"The Astros were dial-up, now they're nearing 4G"

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Derrick Goold has an article on former Cardinal Jeff Luhnow, and his resurrection process of the Astros. It's a good article (because Goold is a good writer), but there are a couple of things to note:

Jim Crane:
"That's something we were told if we wanted to own a team we'd have to go to the American League, and that meant if it was us or anybody. The fans like the National League, but it was out of our control. ... I told the guys if we're going to win the World Series, we're going to have to beat everybody, so what's the difference?"

Goold:
Luhnow said Houston's use of statistics in 2011 was similar to the Cardinals when he arrived in 2003. That's been brought up to speed. They were dial-up, now they're nearing 4G.

Luhnow, on the farm system:
"We're trying to take a farm system that by many third-party views is in the bottom five of baseball and turn into a top-five system. Part of doing that is acquiring prospects any way you can. We have to deal from areas where we have depth. And we're going to do it again, too."

Luhnow, on analyzing minor-league players

Over at What the Heck, Bobby, there's a little note about an exchange between Jayne and Jeff Luhnow on the analysis of minor-league players:

Jayne:
He agreed with me that the use of stats such as BABIP and FIP, etc. are not particularly useful in analyzing minor league players, especially at the lower levels since the competition can be so uneven. He explained to me that his staff will be delving much more deeply. They will literally be tracking every single pitch and every single stroke of the bat in every single situation. They aren't just looking at atoms; they are looking at quarks and neutrinos. They will be able to view a player's performance at the most fundamental level in order to facilitate that player's maximum potential and predict future performance. That's smart.

Astros sign minor-league infielder Jordan Kreke

The Astros have signed infielder Jordan Kreke to a minor-league contract.

Kreke, who will be 25 in May, was a 13th-Round draft pick of the Braves in 2009 out of Eastern Illinois University (the same round that the Astros drafted Jake Goebbert). In part of three seasons (1139 PAs), Kreke has hit .239/.311/.311, and hit .218/.262/.288 for Double-A Mississippi in 2011. He has played 3B (125 games), 2B (123 games), SS (47 games), LF (2 games), and even threw 1.1IP in two games in 2011.

Signing with the Astros, according to Kreke, was a strategic move because, you know, the Braves' system is all good and stuff, and the Astros...
"Signing with the Astros takes some pressure off of me to perform. The Atlanta Braves have one of the top-5 farm systems in the league whereas the Astros are building theirs up. Hopefully, I can take off from the Astros' system, and who knows, make the big leagues."

Remaining unsigned Minor-League Free Agents

Baseball America has a pretty sweet database (the link gets you to the point of this post) of the Minor League Free Agent tracker.

Here are the remaining unsigned minor league free agents who spent 2011 with the Astros organization:

LHP Kristian Bueno, C Robinson Cancel, 1B Koby Clemens, RHP Sam Gervacio, RHP Brad James, OF Drew Locke, 3B Jhonny Medrano, 3B Oswaldo Navarro, LHP Ryan Rowland-Smith, 2B Jose Vallejo