Luhnow rebuilt player development and built an advantage in Latin scouting and signing. He got us Framber, Javier, Garcia, Urquidy, Alvarez, etc. Luhnow was not the greatest scout but he built the system that is still in place that brought us unprecedented success.
Look up Oz Ocampo. But yes, this is what I’m saying… he knew where the Astros needed improvement (even though the Venezuelan Academy that pre-dated Luhnow was working pretty well for the Astros till it closed). He also entrusted and empowered certain scouts (while also simultaneously getting rid of a ton of scouts). He organized, structured, and constructed. It was also an integral team effort and there were failures in strategy along the way that the Astros were able to overcome (minus whistle-blowers).
My recollection is that Luhnow heralded the usage of advanced metrics. Brought in high speed cameras, focusing on bat speed, spin rates, etc. This is commonplace now but we were at the forefront then. Oh, and Strom's sticky icky turned Verlander and Cole into Cy Young juggernauts
This scouting revolution of pitching was simply telling them to throw more offspeed, even on typically fastball counts. It was pitching selection moreso than talent scouting. Sparky talked about this sometime last season. It's probably also why all our pitchers' arms are falling off
