Wednesday Morning Hot Links

The Baseball Hall of Fame class of 2016 election announcement will take place this evening, and you can bet on...some sort of strong reaction either way.

*Things are looking good for Bagwell, writes Ortiz.

*Bagwell doesn't know what to expect with the results.

*The Boston Herald's Steve Buckley thinks any voter who doesn't share their ballot should lose their vote. (Agree).

*Here's FiveThirtyEight with an article on how the BBWAA has ignored the last 50 years of baseball.

*The Astros made some reassignments/hirings yesterday. To break it down (New hirings in italics):

Corpus

Dave Borkowski: Pitching coach

Lancaster

Ramon Vazquez: Manager

Quad Cities

Omar Lopez: Manager
Chris Holt: Pitching coach

Tri-City

Drew French: Pitching coach
Dillon Lawson: Hitting coach

Greeneville

Josh Bonifay: Manager
Bill Murphy: Pitching coach

GCL Astros

Wladimir Sutil: Latin Infield Instructor

Aaron Delguidice (Fresno/Lancaster) and Tommy Kawamura (Corpus/Quad Cities) have been named as development coaches.

*Evan Drellich notes that Omar Lopez was originally supposed to be the Lancaster coach, and was assigned to Quad Cities, while Vazquez was originally the coach for the GCL Astros and got the big jump to Lancaster.

*And here's the rundown on all those changes, from Evan Drellich.

*Uh-oh. Derek Jeter's trainer is linked to the alleged Peyton Manning HGH supplier.

Arizona Fall League participants announced

This afternoon Astros announced the PreStros who will be participating in the 2013 Arizona Fall League.

Pitchers: Jonas Dufek, Matt Heidenreich, Andrew Robinson, and Alex Sogard
Infielders: Japhet Amador, Nolan Fontana, Jonathan Meyer (active only on Wednesdays and Saturdays), and Delino DeShields.

They'll be playing for the Peoria Javelinas, managed by former ValleyCat manager Jim Pankovits. Dave Borkowski will also be a coach for the team, and trainer Bryan Baca will be present, as well.

Dave Borkowski helped Mike Foltynewicz

Here's a nice little profile on Mike Foltynewicz from his hometown paper, in which he credits his 2012 success to pitching coach Dave Borkowski.

Foltynewicz:

“We finally figured everything out. All the parts were clicking. Basically, my pitching coach and I sat down before the season and talked about everything. The mental part is big, getting prepared right before a game and getting prepared properly on the days leading up to your next start. We figured it out and I had one heck of a year.

Click the link for the whole story on strength and pitch selection. 

Field reports on Bushue and Hallock

Jayne over at What the Heck Bobby had a chance to talk with Lexington pitching coach Dave Borkowski about the struggles of Tanner Bushue and Kyle Hallock. As we noted earlier, both pitchers were sent back to extended spring training yesterday.

Borkowski fixed some of Foltynewicz's mechanics

Here's a story from Foltynewicz's hometown about his experiences in Lexington, but the most interesting part is the work done by Legends pitching coach Dave Borkowski:

Foltynewicz's neck would bend back when he would follow through in his delivery, and he wasn't keeping his eye on the glove, so that's part of the reason his wildness came about.

Borkowski also noticed that his pitcher wasn't keeping his leg straight enough coming out of the stretch. Now, Foltynewicz is doing that and he's on more of a downward plane.

"We've made a couple adjustments and it's really helped the command of his fastball, and I think things are going to take off for him," Borkowski said. "He's worked his butt off to make this stuff work."

In April, May, and June Foltynewicz averaged 3.65 BB/9. In his last four starts (21IP), he has walked just five batters, for a 2.14 BB/9 rate.

Good article - definitely worth a click.

Recap of Angel Gonzalez' 6IP no-no

Nice little write-up of Greeneville pitcher Angel Gonzalez' no-hit outing this morning.

Greeneville pitching coach Dave Borkowski:
"Basically I took him in the 'pen and we worked on his fastball and getting it down on lefties and hard and in on righties...

..."He started off the game quick, got two quick outs and then got a little fine and got in a rut. From the second on, he pounded the zone, made the hitters swing at his pitch and forced the hitters to be aggressive. He did a heck of a job."

Castro, C-Lo invited to Major-League Spring Training

Not much of a shocker here, but Castro and C-Lo have been invited to Big Team Spring Training, along with catchers Brian Esposito, Lou Santangelo, and pitcher Shane Loux.

Wade, on Castro:
"He's going to get every opportunity to make the club,"

On C-Lo:
"We think he's got a legitimate chance to make our club. We're very pleased with what we've seen in a short period of time in our organization."

I feel an affinity for C-Lo, as he was the first signing that Astros County reported, back in November 2008.

Shane Loux, however, is a recent signee, says McTaggart:
Loux spent the 2009 season in the Angels organization and split time between the Majors and Minors. In 18 appearances (six starts) with the Angels, he was 2-3 with a 5.86 ERA. He had a 3.81 ERA in a combined nine games (six starts) between Triple-A Salt Lake City and Class A Rancho Cucamonga.

And if you're keeping score at home, the Astros have hired Dave Borkowski to be the pitching coach at Greeneville, spending his last three seasons in the Astros' organization.