This. Luhnow is the sole reason these other guys became household names. While I'm sure he's a little more intense behind the scenes compared to the soft-spoken nature he displays for the media, he's never shied away from giving a ton of credit to his staff.... and making the stories more about them than him. Anybody fretting over these losses thinking its going to "ruin" the front office is really just needless worrying at this point. Unless Luhnow is somehow swayed away (and hopefully, the recent escalation in title and extension/raise will help prevent that), the Astros front office remains in very good hands for the foreseeable future.
I don't think so. They wanted to be able to move up and both Mejdal and Fast were not going to. The Astros were not grooming them to become future GM's.
There is a lot going on. First, the Astros are not an organization that will keep people out of loyalty or familiarity. Some of those that left were not going to be on the Astros front office staff long term. The Astros model under Luhnow has been to make changes in an effort to keep ahead of the curve. The Astros also are pretty aggressive with interns and as they prove themselves, they will get a shocking amount of responsibility if they can prove they deserve it. The Astros already addressed the loss of Mejdal with Sarah Gelles. A number of teams have had an interest in adding her to their front office, including the Cubs and Dodgers. The Astros are happy with adding her. Her role will not be as expansive as Mejdal's but she will have a lot of over lap. Also expect Luhnow to coax Goldstein to get more involved. He can only spend so much time with his dogs and hiding in corn country before he gets bored and wants to expand his role.
You can certainly prepare for people leaving. But you cant prepare for who might be available to fill those positions. I have no knowledge of how many quality people are out there vs the demand for such. Maybe these people are hard to find, maybe not so much. That said, the future may continue and prosper in an analytic sense without missing a beat or instead, we may see whatever lead we have in analytics dwindle to the point where we have no real advantage anymore.
[...] In a phone conversation on Monday, Luhnow declined to elaborate on "any efforts to retain" Elias, who followed Luhnow from St. Louis in 2012 and, in six years, ascended to second in command within baseball operations. He oversaw both amateur and international scouting while running the Astros' last six drafts. "This is a tremendous opportunity for him and it's a great match with his skillset, what he brings to the table and what the Orioles are looking for," Luhnow said. "I'm happy for him, I'm happy for the Orioles and we've been preparing for these moments. We recognize a lot of our top executives and coaches and scouts are often in demand elsewhere. We prepare for these eventualities when they might move on to opportunities that are not available here." Elias, was one of only two assistant general managers. The other, Brandon Taubman, did not get the title until September. Taubman oversees the Astros' analytics group, pro scouting and baseball administrative functions. Luhnow said Monday he has not decided whether he will appoint another assistant general manager. His front offices have shown versatility in operating with one — or even zero — people with the specific title. When David Stearns, Luhnow's lone assistant general manager, departed the club for Milwaukee in Sept. 2015, 11 months elapsed before Elias was elevated to the title. "I don't think there's any magic formula, having one or two or three assistant GMs like some clubs have," Luhnow said. "I think it's a matter of making sure you have the right people in the right spots overseeing the critical functions. We were preparing for this eventuality, we've got really good bench strength across the entire organization and feel pretty good that we're not going to skip a beat in this year's draft, the international market or really anywhere else." Though unquestionably a sizeable loss in the broad view, Elias' departure ostensibly does not leave immediate worry within the Astros' offseason objectives. Luhnow acknowledged Monday that Elias is "not heavily involved" in much of the pressing winter matters — trades, free agency or player acquisition. "Mike was primarily focused on the draft and we're going to have a draft coming up in June so we're very focused on making sure we don't skip a beat there," Luhnow said. "We've been preparing for for a little while and this didn't come as a total shock to me. We've got people in place doing what they need to do to make sure we've got a great draft." Luhnow hinted at some sort of an imminent official restructuring announcement within the scouting and player development departments. Therefore, he declined to specify on his plans Monday. "Fortunately we've got people that were right under Mike that are very capable and they're continuing to operate the various departments," Luhnow said. "Right now, we're in great shape, and we haven't made any decisions as far as whether or not we're going to name any new leaders in these departments in the short term or even in the long term, so we'll have to wait for that." Both Oz Ocampo and Kevin Goldstein have experience heading areas of scouting within the organization. Each are now special assistant to the general managers and ostensibly options to assume more duties in the wake of Elias' departure. Goldstein accompanied Elias and Luhnow to the general manager meetings earlier this month. He headed the Astros' pro scouting department from 2012-17. Ocampo was the director of international and Latin player development. Both were promoted to their current roles in 2017. Roman Ocumarez was the assistant director of international scouting under Elias. "Right now, I don't feel like we have any gaps," Luhnow said. "We've built some good bench strength across all different functions."
The Braves made the playoffs like 15 straight times, and they only have one championship. After a certain point it becomes a crapshoot.
Baltimore Oriole fans around here are really excited, but I like to burst their bubble with the fact they have no players.
Yeah, Baltimore will have an even tougher road than Houston did. Like the 2011 Astros, they have very little value at the major league level and their farm really isn’t that great. Unfortunately for them, the draft, intl, and free agent signing rules have made it harder to get the big advantages in acquiring amateur talent in the way Houston did. They just have to hope their fringy (Beckham, Villar, Bundy, Givens) and underwater (Davis, Trumbo, Cobb) assets have good years so they can get some trade value for them and add to the few good young players (Cisco, Nunez, Mullins, Diaz, Mountcastle, Hays) they have. And they’re going to have to nail their draft, intl, Rule 5, and waiver processes. The next 5 years it will next tough being a crummy team in the AL East, the the Yankees, Rays, and Jays all being poised to be extremely good over that time (and the Red Sox being really good right now).
Braves emit the theory Atlanta Sports is lame Let's defy odds instead of being worse than a statistic.
Yet they still have to work within the constraints of the Angelos family (which has been a huge problem in the past), so let's just see how this works out.
