players. the venues around, you know, but overall, you know, obviously it's changed a lot, but we're still going in there.

We love Venezuelan players. They play a lot of ball when they're young. They play Little League baseball. You know, I think all the scouts that do Venezuela, you know, we all go in there and we feel comfortable going in there, I believe, you know? Well, I'm glad we got to talk to you. It was Williams Estadillo who led us to you, but you've been described by Ruben Amaro as a scouting superstar, and we haven't even talked about a lot of the other high-profile players

you've had a hand in siding, whether it's Carlos Carrasco and Domingo Santana. And I know you've sort of built up the Phillies international program almost from scratch when you took it over 20-something years ago. I know you have stories. I was reading about how you took weights for players to work out with just in the overhead bin on an airplane. Yeah. I went to Models. Every time I'd go down there in 97, they didn't have any weights. I used to go. I'd take the Phillies credit card, go to Models. I'd buy down there in 97, they didn't have any weight. So I bought – I used to go. I'd take the Phillies credit card, go to Modell's. I'd buy 100 pounds of weight and then put it in this canvas bag.

And then I'd put it in the overhead and pray to God I wouldn't have – wouldn't hit turbulence. This thing would fall on my head. But you know what? You know what? It's amazing because I'm 56 now, and I look, I'm going to be 57 in September. And I look back and, you know, how blessed I am to be with the Phillies for all these years. And, you know, this will be my 30th year coming up that I got traded from the Cardinals here.

And, you know, just overall, what a great organization. You know, the people here. I mean, even, you know, Andy McSale, David Montgomery, Matty Klintak. You know, all the guys here. You know, Benny Lupo, I worked with here. Ruben Amaro was great. You know, all the guys that I've worked with, Dallas Green, who I miss dearly.

I'm very, very fortunate to have that opportunity to do what I, you know, do for all these years because, you know, I love doing it and I'm blessed. And I was able to give a lot of people jobs and help people along the way, you know, get, you know, look down at the bullpen that I used to catch in years ago. And I'll sit in the tower and look and go, God, 30 years ago, that was me down there in that bullpen, you know what I mean? Catching the ball. And, and so anyway, like I said, I'm,

I'm really blessed to be with a great organization, great people. And, you know, I get a little emotional, but it really is. It's a, it's a, I appreciate you guys. You guys seem like hopefully one day we can meet and go out and have a beer together or something. Yeah, well, Phillies fans should be grateful for your work, and we're grateful that you brought us William Zestadillo because he's enriched our lives. So if you're watching the Phillies, you'll see the product of Sal's labor every day on the field. If you're in the New York area, I don't know how you even have time to do this, but you run baseball training camps and facilities in Kings Park on Long Island. So if you're in the area, you can go learn how to play and catch from Sal.

If he's even around, I don't even know how you fit that into your schedule. You know, hey, I want to tell you, my baseball stuff has gone backwards. I've spent so much time, you know, that was kind of my, when I was an area scout, doing a lot more of it. I do, very limited, but I do like training, having fun with kids. I love the kids. That's why I enjoy doing Latin America. I mean, you get young kids and you see them get to the big leagues. It's probably the most enjoyable thing you could ever do, you know?

Yeah. Well, we'll link to your site. It's salsbaseball.com. So thank you very much, Sal, for coming on and sharing this insight with us. All right. Talk to you soon, guys. Thank you. All right.

Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. That will do it for today. You can support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectivelywild. Following five listeners have already signed up on Patreon and pledged their support. Sal Cacciatore, Patrick Liao, Zach Busser, John Sagal, and Tim Rachko. Thanks to all of you.

You can also join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectivelywild. And you can rate and review and subscribe to Effect wild on itunes and many other podcast providers thanks to dylan higgins for his editing assistance please keep your questions and comments for me and jeff coming via email at podcast thefangraphs.com we will probably answer emails next time you can also message us through the patreon messaging system if you are a supporter so we will be back with another episode soon. Perhaps I was mistaken, I should have gone a different way When I find a millionaireess, I'll say Meet me where the pampas grass will touch the sky

And love will fly above the blue lagoon