At least you realize that Luhnow was blacklisted for a laundry list of unrelated to cheating scandal issues. And it wasn’t just being better than other big market teams. Baltimore is poised to have just as long as a run of success as Atlanta, Tampa, Houston, and Cleveland has had (yes, other teams have done better and taken money away from LA/NY). Elias or any of those other GM’s aren’t going to be blacklisted simply for having “success” and threatening the LA/NY markets.
Care to share those with us? I know Hinch didn't do anything about it and Cora, Beltran devised the scheme.
Share what? Why Luhnow created enemies in MLB front office starting as early as 2012? Its been discussed ad nauseam in here. Verified and vetted by @Nook and others. None of us wanted Luhnow to be banned... but we're also not in denial as to why its happened, or making up some conspiracies that only Houston teams can't have sustained success or take away title opportunities from the Dodgers/Yankees. Seeing how these teams are run right now, wouldn't any of them gladly want to take a chance on Luhnow to pull them out of the gutter?
No. Whoever thinks Bregman should have been traded is a f*cking idiot. Unless the Astros are 5+ games under .500 and behind multiple teams for a playoff spot, this team can't trade one of their only above average position players.
Correct, he probably made enemies in the MLB FO because he refused to take on Aiken's contract when he found out Aiken had a bum arm. I consider that looking out for what's best for the Stros org. Apparently you've never run a business, you always do what's right for your business. BTW, are you talking about making MLB upset because the early tank operation worked and setup the franchise to be the preeminent franchise for a decade? Or the fact that they were able to form a great rotation from a bunch of $ 20,000 bonus signee islander pitchers? Could MLB be upset because he was in the process of changing the way scouting was done. Or could it really all have come down to the Stros being the dominant org for another decade or so using these processes and if that happened do you think MLB would lose money with the Stros being the dominant org? Really this was always about getting rid of Luhnow because of money and MLB's unwillingness to change the way they operated. For this reason this reason the Yankees, Dodgers etc... will never hire Luhnow. He's been banned. MLB doesn't like guys that are smart enough to live in the grey areas of the rules, but not to actually break the rules. You know, like Hinch, Cora, Beltran obviously did.
You’ve made up your narrative and you’re sticking with it despite verified reports and insider information highlighting just a snippet of him trying to take things too far. And to say he knew nothing about codebreaker or the system they devised based on codebreaker would be a lie. it wasn’t so much not signing Aiken as it was basing two other players’ bonus slots on that signing… and when Aiken came up lame, everybody got screwed. The Astros have continued to be dominant since 2019 btw. 4 more ALCS trips, two more WS, one title, and eliminated the Yankees and Red Sox along the way. If MLB was worried about the bottom line being impacted, they sure are slow playing things. Also MLB has made more money since the Astros started being good vs any other era without them being good (not that they’re the cause of it, but they don’t detract from the value of this still very regional sport…)
Show me these verified reports, what's been verified is that Hinch let the cheating happen and Cora/Beltran helped devise the system Were rules broken? Luhnow built this well enough to survive another decade if Crane would stop giving out Montero/LMJ/Abreu deals
Or he would have not extended JV in 2019 (and certainly not signed him again before 2022 after TJ surgery), not extended Altuve in 2017, and maybe he recommends a total rebuild after 2020 (or he trades at least one of Garcia, Javier, Urquiddy when they were still prospects), and any of those developments decreases the probability of them winning it all in 2022 (taking into account all the variance, luck, and random WTF moments that go into winning a WS). Honestly, if you think he was wrongfully banned and was simply a victim (i.e. - did nothing wrong, knew nothing wrong, and only banned because he thinks in the gray area)… why would he just let that go silently and not blow the top off that development? Isn’t he smart enough to figure out how to beat them? Has there ever been another GM permanently banned by a league in pro sports? Sure, he settled a lawsuit with Crane… and apparently he’s just too happy being involved in D-league soccer now for the remainder of his working years to get back into baseball. Again, nobody here wanted him to go. But you’re the only one in denial that he broke rules (written and unwritten), took things to the far extreme (not even getting into the Osuna and toxic media handling by him and his staff after that), and to this day doesn’t have one person, player, manager, exec or owner willing to vouch for him to get back into the game…
His book will come out in the next 10-20 years… after Drellich puts out a sequel to his book…. Because that’s the only way these stories stay relevant, books! (Don’t miss out on the epic foreword by Brandon Taubman… truly a victim and would have been a GM by now, but looks like he’s also accepted his lifetime ban with nary a squeak of dissent… which is ironic because he was so very loud and vocal right after the 2019 ALCS ended).
I seriously doubt he would've done the things you listed. Would he have been perfect nope, Would he have the Stros in a better position than their in today? Yep. Why? because he had a take no prisoner attitude and great people working around him. So what if he knew, everybody else knew and are back in MLB. If you think that MLB wouldn't have banned him if he admitted he knew he wouldn't have been banned. Why do you think this is? To answer the reason he didn't fight this? A reported 22 mil settlement. I wish they would've hired another guy like Sig who would've kept this thing rolling.
THAT’S THE POINT! He wasn’t banned solely for the scandal. I too wonder if the settlement was the defacto “take this money and never seek out another job in MLB” kill shot, although I doubt he would have agreed to it if he knew he could get another job again. Sig has had opportunities and nobody has hired him. We’ve already gone over how he himself is a man behind the man (or woman) guy. Let’s see if he gets more interviews this off-season (or he chooses to stay in the role he’s proven to be good at).
I had forgotten about Taubman, I guess you're saying Luhnow promoted a really toxic culture among other things...
Agreed, it was also because he built a juggernaught and was changing how MLB scouting was being done. Sig has gotten GM interviews? I dont think he's gotten them, but I could be wrong.
