Luhnow drastically changed the Astros minor league system/metrics when he was GM. He moved on from Quentin MeCracken who was successful. He hired and then fired a bunch of scouts, and by the end of his reign he had the smallest scouting staff in the game. He also moved on from a lot of coaches. I don't know what is going on in the system - but the people at the top have been doing it a long time. So it could be that Brown just wants to move on from some of the existing people.
I dont see it this way although I respect your thought process. The way I see it is, use the proven system that works and improve upon the successful system.
The Astros started cutting scouts after the first world series. There are certainly a couple of successes, but all in all I think our farm has been pretty bad at talent acquisition since then (international has been a wasteland). We've been coasting on past results, there's always a delay between when poor scouting starts and when it effects the MLB team. It's been 7 years, we have no real blue chip prospects and Hunter Brown and maybe Pena currently stands as the only truly meaningful players we've brought in since we dumped scouts. I wouldn't say Luhnows plan worked, I think it's been a pretty big failure. As the current tenured guys start to age and/or move out we're seeing replacement isn't happening nearly as smoothly.
2 of the 7 years, we did not have first round picks ... thanks to Luhnow Hinch Cora at al. Some of the blue chip prospects, Tucker, Correa, and Bregman, were top of the draft talent, where there should be more hit than miss. I am not sure what point your are trying to make.
I didn't think my point was that abstract. We've fallen off at identifying amateur talent since we dumped our scouts, particularly international which has nothing to do with draft penalties. Luunow's brilliant strategy of doing so has not yielded positive results compared to what we were doing prior, so Brown wanting to rock the boat is probably smart.
To add on to the international issues, we signed Wilyer Abreu in July 2017, and unless I'm forgetting somebody that's the last international player we signed to make an actual MLB impact. Among our current meaningful prospect crop, early 2021 is the oldest we still have so that leaves a 3.5 window (at least) of absolute zero from the international side. Maybe that's not all due to dropping scouts...but it's been a real issue.
Another failure of Luhnow's system is based on maintaining talent. There are a limited number of blue chip prospects each year. In Luhnow's arrogance, he felt that he could identify more of these than others but the cream rises and all organizations see the true blue chippers. It is true that the system was able to identify characteristics in players that would benefit from adjustments and the Astros were able to identify and exploit this turning those who were destined to be AAAA players into regular starters. But, for the most part (Martinez is one exception) the stars were known to have that ability. There are so few blue chippers that flat refusing to consider meeting their terms to keep them in FA or trading them away for younger equivalent talent reduces the talent pool. The comp picks are never at the same level. Luhnow felt that by letting Springer, Cole, Correa, etc walk they would have an equivalent player ready to replace him due to compensation, or a diamond in the rough they had found and developed. But the truth is none of those players have the same ceiling and the organization was slowly bedding out. Jeremy Pena will never be Carlos Correa. Jake Meyers or Chas McCormick will never be George Springer. And Zach Dezenzo will never be Alex Bregman. Jacob Melton will never be Kyle Tucker. At some point the organization must use the cards they have and bring some real top talent back into the organization. Trading Tucker and/or Framber WOULD hurt in 2025. Resigning Bregman WOULD hurt in 2029 forward. But at some point you must choose quality over quantity and find a way to keep/get the best of the best in the organization.
LMAO, it's lead to the best decade in Stros history. Yes, it worked fine, they're still living off of Luhnow's work and he hasn't stepped into MMP IN 4-5 years. BTW, Pena, Abreu, Traded for Pressly, Brown, Framber, Blanco, then you've got guys like LMJ/Garcia etc... not to mention all of the traded prospects of Luhnow's that Click traded to help build a Dusty proof bullpen. I guess I dont know what greatness looks like, or maybe you fail to recognize greatness. BTW, I'm pretty sure if Luhnow had been at MMP the last 4-5 years the state of the org would be in much better shape and they still aren't in bad shape.
Luhnow isn't the guy the fired Oz. BTW, there's plenty of top tier international prospects in the lower minors. Any number of top tier pitching prospects. Lead by Brito/Fleury/Ullola etc... and position players like Baez/Gomez etc... this is after Click traded away international guys like Dela Cruz. I think judging the job Luhnow did and the org still making/winning ALCS/WS 4 years after he's been gone speaks loudly for itself.
Every single one of those prospects you mention except Pena happened before they started dumping scouts after 2017. The amateur prospect evaluation has not been good since then...at all.
That's a tiny sliver of time you are left with there. Has to be after 2017 and before Luhnow was gone? That's two years? We are so now revising history into making it seem like Luhnow is not 90% responsible for one of the greatest MLB dynasties to ever exist?
