Luhnow's long-term plan taking shape

Luhnow’s long-term plan taking shape
Posted on July 28, 2012 at 10:37 pm by Zachary Levine


You can tell that Jeff Luhnow knows exactly what the most pessimistic among the fan base is thinking. He even mentioned the teams by name.

He is fostering the creation of the Houston Pirates, now seven years into the 19 straight they’ll go without a playoff appearance.

He is the chief steward of the Houston Royals, wiped from relevance for a generation of baseball fans.

Or the overseer of the Houston Devil Rays, who don’t become competitive until they pile up years of top draft picks. (Or maybe pull the trigger on that name change like the now Devil-less Rays did the year before they finally broke through.)

Anyway, Luhnow doesn’t know the timetable for when this painful process will have a happy or relieving end. Each player acquired this month, recent years of trades and the first of what could be multiple No. 1 picks has his own variance, and if they develop close to independently, the variance of the ballclub is the enormous sum of the variance of the parts.

But he’s committed to not being any of those teams.

“You look at the progression of other clubs — the Royals, the Pirates, the Rays — and how long it took them,” Luhnow said. “We are doing everything we can to not be dormant for that long of a period of time.”

Tearing down to build up
Owner Jim Crane, speaking before he hired Luhnow as his first and the Astros’ 12th general manager, said he envisioned this as a three-to-five-year project before the team was good again.

In making his big draft splashes with high school players and his trades for primarily talent that’s not close to major league-ready, Luhnow certainly didn’t eat into that timeline. But in being able to move parts of Wandy Rodriguez’s and Brett Myers’ contracts that respectively would have and may have carried over into next year, he was able to finish tearing down in order to build up.

“You can argue that it’s harder to do in this environment because we’re more restricted in terms of what you can spend,” Luhnow said, referring to the new draft and international amateur spending caps.

“You can also argue that given the moves we made this year, we were able to accelerate it because we didn’t have to hold on to our veterans just for appearance’s sake or just to appease the fans who want us to win a few more games in the short-term. By being aggressive in how we’re handling it, I think we’re actually cutting the time short on how long it’s going to take.”

Fixing the farm is paramount
The Astros’ farm system is certainly improved from where it stood just a year ago, not even mentioning the gains of the last three years as trade talent has flowed in.
However, what they acquired this year in four July trades was depth. What the Astros really need next are stars, and that’s the hardest thing to predict. It’s also the most expensive thing to go out and get, and as the Astros look ahead to the last step of this rebuilding process, they’re hoping not to have to go to market for a star.

“It’s hard to win consistently without stars,” Luhnow said, going on to list three first-round picks and two pieces from the Hunter Pence trade. “My hope is that we develop a star, whether it’s (Jonathan) Singleton or (George) Springer or (Carlos) Correa or (Jarred) Cosart or (Lance) McCullers. I see the free-agent market as more for acquiring complementary pieces rather than acquiring stars. I think you can maybe acquire stars through trades if you aggregate enough talent.”

The Astros have bet big on stars or perceived stars — Carlos Lee comes to the forefront of the discussion — when they have not been one player away, and that’s the point on the rebuilding progression that every team has to find.

The Pirates seem to have found it, and while they didn’t go out and get an absolute top-line player in free agency, they developed their own star in Andrew McCutchen and then used the trade market to push them over the top with A.J. Burnett in the offseason and Wandy Rodriguez last week.

Money shouldn’t be an issue
As revenues likely begin to increase next year with the new television network, the Astros insist that there will be a spending increase to accompany it. Whether the money is spent idly or for the last piece will depend on what’s already around and which of the prospects who are the foundation of this rebuilding process ultimately emerge as the stars.

zachary.levine@chron.com
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