Most of The Talent is in Low A Ball. You guys don't do research. Astros Future on Twitter. Learn their names. Remember them. Cam Smith 21 years old, 6'5 https://www.si.com/mlb/astros/news/...-prospect-will-be-contributing-in-majors-soon
Melton had a down year in the minors last year and dropped off the top-100 lists. Cam Smith has barely played above A ball. I don't think you should expect either to contribute much this season in MLB. But I agree that Matthews and Dezenzo will get opportunities this season with the big club. If they both produce at as above-average hitters, we've got a chance. We badly need another bat, and pickings are slim.
He has been extremely hard to get a read on. His interviews are very cringeworthy but I can’t tell if it’s because he just isn’t comfortable talking on camera, if he’s intentionally obfuscating things, or just isn’t competent. So I’ve not been impressed at all with how he has presented himself in that arena. However, I think his short track record of managing the organization has been very good. Early returns on drafting and farm development are very good. Early returns on trades for which he’s the point man have been very good. Early returns on his ability to find guys on waivers and at the bottom of free agency have been good. I think the next 7 months will give us a much clearer picture of how good of a GM he is. If no prospects take big steps forward then he’s probably not the guy we hoped he was. People don’t understand what a different situation Brown came into vs Luhnow and Click. Brown came into a nearly maxed out payroll, an aging roster with several underwater contracts, a poor farm system, drastically reduced draft capital, and an owner who thinks it’s ok to jump in at any time and dictate a major move even if it runs counter to the overall plan. That’s a very difficult set of restrictions to navigate and try to keep a window open. Like I said, I think this season will tell us a LOT. If Brown shows he can consistently find star players late in the draft and get the better end of trades, I don’t care how bad he comes off in interviews.
If the entire crop of high-ceiling guys slated for the upper levels fails to produce a single player who looks like they will be a core/star player this season, Dana Brown is probably toast. Dezenzo, Melton, Matthews, Smith, Baez, Cole, Whitcomb, Leon, Corona, and Williams all have 3+ win ceiling and if they’re gonna hit then they’ll probably reach the majors this season or at least end the season in AAA with loads of hype. That’s 10 guys; if they all bust then the Astros are probably due for a full rebuild and Dana Brown won’t be around to see it through.
I like Paredes and although I have my doubts I am hopeful that Walker can hold up for two or three years. His drafts have been unimpressive to this point and other than Paredes his trades have been pointless to awful. He seems to have issues with honesty and probably should just not speak if he can not speak truthfully. I have seen enough to say it would not disappoint me to see him go this season. Furthermore without significant improvement this season I will be disappointed to see him still here next season.
Roster isn't as good, for sure. But then I look and see Detroit, Cleveland and KC making the ALDS last year, with Cleveland making the ALCS. I think one could make an argument that this team is as good as those three teams, who used a lot of smoke and mirrors to get as far as they did. But, at the end of the day, this team is no longer a World Series contender. Playoffs, possibly, World Series, no way.
We were saying these same things last year at this time about making deals to add a bat at the deadline if needed.
Issue is replacement... we're not getting Luhnow the irreplaceable back. Stros should have been shopping Tucker earlier if they knew they couldn't give him $350-400 million, let alone what his value rocketed to after soto deal. The haul for Tucker is paltry,needed to be atleast Paredes and Suzuki + prospects. Literal peanuts for a guy who hits 7-8 war if not injured. There's no point replacing a mediocre GM with another mediocre GM ... Click was doing good but apparently not good enough for Crane. So the Stros are stuck and the league has pulled ahead.
Luhnow had the good fortune to get in a situation with an owner willing to completely turn over the reins to him, suffering thru the worst 3 year stretch in baseball history to build something from scratch. If you look at Luhnow’s drafts and trades after 2015 when he was running a team intent on actually winning, his results are not that stellar. The 2016-2019 drafts produced very little. The Carlos Gomez trade was a huge bust. He gave away Teoscar Hernandez for nothing. He wasn’t all bad (Verlander and Yordan trades were amazing) but he wasn’t a genius outside of convincing Crane to let him tank to get 4 straight top 5 overall picks (of which he completely whiffed on 2 of them). Hell, the draft pick penalties from the scandal that happened on his watch are a big reason Houston is in their current predicament. I really liked Luhnow when he was here but he wasn’t a transcendent figure in baseball history. His real gift was selling the idea of a total tear down.
There are franchises that have been bad for decades and not able to replicate a single playoff run. Luhnow supercharged the process that many NBA and MLB teams would follow of continuously tanking to accumulate young high ceiling talent. Now... look at how the pendulum has swung. the mismanagement, particularily not winning the cakewalk that was 2023, is very tough to handle. Instead of the youthful optimism of our best days in front of us, we're cynical old men holding onto memories of what could have been our last hopes are baesd on pipe dreams of a healthy yordan and healthy, consistent SP .. not getting the most out of an immensely talented squad
Notable that the Astros have not had a drafted position player rise through the ranks and breakout since Tucker/Bregman were drafted in 2015. Luhnow oversaw plenty of those drafts as well, so it isn’t just a blackball effect or losing picks due to scandal effect. (And I’m including all those prospects they traded for JV, Greinke…. As they didn’t bust out elsewhere either). The Yordan acquisition covered up a lot of prospect deficiencies from the 2016-2019 classes.
Just a random note. Completely forgot Vinny Castilla played here! Nice lineup. edit: damn link is broken i guess. It was the 2001 squad. Bigg, Bags, Berk, Alou, Castilla, and Hildago amongst others.
That was a badass 1-6 but like most McLain era teams it wasn’t enough. The 7-8-9 of that team sucked (Lugo, Ausmus, and a bunch of nobodies).
