Great post, he actually didn't do great with 1st picks in the draft but got lucky with Aiken/Bregs. He made the best of the Aiken pick by trading Aiken. He hit a home run on the Correa, LMJ picks. He definitely hit on the JV pick and got a SP1 for basically nothing so all of his trades weren't bad.
Yep, the Yankees,Cubs and Rangers won championships with a DV guy Chapman, but the media only cared about Osuna. Ever wonder why this was. Guys and I use this loosely ladies like Drellich, Footer etc .. are hypocrites who use a Pedo like Fires to accomplish their goal of running Luhnow out of MLB with Manfreds blessings. Wonder why Manfred gave his blessings to that BS. BTW, obviously Luhnow wasn't in charge of the sign stealing stuff or they would have come up with a system like the Yankees Apple Watch way of stealing signs. Cora and Beltran were in charge of that and Hinch let it happen. Yes, the executive didn't do the right thing, but have you ever drank too much and said something you wish you hadn't said?
I mean we know boston, la, ny etc all cheated. We know the braves gm was literally banned for life for ACTUAL cheating. We know plenty of them traded for chapman at the very least. Only thing is nobody cares about any of that.
I didn’t say Luhnow did a bad job. I liked him. I just think the thing that separates him from bad or mediocre GMs was his ability to sell such a drastic rebuild. Show me another GM who had 4 consecutive years drafting in the top 5 (with 3 consecutive years drafting in the top 2) and compare their performance. Look at what Luhnow got out of his last 4 drafts, once he wasn’t drafting with top 5 bonus pools; pretty weak.
Luhnow did get saved by the league office because he had agreed to deals with Nix and MAC. I think his top draft picks overall were pretty good - he got Correa, Bregman and Tucker out of it.... all three were stars and Correa and Bregman still have a chance at the Hall of Fame. As for Altuve - he did get him and he also inherited Springer as well, but that was just about it. As far as the cheating goes - I know you say it is unforgiveable, but it seems to me that a lot of Astros fans already have forgiven him. The league won't because he did not roll over like AJ Hinch, Luhnow was defiant and the league found their scape goat for an issue that extended across the league, with a number of teams like the Brewers, Dodgers, Yankees, Rangers and Red Sox all rampantly cheating. I am not defending his cheating or how he choose to conduct himself like a mafia boss - but I also won't dismiss what he built either.... There is a lot of hypocrisy in baseball from Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds being leppers for "cheating" while Andy Pettitte and David Ortiz are celebrated.... but Luhnow was smart enough to know that he could be caught and he did engender a win at all costs culture that many Astros fans love - and others don't.
Jeff Luhnow was the GM for the Astros for like 6 seasons and he hasn't been the GM of the Astros going on 5 years. The Astros are still largely winning based on players that Luhnow drafted or traded for... the Astros outfield is all from Luhnow. The left side of the Astros infield is from Luhnow, The Astros rotation is mostly from Luhnow, It is very hard to overstate what he built during his time as GM, and the guts for what the Astros have been the last 4-5 years as well and will be in 2025. Luhnow had some bad drafts for sure, and he had some very good drafts - overall he produced a lot of very useful players and enough star players as well. What made Luhnow so good was that over the long run he built and oversaw an organization that did well across the board - they were good to excellent at everything - from the draft, to player development, to international signings, to free agency - to coaching........ to strategy with the shift. He also is the only GM I know that was not afraid to make changes when something was working well, but he felt could be better - like the changes he made in the draft with Q. McCracken. It is really hard to find someone else that wasn't in LA or NY that built what he built and continues to exist. Even the Reds and A's GM's did not build a run this long with this much success .... may have to go to the Weaver lead Orioles and that is even debatable.
Who brought Cora and Beltran in? Who let it happen? In the end it comes back to the man in charge. I think MLB has been fraught in its handling of DV. Osuna was blackballed. But Bauer too. Julio Urias also. For some reason Chapman keeps getting jobs. Marcell Ozuna is still around. I don't know the distinction. Ultimately I don't want to root for abusers like KPJ, Osuna, and Watson on my teams, so I'm glad he was let go.
I think people hate cheating but they also want to forgive people who act like they want it. Like you said, Hinch owned his part - you can call it "rolling over" if you want. Luhnow lied and was unapologetic. What is there to forgive if he doesn't want it? His hubris worked against him, and he was knocked off the high perch he put himself on. In that way, you can see how he is like Clemens, and Bonds, and not like Pettitte. He ran an organization that some called "toxic" but he definitely deserves credit for building the early 2010s Astros from a doormat to what they became.
