[Rosenthal] Rift between Bo Porter and Jeff Luhnow???

Stopped reading at Rosenthal.

 

check you later Bo

 

Local rags

Spoiler

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>We've told you often that the Astros are dysfunctional and that many of the folks in uniform bristle at Luhnow at front office.</p>&mdash; Jose de Jesus Ortiz (@OrtizKicks) <a href="https://twitter.com/OrtizKicks/statuses/505389235596427265">August 29, 2014</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>I bet some folks who draw paychecks from MLB will pretend the Appel stuff really wasn't an issue. The players will laugh. Again.</p>&mdash; Jose de Jesus Ortiz (@OrtizKicks) <a href="https://twitter.com/OrtizKicks/statuses/505390318041440256">August 29, 2014</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>“What a joke of a non-story” — <a href="https://twitter.com/keithlaw">@keithlaw</a>, re: Chronicle on Mark Appel dust-up. I’m sure, Keith, you’ve read <a href="https://twitter.com/Ken_Rosenthal">@Ken_Rosenthal</a> this morning.</p>&mdash; Evan Drellich (@EvanDrellich) <a href="https://twitter.com/EvanDrellich/statuses/505392311770292224">August 29, 2014</a></blockquote>
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**** that guy too.

 

I'm not sure when it happened, but all the writers for the Chronicle were pretty obviously asked to stir things up whenever applicable.

JDJO, Drellich, and Brian T. Smith never EVER miss an opportunity to get dramatic.

 

I read that what the team did with Appel is not unusual.

 

Had high hopes for Evan... sadly has gone the was of pessimism and parade raining.

 

It would not surprise me if their was a lot of tension between Porter and Luhnow. The Appel thing seems overblown, but it might not be if there was existing tension.

 

Porter isn't the long term answer as manager anyways, I expect Biggio to be in the dugout when this team is competitive again.

 

I think Porter deserves to manage major league talent before the Astros give him the boot.

 

[rQUOTEr]In a season where the Astros seem incapable for staying out of the headlines for negative and controversial reasons, manager Bo Porter and general manager Jeff Luhnow have been at odds, according to a club source.

The Chronicle was told this week by a club source of a “heated battle” between Porter and Luhnow, and that Porter recently spoke with the owner about the GM, who is said to have been particularly aggressive in addressing the manager’s in-game moves.

Porter, Luhnow and Crane did not respond to interview requests.

Mark Appel’s unannounced visit to Minute Maid Park to throw a bullpen in late July, when he had just been promoted to Class AA Corpus Christi contributed to the escalating problem. Appel came to Minute Maid without Porter’s awareness.

That was a situation where there was miscommunication between Porter and the front office, said a second source, who was not familiar with any conversation between Porter and Crane. Players were unhappy with Appel’s presence as well, as the Chronicle was the first to report — an arguably childish but nonetheless genuine sentiment.

Where the Astros go from here is unclear. Just a day earlier, another major national magazine, Bloomberg Businessweek, profiled the front office and noted ” fans will have to wait a little longer to find out if baseball’s most controversial general manager can also become its most successful.”

Sports Illustrated in June dubbed the Astros the 2017 World Series champions, a headline that drove home to current members of the organization a sentiment that the future, not the present, is what the organization seems most concerned about.

Brady Aiken, Jacob Nix and Mac Marshall — the three draft picks the Astros did not sign this year — are a black eye for the organization that has yet to clear up because of one grievance, on behalf of Nix, and the possibility of another on behalf of Aiken. Casey Close, one of the game’s leading agents, ripped the Astros’ handling of the situation to both FOXSports.com and MLB.com.

The team, vocal about its proficiency in technology and proud of its baseball operations database, “Ground Control,” was embarrassed in June when confidential logs of trade talks with other teams were published on the website Deadspin.com.

There has been on-field improvement this year, but that’s expected and almost impossible to avoid considering how terrible the club was last year in a 111-loss season.

The Astros entered the year working uphill against a perception the front office had become “the outcast of major league baseball,” as former Astros pitcher Bud Norris told the Chronicle earlier this season.

Service-time matters and contract extension offers to players who with little or no service time — particularly in the case of George Springer — have drawn attention around baseball as well.

Seventy wins is a possibility for this year’s club, yet repeated problems in management leave broad questions about 2015.

http://goo.gl/Mx7HDi[/rQUOTEr]

 

Our players were "seething" over Appel throwing a bullpen session?? Seriously?? That's lame as **** if true. And if not true, **** Ken Rosenthal.

 

Really **** the Chronicle.

This is just another opportunity for the haters to bash this organization. It's been a recurring theme for the last few years, typically from the same people (Rosenthal, Gammons, Chronicle). I, for one, am happy that our GM cares about the manager. He's pretty awful, but I'll let bobrek expand on that.

 

I still chuckle that Crane thought this team would/should win 81 games. If Jeff thinks so also, and Bo is being held accountable for falling short of that, then Bo is doomed because the Astros brain trust lives in fantasy land.

 

There is absolutely no way Luhnow thought this team was going to win anything more than 70 this season. He's too smart for that. Crane, on the other hand, can be as delusional as he wants as long as he's willing to spend the money to make the team competitive again when the time comes.

 

If the Astros aren't careful, the author of Moneyball will sue for plagiarism.

 

He did break the Aiken "failed physical" story before anybody else did. I bashed it when it first came out because I thought he was purposely trying to make the Astros look bad, but he was right.

He clearly has a "source" in the front office/clubhouse, so there's going to be some truth to each of his Astros-centric reports.

 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Astros owner Jim Crane by text: “You should direct this to Jeff (Luhnow). I have no comment.&quot;</p>&mdash; Evan Drellich (@EvanDrellich) <a href="https://twitter.com/EvanDrellich/statuses/505420994933030913">August 29, 2014</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Jim Crane adds on: “I have not discussed any of what was reported with Bo and told the reporter it was false.&quot;</p>&mdash; Evan Drellich (@EvanDrellich) <a href="https://twitter.com/EvanDrellich/statuses/505422259167584256">August 29, 2014</a></blockquote>
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Actually, I bet Rosenthal's source is none other than JDJO... so n/m on my previous post (even though he did get the Aiken failed physical right before anybody else).