In his first year as manager Brad Mills encouraged Astros players to rely extensively on video to scout opponents and analyze their own performance, and now Zachary Levine of the Houston Chronicle reports that the team is eliminating the position of “advance scout” to focus even more on video work.
The news isn’t quite as noteworthy as it may sound, because as Levine writes some teams don’t even employ an “advance scout” to begin with and the Astros are simply re-assigning their guy to another role in the organization.
However, with the amazing advancements in the technology of baseball over the past few years it’s interesting to see which teams are taking advantage of the new types of information and information delivery systems available to them. There’s a competitive advantage to be gained for the teams smart enough to figure out how to put the data and technology to good use.