Who knows… maybe Biggio hits his prime at age 25 instead of 28 if he started out as an infielder… maybe his knee doesn’t fall apart in 2000. It was more experimental back then to covert catchers to preserve their hitting. It’s done earlier and earlier now. It’s hard AF to be a catcher. Not everybody can do it. If he doesn’t have that passion, I doubt he’d be very good at it.
Yet Yadier Molina survived it all through his mid 30s as a quality hitter. Arguably his best season ever was at age 34.
So what? Do you think Biggio's path is the only way to succeed in baseball? Maybe if the Astros would have decided to leave him there, he has a decent career for 7 or 8 years as a top-tier catcher, his knees give out, and then the world moves on and he is just remembered as one of many random catchers that had a handful of good years and then disappeared.
Crane isn't going to personally handle ST invites/roster cuts, the draft, and international development.
Will probably just be one of their in-house candidates who's already handling everything. And what do you want this new GM to do right now anyways? The point is, Crane isn't the one actually handling day to day baseball operations.... and won't be the one handling it when things actually have to be handled.
Why are you getting on my case? Crane said he didn't expect anything to happen before the first of the year. Well it's after the first of the year..
Yeah I was wondering. Crane said there would be a thorough GM search. He said not to expect anything before the start of the year. It's been a week after the start of the year and we still have not heard anything. So yeah, I am starting to question if there is going to be one.
It feels like 9 days into the new year is basically no time at all for these things. I would have been very surprised to hear anything by now, or in the next couple of weeks.
But what do you expect to "hear"? They're not going to publicize anything until it happens... and the Astros don't leak anything unless they really want it to get out. There's a much better chance that they've either already targeted somebody or are considering in-house options seriously... vs. them not having gotten around to even starting the process yet.
Be patient. Crane said "not" to expect one before the first of the year. He never said to expect one immediately following the first of the year. It is much more important that he eventually makes the right decision than making a right now decision.
It will be pretty problematic if they approach draft time without a GM (even if just an interim in title one). But otherwise, this is actually the time of year where the GM role is fairly minimal. I was curious the other day when the Yankees hired Sabean and then hired Minaya as special "advisors"... could there be a small possibility that these were potential Crane targets and the Yankees are trying to take as many candidates off the table by giving them guaranteed lucrative contracts to basically not do a whole lot?? Or maybe the Astros are using counter-intelligence and making the Yankees think they like these guys... who knows. If I were Cashman, while its always great to have as many resources and smart guys around as possible, I'd also have a slight awareness that these advisors could easily replace him.
I know it's only been 9 days but I think we should be hearing some stories about possible GMs. I also found it interesting our little son is hiring extra advisors when we have lost staff. I'm sure the nerd cave can present trade ideas to Bagwell and Jackson to pass along to Crane. But it would be nice to have a GM working the phone lines and getting relationships cultivated within the organization and outside.
They have other guys running the day to day operations... only a few here actually know their names when they announced it soon after Click's firing. They were at the winter meetings.
