I'm glad he didn't trade Parades for an OF. Truth is if Dana can find Wade off the scrap heap are you telling me that he couldn't find a MLB avg OF in a trade in the off-season by giving up a good AA pitcher Ask yourself this with as weak as the AL is right now what would Luhnow do?
Except they were adamant that they did not want Yordan to play LF. How many games did Yordan play LF when Meyers, Loperfido, Cole, Dezenzo, and Trammell were all hurt? Instead they brought in AAAA guys to start and kept Yordan at DH. They were 100% intending to sit one of the infielders on the bench rather than playing Yordan in LF.
I can’t wrap my head on Cam Smith. He just looks like he should be an all star caliber player. Has the look, the swing, the pop when he barrels. K rate ticking down. I could see him already having his best season as a pro or a prime George Springer on the horizon. It baffles me as a fan to see elite pop at times and then he hits with the power of Adam Everett 90% the rest of his AB’s. Weirdly fascinating player.
Trade OF Brett Philips OF Domingo Santana LHP Josh Hader RHP Adrian Houser for OF Carlos Gomez RHP Mike Fiers? This is what Luhnow did. What an idiot.
In 2026, the Astros are on pace to start Yordan in LF for 25 games, which is 50% less than his last healthy full season (2024). Those 25 games implies that Yordan plays LF roughly one game a week. At the start of the season, I made the argument that the Astros ... for the six positions 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, LF, DH ... could rotate through the seven players by sitting one of them at a time. This implies that each of the seven players could sit once a week. This is a reasonable strategy given that some of the players either wore down over a full season (Correa, Altuve) or were recovering from or had an injury last season (Yordan, Pena, Paredes, Walker). The Astros rarely do what I suggest (the fools!!!). Pena did start the season only playing every other game, before hitting the IL. Others had stints on the IL and of course Correa is out for the season.
When all those guys were hurt, how would playing him in LF solved anything considering Pena or Correa have been hurt pretty much the entire season? What option did we have at DH that would have made putting Yordan in LF worthwhile? Finally, they have been adamant about a lot of things and ended up doing the opposite. Edit: Yordan has played LF three times in the past 9 games including back to back games. If they were so adamant on him not playing LF, seems kind of ridiculous to have him be playing out there back to back games in June, right? Just like I said at the start of the season, if Loperfido/Cam/Trammell/Dezenzo were working out, then yes we wouldn't have seen him out there that much. If we were losing and they were all terrible, he absolutely would have been out there more often. The only reason he's been out there recently is because the lineup sucks when you give one of our better hitters the day off completely.
I judge how the franchise is being run by the gold standard (You should too) and I'm not asking for Luhnow to comeback. I know that's not happening.
Fiers did help them win a championship. But even if he didn't I'm on board with taking chances. Luhnow won far more often than he lost when it came to making trades. We can only hope Dana has the balls to make big trades and is as successful as Luhnow was when he made trades. But you're right Luhnow wasn't perfect when it came to making trades. Nobody is, but hopefully Dana will be close to as successful as Luhnow was at this yrs trade deadline.
Crane wasn't meddling with the team at that point and signing $20M closers on a team that already had a tight budget. He wasn't bringing back an expensive IF at the deadline knowing it would create a logjam the following year for his GM to figure out while also leaving him an inadequate budget to replace his #2 starter. Additionally, you have no idea what would have happened if Lunhow wasn't allowed to tank. It's a lot easier to build a roster with a bunch of low cost high end talent. Comparing the two situations is ridiculous and it's tiresome hearing about it.
Gold standard organizations don't piss the media off to the point that a witch hunt brings down the whole administration and sets the minor leagues back two years. You can argue whether it was fair or deserved, but that doesn't matter. It happened, it was always a risk, and it became much more so after bringing in Osuna and the locker room incident with Footer and whats-his-name. Luhnow knew they risk of backlash and took it - as you say he is comfotable with risk - without hedging in any way (maybe publicly discipline that guy?) and it backfired spectacularly. Being a brilliant optimizer (which he is) but having a horrible EQ and feel for culture and relationships (where he clearly has a deficit) does not add up to a 'gold standard' GM.
