Farewell to Oz
Oz Ocampo, a special assistant to GM Jeff Luhnow, leaves the Astros.
Oz Ocampo, one of Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow’s key lieutenants since 2012, is departing the organization, a person with knowledge of the situation told the Chronicle on Thursday.
Ocampo led the Astros’ international operations from 2012-17. He was elevated to special assistant to the general manager in August 2017.
Ocampo declined comment Thursday.
For the last two seasons, Ocampo was Houston’s major league interpreter, translating interviews for many Latin players he helped the Astros acquire. He accompanied the club on every road trip and assisted the team’s advance scouting.
During his six-year run as the Astros’ director of international operations, Ocampo was key in the scouting and signing of touted Cuban prospects Yuli Gurriel
and Cionel Perez. Rookie righthander Jose Urquidy, who was signed out of Mexico, seems destined to enter the Astros' 2020 rotation.
Framber Valdez, Franklin Perez, Jorge Alcala and Gilberto Celestino were also signed during Ocampo’s tenure. Perez was part of the deal to acquire Justin Verlander, while Alcala and Celestino were shipped to the Twins in exchange for AllStar setup man Ryan Pressly.
Both prospects in the Astros’ 2017 deal for Brian McCann — Albert Abreu and Jorge Guzman — were acquired under Ocampo’s international tenure.
On the advice of longtime scout Charlie Gonzalez, Ocampo advocated strongly for Yordan Alvarez on the international market in 2015. The Astros eventually acquired Alvarez from the Dodgers in 2016.
Before joining the Astros in 2012, Ocampo worked with the Cardinals from 2005-09 — coinciding with Luhnow’s tenure — and had a one-year stint at Major
League Baseball from 2011-12.
Ocampo’s departure leaves Kevin Goldstein as the Astros’ only special assistant to the general manager. After Brandon Taubman was fired last week, Luhnow has only one assistant general manager, the recently promoted Pete Putila.
Despite loss on bets, he’ll sleep just fine
Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale has done it both ways — buying insurance and making bets — to ensure his financial well-being surrounding his Astros-related “Win it All” mattress promotions the last three years.
Betting, he said Thursday, is a lot more fun.
“Insurance is bland,” McIngvale said, laughing, during a break from greeting customers at his Gallery Furniture store in north Houston. “Buying insurance is like watching concrete dry.”
McIngvale over the last month has been a central story in the burgeoning business of legal sports betting through wagers on the Astros to win the World Series, traveling to sports books in Mississippi and New Jersey to make bets between trips to Astros playoff games.
Potential proceeds from McIngvale’s wagers were hedges to cover the expenses of his “Win it All” promotion, in which customers who purchased mattresses or bases totaling more than $3,000 would get their money back if the Astros won the World Series.
He estimated he placed about $13 million in bets in Nevada, Mississippi and New Jersey, which would have generated enough profit to cover the estimated $20 million to $25 million he would have had to pay back to customers had the Astros taken the series from the Washington Nationals.
Since the Astros lost in seven games, the sports books will keep his $13 million in wagers, but McIngvale will keep his mattress proceeds.
“I wish the Astros had won, because all the happy customers would tell their friends for the next 20 years about the mattress they got,” he said. “It’s all about the customers.
“I’m devastated that the Astros didn’t win. But if you’d said before the season you’d be playing at Minute Maid Park in Game 7 of the World Series, everybody would have taken that.”
Thanks to his gambling hedges, made with the help of Las Vegas gambling adviser Anthony Curtis and a college professor in Maryland who crunched numbers daily to determine his financial exposure as the betting lines changed, McIngvale said he would have come out more or less financially the same regardless of the Astros’ fate.
An Astros win, he said, would have been worth $20 million in word of mouth publicity for Gallery Furniture. Still, the month of October “was quite a run. It was a thrilling month.”