I see Wagner having a Tony Kemp career trajectory... Bloss will be serviceable but not a star. Loperfido seems like he will have one memorable year then flame out.
Randy Johnson's late season run here was one for the record books. Maybe the most dominant two month stretch for any Astro pitcher ever, and that is saying something Having said that, I really don't care about comparing those two trades for whatever reason everyone wants to I'm way more worried about giving up solid assets for a rental when we don't have enough assets in our system as it is. As an organization we have been amazing at continually coming up with more players to keep this thing rolling. But reality is we replaced Springer and Correa with a duo that has had similar overall success (Tucker, Pena..yes he isn't the overall player Correa is, but he was MVP in back to back series to bring us our 2nd ring) We have no one ready to replace Bregman at anywhere close to his level, nor do we have anyone ready to replace Tucker at anywhere near his level. We might potentially have the pitching to stay a playoff contender for a while, and yes if you make the playoffs history says you have a chance....but if we let Bregman/Tucker/Framber all walk for nothing (and that is way more likely than not) our time as "the favorite" is over and done with, and when the time comes for a rebuild it likely will be an ugly one like the early 2010's. Hopefully when that happens, the ghost of Jeff MFn Luhnow is ready to take over the franchise
Being a favorite has not been advantageous for many years. Just need to get in, and get hot. The expanded playoffs has all but ended the era of super teams unless you are in New York or Los Angeles.
The bottom line is that none of those players were/are going to be impact players. One or two of them could have a surprise 4 WAR season, but it will be an outlier and the majority of their careers will be pretty ho-hum. Joey Loperfido is basically Jake Marisnick Will Wagner is basically Colin Moran. Jake Bloss is basically Corbin Martin.
The Astros best prospects are 17 - 21 years old. The Astros just cleared out some Roster spots. In that trade. Now that Kikuchi left that is now 4 Roster Spots, to protect Rule V and put the on 40 man roster.
The bottom line is that it WAS a lot to give up. Every semi-knowledgeable person said so at the time. Depth is important too. But none of the traded players project to be impact players or "the one that got away." And Kikuchi proved to he worth that price. The bigger issue I have always had is that Brown wasted those 3 players by not making another trade to bring in a bat. It's like putting chips into a poker pot, and then just checking it down when you don't have a winning hand. You can't win without a followup bet. My preferences would be: 1) make that deal but follow it up with another for an impact bat. 2) don't make any deals. 3) Bring in either a SP or bat but not both. This is not hindsight. I posted this all over this and other boards at the time of the deal.
They've got plenty of the types of players they traded. Roster depth isn't an issue. Agreed Dana needed to find a bat. Even a Cahana type bat would have been a big help.
The amount of slurp yall put on this guy is pretty funny. Outside of the top-5 picks that he nailed (4 outta 5, with 1 do-over, is what any idiot could/should do) I don't really think he was very good at the draft at all his first few years. Go look at the players.
Luhnow nailing a bunch of 1st picks isn't a given. If it were then a bunch of perennial bottom dwellers would be a lot better than they are. That being said, what Luhnow did very well was build a system for development and finding talent from other places than the first rounds. Framber, Garcia, Javier, Morton, Urquidy, Chas, Pena, Alvarez are all him. The minor league development staff are all his guys. I actually Brown is a better talent evaluator than Luhnow. Luhnow was just more calculating and found more opportunities from other places.
I agree. I think the most remarkable thing he did was bring in a group of highly innovative, very intelligent people that changed the status quo for the way things were done. It was his vision that brought about the Astros success
I would disagree with Kikuchi proving to be worth the price To me, and this is just my opinion, it's only worth it if it leads to playoff success, which it certainly didn't. I mean we can sit here and say we know what those three players will turn into all we want (none of us know), but it's hard to argue the organization is in a better position right now that it would be if we still had those three guys. I think we undervalue Bloss now that he is gone, some of the prospect guys on here were really excited about him until he was no longer in the Astros organization. Just sayin
Yea, dude only set up the best stretch in Houston sports history And only set up the best organization in baseball for the past decade But yea, other than that
Of course winning/not winning always changes the calculus. Kikuchi pitched extremely well and it's probably beyond debate that they don't make the playoffs without making that trade. Of course the team would be better off today with those 3 prospects still in the organization. But it's debatable whether having those 3 prospects in the organization after missing the playoffs makes this organization better now than one that made the playoffs last year and proved to future pitching acquisition options that the organization still has the magic to make them better and more $$$.
I just don't think we are at a place that just making the playoffs is a huge deal. Right now we pretty much judge a successful season on getting to at least the ALCS. At least that's where I view it. I don't think we would be worse off with those three prospects but we missed the playoffs. If anything we would have a little higher pick And don't get me wrong, I applaud Brown for taking a shot on Kikuchi. And he was right on the talent and what we could do with it. But at the end of the day, for those deals to have been successful, you need to have playoff success OR bringing the player in needs to lead to you signing him for at least a few more years. In this case, we did neither I respect your opinions a lot, but we certainly don't agree on this one
I respect yours also. It's okay to have different opinions. And I agree that just making the playoffs for this team at this time is much less important than it was 10 years ago. But making the playoffs vs not making the playoffs is not nothing and does have some value.
Missing the playoffs would have been a far greater disaster. The bar was to win the World Series... falling even more short would have led to a complete reckoning.
