Houston Astros: Sig Mejdal departure stings but doesn’t leave cupboard empty
By Dan Shedd
Analytics guru Sig Mejdal has decided to pursue other opportunities besides baseball by letting his contract expire with the Houston Astros.
The face of the “Astroball” analytics movement has decided to pursue other opportunities according to Houston Astros beat writer, Brian McTaggart. Sig Mejdal has been with the Astros since 2012, following Jeff Luhnow from the St. Louis Cardinals.
With the Astros, Mejdal was in charge of personnel decisions from the MLB draft to big league club decisions. This past summer, he spent the season with the Astros short-season affiliate Tri-City Valley Cats, where he taught coaches and players how to incorporate data into daily baseball decisions, along with coaching first base.
With St. Louis, Mejdal was in charge of data-driven decisions and analytics throughout the organization along with draft decisions. Mejdal has two engineering degrees from UC-Davis and worked for NASA and Lockheed Martin prior to baseball as well as being a former blackjack dealer in Nevada.
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Astroball author Ben Reiter wrote about the Astros and the data-driven approach in a Sports Illustrated article Astro-matic Baseball in 2014 and how Mejdal was a big part of that.
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I first want to thank Mejdal for his services to the Houston Astros. While it took a team of analysts to help the franchise win their first World Series championship in 2017, Mejdal was a huge part of taking the Astros from using traditional baseball method to using a more data-driven approach that clearly works in more ways than one.
Under Mejdal and others, the Astros have drafted players who have become the cornerstones of the rebuilt Houston Astros franchise, names like George Springer, Carlos Correa, Alex Bregman just to name a few.
I’m sure the Houston Astros will find someone to replace Mejdal because of his importance to the franchise going after another World Series championship. Luhnow has likely already made several calls already looking for potential replacements.
If Mejdal comes back to baseball, don’t be surprised to see him snatched up by some other team, as the data-driven approach is the way of the foreseeable baseball future. For now, the Houston Astros will miss what he brought to the team but fortunately, he left the cupboards fully stocked from his time with the team. He’ll be hard to replace but the Astros were fortunate to have him for six years.
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The Houston Astros have led an incredible surge of analytics in baseball nearing on a decade. Mejdal was a major player in that as he truly affected this organization from top to bottom. Best wishes in your future endeavors, Mr. Mejdal!