They have their SP2 his name is Imai. I know you dont like this but I'm fine with this he's only going to get better. IMHO, I know what happened lead to the best decade in H-Town sports history and all I'm doing is holding other Stros GM's to the gold standard. You dont and that's OK, but I dont understand why you wouldn't hold future GM's to that standard. BTW, Luhnow had to get Crane's approval on all big trades/FA signings. I actually like what Dana did this offseason, but he should've added a bat either by trade or FA. An avg OF bat added in the offseason and the Stros qould be in 1st place right now. Avg OF bats are reasonably priced on the trade market/FA, look at Wade as an example.
Since his return to the lineup, Imai is a more schizophrenic Framber (minus the anger issues). Is it "good Imai" or "bad Imai"? Upside is 6 solid with 1 or 2 runs given up, downside is less than three innings with a bunch of walks and six runs. If he improves enough and is consistent enough to be SP2 next season that is played (and I am starting to think he will be back on a "prove it" contract), then you deserve your kudos.
I hope he does continue to get better and he clearly has the stuff to do so. Even if he turns out to be a great #2 the rest of season, I still want another starter. Anyhow my point was our #2 went from last year went and got $38M on the open market. You can argue whether he was worth that, etc. but regardless we spent like $25M this offseason and had to salary dump Jesus Sanchez and Dubon (both of whom play the OF and have been above average bats this season BTW) just to clear up salary to do that. By definition, that is an inadequate budget. I feel like we are just going in circles on your claim average OF bats are reasonably priced. First off, Loperfido and Trammell currently sit at average bats this season. Secondly, no they are not "reasonable priced in free agency", especially when considering the above budget restraints. I asked you to give me an example but you couldn't do it and instead gave a bunch of trade targets. The OF bats are not why we aren't in first right now - it's been the pitching, especially the starting pitching. Notice how we have been winning since they started to not suck? And there is a big difference between getting approval for big FAs/trades and being told who you are getting and to make the rest work on a limited budget. You know this.
I am ok going into a playoff series with SP lined up like this: Game 1/5: Brown Game 2/6: Good Imai Game 3: ???? Game 4: Lambert Game 7: all hands on deck Given the extra rest days and “all hands on deck” nature of bullpen usage in the playoffs, the risk of Bad Imai showing up is a bit mitigated because they’d have Teng, Blubaugh, and a bunch of other quality RP arms available. So the question is: can they find a Game 3 starter between Arrighetti, Javier, McCullers, Blanco, Pecko, and Burrows?
man I'm rolling the dice on Spencer there imo. A rested Spencer. The rest can be a collective bullpen game as needed lol
SP: Brown, Imai, Arrighetti, Lambert RP: Hader, King, Okert, Teng, De Los Santos, Blubaugh, Javier, Blanco, Abreu You’d have 3 mulit-inning arms in the bullpen if the leash on any of Imai/Arrighetti/Lambert needs to get pulled early. And you could even replace Abreu or Okert with Burrows or Pecko if needed.
I know this if Luhnow was still here, heck if Click was still here the OF wouldn't have 3 Mendoza level hitters as their everyday OF. BTW, Crane approved most all moves Luhnow made. Example: the JV and Greinke trades, Brantley and Yuli FA signings etc....
A Mendoza level OF means they wont have a shot at winning a WS and there are no avg MLB bats currently in the OF. I'm talking Wade/Pham/Miguel Andujar etc... level bats. We can argue that Dana didn't make trades to maximize his budget then we can agree. on that. It also seems that many dont seem to appreciate the best decade of MLB in Stros history and dont want to keep the processes in place that lead to that most successful decade. Me, I'm about winning at all costs and if they aren't trying to win at all costs then they should quit keeping score and just give everybody a participation trophy. As far as the relationship with the media goes. Bleep those sanctimonious bleeps.
