Luhnow always built a roster with enough depth that we were not running out guys who aren’t good AAA players at the MLB level routinely I seriously doubt he would have allocated what little money we had to spend on Baez. Luhnows ability in the draft was over rated in my opinion, he did a great job building a roster though
On the positive side....after a horrendous start (I’m sure he was going through a lot of life adjustments as well as baseball) Pedro is starting to hit the ball pretty well at AA Hopefully he has an extended good streak and can be seen as a possibility by September
Garcia isn't any worse than Jack Mayfield. Literally the only major roster difference between now and 2019 is that we couldn't afford to keep Springer.
He replaced Marwin with Diaz, he never had both. And the rest were just unproven prospects, just like we're running out there now.
The Astros current lack of depth is almost completely Luhnow's doing by drafting Correa, and extending Altuve, Bregman, and Verlander. (Edit: Which, I'm fine with). I'm happy Click brought back Gurriel, Brantley, and Castro. On Baez, Joe Smith is on a Luhnow contract. Hector Rondon was a mistake and him playing may be worse than Baez on the IL. Luhnow wasn't perfect on the small deals.
Lol I’m not talking about major roster differences I’m talking about having a bench that could give you professional at bats and cover for days off and injuries better You have the right to think Luhnow wasn’t good at that, I think he was outstanding I also think Click wasted what little money we had to spend this offseason. It’s a tough job without a doubt, some are still better at it than others Let’s hope Click can work a decent trade cause with Diaz going down our bench just got even worse
Lol of course he wasn’t perfect, no one is. Hell Luhnow blew two overall #1 picks But you can call it Luck or whatever you want, Luhnow built good rosters with well rounded benches. Clicks attempt at it this year hasn’t been good Luckily we have enough stars, and enough solid young pitching, that we are still in the playoff race and likely will be
He spent a lot of resources to get those prospects (high picks, trades) unlike the current set. Jones, Garcia, Straw, and McCormick did not require the same amount of resources to acquire. By 2019, Luhnow burnt through a lot of his resources for winning, but there was a good 4-5 years that Luhnow loaded the Astros with depth. I don't fault Luhnow for going hard to win while the Astros had Springer. I don't fault Click for not being able to snap his fingers and undo trades Luhnow made that sent out guys who would be depth/starters this year (Musgrove, Laureano, Kemp, Rojas, Phillips, Hader, Davis, Moran, and Hernandez).
I was pondering why the A’s seem to be always be playing losing teams and wondering if it was true…it is. http://www.espn.com/mlb/stats/rpi/_/sort/sos According to ESPN’s SOS, Astros have played the 3rd toughest schedule in MLB this year. The A’s have played the 19th toughest…in the AL, only the White Sox, Twins, Royals and Red Sox have had an easier time so far. Next toughest in the AL above the A’s are the Yankees at 12th. Makes me feel a bit better about where we are at right now. We’ve also got an easy schedule come August which is when the A’s schedule turns brutal and then we’ve got 6 games with them out of the last 9.
Something I was thinking about after watching Trevor Bauer's latest press conference where they were asking him about his spin rate being down a couple hundred RPMs today after MLB announced the crack down.... If MLB is going to crack down on foreign substances and Verlander was supposed to be using that stuff from the club house guy in Anaheim... do we want Verlander back? Or would we be better trying to bring back Greinke another year? I assume he doesn't use stuff because he licks his fingers while walking around the mound. If you have some nasty pinetar/boiled coke sh%t on your fingers I doubt you would be licking them.
Lets see how Cole does for his upcoming starts. Verlander was great prior to 2018 when this sticky stuff started to go league-wide (in part due to people noticing improvement in pitchers like Cole, all due to higher spin rates). No doubt Verlander, and every ace-type pitcher, benefits from it. But if they all stop using it, the playing field will be even. They should still have the relative disparity between each other, even if their peaks aren’t collectively as high.
I'm no Click fan, but it's way too early to say the Odorizzi and Baez signings were a waste. Those two could prove to be huge for us down the stretch and/or in the postseason.
I expect Odorizzi to rebound. Dude had a long layoff and was coming off injury. His FB velo has been right in line with his career marks (92.1 vs 91.9) and his xFIP is 4.58 vs his career mark of 4.43, so it looks like he’s been unlucky as well. He’s not going to be a stud but I think he’ll be a good contender’s #4 for Houston which is pretty much what he’s being paid to be. It is WAY too early to judge Click, but if you had to, he would get a passing grade. Castro and Brantley look like bargains. Odo has been unlucky. Baez got hurt (hard to predict pitching injuries) and wasn’t that expensive. Even not signing Springer looks smart since he’s been hurt. That ignores his biggest deal, the McCullers extension which looks like a fair deal so far. My biggest complaint on Click is he bet on Straw and that looks to be a loss, and an important one. We could have had Marisnick or Pillar and been much better off.
Definitely agree with this. Though, I think in the grand scheme of things, small fry signings won't factor much into whether he's a good GM or bad. It will likely come down to drafting/IFA signings, player development, big trades, and large free agent signings. Small trades and small free agent signings will likely only make a difference if he acquires a player that greatly outperforms the money/prospects needed to acquire him. Hitting it big is usually a lot more important than the misses (provided the misses aren't 100M contracts).
Yep. The only noteworthy moves he’s made so far to me are signing Leon, extending McCullers, and resigning Brantley (which was more of a 2nd tier move that looks good so far).
I like Jake, but historically he has been a fast starter and then slacks off due to injury or just having a bad run. No different this year. That being said, when healthy, he is a clear upgrade over Straw in every category.
Even better bc the bad teams will trade away whatever decent players they have by July, making them even worse in Aug and Sept.