Jeff Luhnow knew what was going on. I know for a fact that what was going on was whispered about and discussed by people under Luhnow. It was not viewed as a big deal, because baseball players for 160 years have been trying to find a way to cheat and get an advantage. It was mostly viewed as dumb or with a roll of the eyes. There is like zero chance Luhnow did not know - did he stay out of it so he could feign ignorance? Sure .... but he knew, he talked to the coaches, he talked to the players - especially guys like Beltran and Altuve and Correa.... he also knew (all of baseball did) that no one was better at stealing signs and devising ways to get an advantage than Beltran. The Astros under Luhnow ran their organization cutting edge, it was full of very ambitious and smart people that were looking for any edge that they could get to limit the impact of "chance" and "luck" on winning and losing. Daryl Morey has even talked about his conversations with Luhnow and how the goal was to win on the outskirts to chip away at the amount of luck is involved in a single game or playoff series. Part of the reason that Osuna was viewed differently in Houston than others - and part of the reason that Luhnow was treated the way he was had to do with how he handled the MLB press corp. and local Houston press. He had his favorites that he would talk to - and they were not Footer, Drelich etc. He was not very nice to Drelich or Footer, he did not like what they wrote or how they approached the Astros - so he treated them like garbage and his attitude carried over to his subordinates like Taubman and others and that ended up hurting the Astros and especially Luhnow. As for Osuna - from what I heard within the Astros is that most of baseball would not touch Osuna because his case was especially bad. It wasn't a situation where he pushed or shoved or threw a single punch. From what I heard, he beat the mother of his child badly. Ultimately he and the mother of his child got back together and he agreed to private counseling; but he was not popular in the Astros clubhouse with Verlander especially disliking him. In the case of Chapman, his situation involved a gun and was before the Astros got Osuna - his timing was morbidly better than that of Osuna. To this day though, you will be hard pressed to find any players or coaches that have any positive things to say about Chapman as a human being. Ultimately - Crane and Luhnow set the culture of the Astros. It was incredibly successful. They were not going to fire the owner, so the GM took the blame and that comes with the territory and job title.
Hinch owned his part? He talked about how he wished he could have stopped it but instead broke a tv screen. He knew what was going on and benefitted from it. He’s a coward.
Hinch definitely rolled over and he still hasn't been honest about his level of involvement and his claims are simply not believable. He paints himself as a helpless outsider that did not tell his boss (Luhnow), did not confront his subordinate (Cora), and did not tell the players to quit - but decided to break the television screen one day. It isn't consistent with what I heard coming out of the Astros organization and it doesn't pass the sniff test. When I have had people that were there talk about it - and I mention Hinch's claims I always get the same response --- a slight smile and some version of "Okay sure" or "yeah that is what he told baseball." At the end of the day Hinch cooperated and jumped through the baseball hoops needed to get back in the good graces of the league ..... same with Alex Cora... Jim Crane and the players..... Luhnow had to know he was going to take the fall once the manager and players cooperated and with owner not getting severely punished. That is why I say Luhnow acted like a Mafia boss - he denied and will deny until they put him in the ground. In one sense that is honorable, but that isn't honorable to the league office that thought it had successfully covered it up, believing that they could control their own league backed and paid press --- but they didn't and couldn't and some players didn't stick to the script of "no comment".
Look over the last 50 years and I'm sure you can find comparable situations, maybe not exact situations. Over the last 50 years there have been a lot of bad teams for multiple years. The Marlins, Pirates,Royals,A's come to mind.
There’s really not another example of a team going so deeply into a rebuild then supplementing it with a top 5 payroll during the contending phase. Honestly not even anything close; if Baltimore starts spending a bunch over the next 2-5 years then maybe they’d make a good comparison.
I know I'm idealistic. But I don't see the Stros org any differently than the Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox etc... so I don't see Luhnow any differently than their GM's. I also don't consider Hinch, Cora, Beltran to be any different than Luhnow. They all had different degrees of culpability and were in it together. I believe the reason for the investigation was to get rid of Luhnow because Manfred and some of the media didn't like that Luhnow kept receipts from what they were saying about how what he was doing during the rebuild would never work. The media doesn't like being wrong and went to great lengths to get rid of him. They were even willing to enlist a Pedo to help their cause. This sickens me more than trading for Osuna. The reason the DV guys you listed are treated differently is because they play for franchises that Manfred favors.
Great post I do believe if Luhnow was going to have to take the fall, that Hinch, Cora, Beltran etc.. should have taken the fall. What I don't understand is once Luhnow took the fall, why didn't Crane promote from within and kept the ball rolling.
I appreciate your inside knowledge and insights. I certainly don't doubt any of them. But as to what Hinch said, it went more than "helpless outsider". He said there was a system in place that he knew about and did not stop. "But I was the manager. I think there is a responsibility when you're in a position to end it. My mindset at that point was to demonstrate that I didn't like it. In hindsight, I should have had a meeting and faced it face-forward and ended it." That's the quote. If that's a lie, then it is one that makes him look weak and ineffective. Both bad qualities to have in a leader of men. Lunhow picking fights with the reporters covering the Astros certainly was one of his several mistakes. And maybe the one most costly to him, personally. I hated Drellich when he was covering the Stros. But making enemies of the press isn't a good way to succeed in what is a very public-facing position. Dealing with the media was part of his job, and one he wasn't good at. Contrast that with Morey, who you brought up, who has always been (I think) great at selling himself to the media.
Actually, Aiken was offered less money due to his elbow and never signed. This allowed the Astros to get Bregman the next year though. Still a very wise decision as he never played in the majors.
Click maintained for the most part the organization that Luhnow built, which a reason why Click left. I am unsure how much the organization has evolved since Luhnow was fired. Pitching development now is better than when Luhnow left. Positional player development is about the same :shrug:
I don't know about this, I would say pitching is about the same and Alvarez, Bregs, Tucker, Pena etc... developed pretty well.
