Luhnow Era enters year 4

I'm sure it will be this. Gattis is going to play some at 1B and DH too.

Really love this lineup 1-9

Altuve, Valbuena, Springer, Carter, Gattis, Singleton, Castro, Lowrie, Rasmus

Stacked!

 

Really like the initial write-up and honest evaluation by other members of this board. It is sometimes sickening to me to see the love fest for Lunhow over at the crawfish boxes when in reality he has overall been about B-/C+ level. I think it is understated how much the new draft rules the year he took over helped the 2012 draft look as good as it did. Also not always mentioned is that Bobby Heck was still the scouting director at that time and probably played a huge role in the draft. The last two drafts do not look anywhere near as promising so far ( although it is early ) and I feel uncomfortable that the 2015 draft will be of such a pivotal nature. It is risky to put all of our chips into the 2015 draft basket. Having such a large signing pool will in my opinion make it difficult to get maximum value for all the dollars you can spend.

 

The early returns on 2014 draft are extremely good, so its' just flat out wrong to say the returns aren't promising. That first round pick didn't vanish into thin air. 2014 can only be judged in tandem with what we do this year with the #2 pick.

The late Ed Wade farm work was extremely helpful and cannot be overlooked, but Luhnow has us exactly on the trajectory that we expected when he took over.

 

Maybe even slightly ahead depending on how this season pans out.

 

I didn't say the early returns weren't promising, just not AS promising as in 2012. The trio of college bats so far looks OK. The fact that outside of fisher, those prospects will live and die with the bat is an added risk factor. Also, all of these players were placed in leagues that are around their age. Typically advanced college bats do well in short season ball where the small sample size makes it tough to gauge performance regardless.

I understand that the pick didn't vanish . But by moving the pick back a year you simply lose value. The added pool money it gives to the Astros in 2015 is a double edged sword. To get the full value of that pick they are going to have to spread the bonus money around several players which will be more difficult as more and more teams adopt this strategy and players begin to take lower bonuses. It is becoming clear that the days of huge money going to these players is coming to a close. The astros will have to pick more high-upside high value/risk players otherwise they lose out on the money advantage.

I overall feel like too much credit has been given for simply being "on track" or slightly ahead of schedule. picking #1 3 years in a row with the new rules is a gigantic advantage in terms of building a farm system. When the fact that Lunhow traded remaining veteran depth is added to the equation, we should have one of the best farms in baseball. We should be on an upward trend.

For these reasons i agree with the OP and cannot give a grade higher than B-, personally I think he is around a C+. Sure he has us positioned nicely, but given the advantages he has had and the players already in the system, alot of Gm's could have positioned us like this. Lunhow's preference for quantity over quality may be the right one, it may also come back to bite us.

 

Lets grade him after he starts flipping the glutton of prospects for major league talent... he started with Gattis, and he's probably got a few more moves in that nature up his sleeve to give this nucleus the best chance to contend.

If they cannot, then everything will be "reset" (which sometimes results in regime changes).... and you'll start seeing the selling of established players for prospects again.

 

The problem is that the whole point of a rebuild is to consistently contend. The Astros could have played the free agent market and built a team that could be in the conversation for a year or two. The Astros need to still have a strong farm system while they are good at the MLB level to be able to maintain that team for more than a few years. This is done both by graduating players and trades. I agree that his grade is still mostly incomplete, but if after 3 years you cannot at least partially grade someone then how the hell can you make any sense of things/ make informed decisions on whether to keep those executives.

 

Sure, I didn't say trade ALL the prospects... you keep the ones you figure are going to be in your future plans to "restock", but you trade the quality excess for established players you need to get better now.

It becomes a cycle that you hope keeps perfect balance... but at some point, you may find that being very close to winning it all requires you to spend a little more (or give up a few more depth guys), and you possibly go for it... which could upset the balance and make rebuilding again an eventuality (much like the Phillies are going through now... or what the Astros were forced into after 2005).

They certainly aren't going to get rid of Luhnow any time soon barring something disastrous occurring... namely the team losing 100 games again this season and next, another draft or PR bungle, or the called up prospects all flailing.

 

The only person that needs to make informed decisions on whether to keep the GM is the owner. Presumably, the owner and GM had a discussion when he was hired on expectations and timeframe. If they agreed, as it seems, on a tear-it-down-for-several-years strategy with the expectation that they contend in Year X, then you evaluate him in Year X. The biggest mistake sports franchises make is to demand rebuilds and then get impatient, fire everyone, and never complete the process. Then you bring in someone else with a different philosophy, but they have a bunch of players and prospects based on the previous philosophy and have to rebuild again.

As long as the trajectory is what they planned on - and it certainly appears that's the case - there doesn't seem to be any reason to be deciding whether to continue on the current path. It's only when you get behind the projection that there are any decisions to be made - at that point, you have to figure out whether the path itself was flawed or the timing was just a bit off.

 

I know 4 years may seem a lot, but honestly given the hole the Astros started with, it's really not that long. If you generally think of a rebuild as starting from 0, the Astros started in the negatives. They also had no money to start with because they lack the fanbase that a Cubs can generate money with. That plus Aiken's situation means this is actually Ludnow's big year.

For the draft, we have the 2nd and 5th picks. By far the largest draft money pool. This draft needs to be a bonanza. On a higher level, Correa, Moran, Appel, McCullers, etc. represent the first batch of Ludnow's graduates into the big leagues. Keuchel and McHugh are question marks to repeat their success, especially McHugh given how many breaking balls he threw last year. I think the Astros need to be close to the .500 mark this year in anticipation to all their big farm guys coming up in 2016.

 

The Astros are on their 5th manager (if you count the interims) in the Luhnow era. I think this is the evaluation year and the Astros need to be near .500 or better because you can't just keep firing managers.

 

Basically, Luhnow is "only" on his second managerial hire. Porter was a failure.

 

I'd say the Cardinals have done a pretty decent job of utilizing the farm to not only re-stock the MLB team when players leave, but to trade for established stars from a position of excess.

Then you have the Rays and A's who won't ever hold on to somebody past their "elite" period for big money... and are constantly re-loading on prospects. They've both had major success... and I don't consider the fact that they just happened to lose the small-sample 7 game series as an indication that their strategy doesn't work.

This is also why I say to wait to judge Luhnow till he can actually start flipping the prospects or expiring contracts he's accumulated for established players (which basically has started with the Gattis and Valbuena trades... not so much Moran, but he's not that far away either).

 

Patriots

 

Of the 15 starters on a roster, nobody wins with 90% homegrown. On most teams its 50/50, maybe 60/40..

We aren't gonna get to the finish line simply relying on prospects.

 

And this is the first season where they've put any effort into building the major league roster. Give it time.