I love you Snake.... but yes Luhnow was great and possibly the best executive in baseball. He drafted Correa, Bregman, Tucker, McCullers, White, Davis, James, Thornton, Straw, Whitley, Rogers, Torro, Martin, Rojas (I think), Beer, Pena, Bielak, Barber, Brown, Lee and I am sure others that I have forgotten. In the international market they got Gurriel, Javier, Garcia, Paredes, Urquidy, Valdez. He traded for Verlander, Greinke, Cole, Pressly, McHugh, Alvarez, Musgrove, He signed Brantley, Marisnick, Morton, Chirinos, Maldonado, McCann
Just put 100 bucks on the Astros to win it all this season. Any chance Verlander will be back before the playoffs?
Luhnow was at one point my idol. He was good. But he wasn’t a unicorn. For each of his successes there was an equally bad move. On balance he was obviously successful due to winning it all. But he was ~.500 in his tenure. Traded for Verlander. Traded for Gomez/Fiers. Drafted Correa. Drafted Appel. Drafted Bregman. Drafted Aiken. Signed Gurriel. Signed Ronny Rafael. I could go on.
I really dont care about interpersonal relationships. If being cold means you can build a team that can win 100 games multiple times then give me the guy whose methods allowed for this to happen On the business side of things Luhnow helped Crane and the Stros raise the valuation of the team by close to a billion dollars so if I'm an owner give me that. But there's two reasons Luhnow got blackballed. 1. He was changing the way MLB did business and was setting up processes that would allow small market teams to compete with the larger market teams on somewhat more equal footing. Thereby costing MLB money when the big market teams aren't able to beat up on the little guys. As far as the moves go, I agree about Luhnow and the bullpen. I disagree if you think Luhnow would've invested two years in Castro or Straw would've been his starting CF heading into a season. Straw as a fourth OF sure, as an everyday starter no way. Maybe you're right and JBJ will sign on the cheap just before camp but I'm skeptical. Maybe there will be a midseason trade but after last year I'm skeptical. Maybe I should change my username to skeptical.
What matters most is he built what could've been a dynasty. Yep, give me that over what's currently going on in the FO. BTW, hopefully Click got the Leon and Santos signings/picks right and the Stros can quickly reload. The proof will be in the pudding.
What’s the 2nd reason? I’m not really buying the first. Even if true, there are more mid-small market teams in MLB than there are truly big market teams. Even some of the truly big market teams have had to scale back in recent years as the results didn’t justify the costs (Red Sox, Mets). MLB revenues and TV contracts were on the rise pre-pandemic, with the Yankees not winning a WS in over a decade and only the Dodgers (amongst the big market teams) having prolonged contending success. MLB was also still getting a big market team in most of the last several World Series. If they didn’t blackball Billy Beane for what he did to “change the game”, they weren’t going to ban Luhnow for it either. I can buy that they didn’t want to promote the culture that Luhnow was overseeing (even if he didn’t instill it), as nearly every one of his protégés was getting GM/VP jobs and I’m sure Tuabmann wasn’t too far behind. The way he treated the media in the tanking years also did not ever get forgotten...even though the media was hypercritical and ultimately Luhnow’s plan worked.
Tell me again what has Click done? I think that Stanek has been his best add so far. Sad isn't it. I dont count Brantley because it was obvious to me one of Springer or Brantley was going to be kept.
Whoops I got off on a tangent Media witch hunt The media cant stand to be proven wrong and then told about it when they've been proven wrong. Bad press by the media isn't good for MLB.
No, he was far better than "good". First, the Verlander and Greinke, Cole and Alvarez deals all WAY more than make up for the Gomez/Laureano deals. Luhnow traded for three Hall of Fame pitchers, with two of them arguably being in their prime...... the cost to add all three pictures was close to NOTHING. So he draft Appel? He also drafted Correa, Bregman, Tucker....... It is very possible one or two of those players will end up being a Hall of Famer... one of them already has been as good as the 2nd best player in the AL. Ronny Rafael? The Astros spent 1.5 million on him, that really isn't very much..... he also signed Gurriel, Valdez, the players that turned in Pressly, Javier and Urquidy. There really is no comparison, and he certainly wasn't .500% in his tenure. He led the Astros to 101, 103, 107 wins his last 3 years as GM..... He won a WS, he almost won another one losing in game 7..... he took his other team to the ALCS and the team that Click had last year was essentially Luhnow's team and they made it to the ALCS before losing in game 7. He is the best executive in Houston sports history, and he was (before being fired) probably the best executive in all of baseball. Click deserves a chance, and he has a strong pedigree.... but lets not lose track of what Luhnow did just because he isn't here anymore. The Astros are expected to win 90+ games this year.... and how many of the players on this team are a direct result of Luhnow's drafting and trading for players.
I'm willing to give him a chance, what other choice do I have? Hope it works out. But if you think Luhnow would've gone into the season with Straw as his everyday CF you're kidding yourself.
The team is in a far different place now than it was then. Compare the everyday lineups. This team can compete for a championship it just needs a few tweaks and a little luck. Adding Baez/Castro shows me that mgmt isn't giving their team it's best chance to win another one
Funny, I do not remember every other team being punished. Why is it that you failed to address what I actually said?
Thanks I just dont get what the other guys are seeing that I'm not. I notice most of those guys are big MiLB guys so maybe that's what it is since I dont have near the prospect knowledge they do.
i don't know why you think Castro was such an un-luhnow move. He loved his veteran catchers. They were apparently interested in re-signing him when he hit FA. I can't say that I think Luhnow would have signed him, I just don't think it's some crazy paradigm-shifting move. I'm also skeptical of going into the season without adding another CF-capable player. It's interesting that Click may be more aggressive playing unproven players, it could work out pretty well. I don't think that the fact that Luhnow was bad at interpersonal relationships and was a good GM means that one has to be bad at interpersonal relationships to be a good GM. I think that if talented people start wanting to work for your competitors more than you, that's a problem. The existence of the media is as much a part of the job of a GM as Joe West is part of being a MLB player. If you can't handle it, you're going to hurt your team. I think Luhnow was on the cutting edge of a lot of things, especially when it comes to scouting/pitching development. I'm not convinced they were ahead of pack by the time that he got fired. The Dodgers, Rays, and Yankees appear to be at least in the same league. Sometimes it feels a little contrived that Cashman is the last name of the guy who happened to be talented enough and in the right position to adequately run the Yankees for by far the longest tenure in baseball.
Luhnow averaged 82 wins per season while he was GM. That’s about as close to .500 as you can get. Like I said, he was good. He deserves all the credit for building the World Series winner. And maybe if he had lasted longer he would have overseen a dynasty. But instead he made too many enemies and got canned with a .500 career record as GM, leaving behind a bottom 5 farm system and a maxed out payroll.
Brantley is a hell of a player. He does have some defense risk, but I love the bat. I think Leon was an excellent gamble. He likely hits the ball very hard as it is hard to fake that high of a homer rate. Sure there is risk he struggles with contact and either doesn't make it to as a regular or is just a Chris Carter type of batter though at CF or a corner if that doesn't work out. If he has a 1/8 chance of being a Josh Reddick type of player, it is probably worth it. So far, I see these as the two moves that matter the most by far. Not getting Hand or Hendriks hurts, but not nearly as important as Brantley 's bat. Only deal I didn't like was the Baez deal.
