They’ve either won the WS, won the AL, or made the ALCS every year since. Also, Bagwell/Biggio were sitting in Crane’s seats for the 2019 playoffs while Reggie Jackson was in the luxury suite. Luhnow’s not coming back. Brown will probably have a stellar farm system within 2 drafts. Not going to guarantee MLB success as no team can be stellar forever… but theres an overwhelming sense of wanting to throw the baby out with the bath water here during a tougher year (where they still should have an over .500 record).
The fact that they've won is a testament to what Luhnow built. The Talent level has fallen off a bit since 2019. I hope eventually Crane gives Brown the type of autonomy he gave Luhnow. What Crane's currently doing doesn't bode well for the future. I'm fully on board with not throwing the baby out with the bath water.
No GM will ever get full autonomy from him again…. Because of the extreme antics of Luhnow and the MBA’s (that Crane likely fully knew enough about). But Luhnow paid his dues as a scouting director, much like Brown was. Not sure he’ll try and exploit loopholes/inefficiences in the system as much as Luhnow did… and he gets none of the experimentation time that Luhnow had while they were just stockpiling young talent… but he does know baseball and can certainly grow into the job.
I hope you're wrong and Brown is more than a glorified scouting director. (Which I think he's top notch at doing.) I hope Dana's allowed to exploit any loopholes in the system that he can find. Because that's what it's going to take to keep this dynasty a float as long as possible. I doubt Crane will ever let this happen.
This is a tough situation. The team is winning and generally playing well. Much if that has to do with better decisions by Espada. Example: He had Abreu warming and was ready to avoid too much damage if Arrighetti collapsed in the 7th. He also moved on to the mop up guys instead of leverage guys once the lead was extended. How much of it is: better results mean better decisions? I'm not sure. I wanted Espada to manage this team for a Long time (since Hinch was fired) but up till now he has been very bad. Maybe it's just growing pains maybe he goes back to terrible decisions. Either way now isn't the time. He has earned a stay of execution for now.
Yet, then there's the Bloss game, and the Martinez up/down in it. He should finish out the season and see where things stand afterwards.
I have had very little to complain about with Espada the last month or so. He still goes to Hader a little more liberally then I think he should, but that's about it. I don't remember many "WTF are you sending him back out for" type decisions which were rampant earlier, and his choice of relievers has been defensible in most cases. Generally speaking the lineups have been sound for the game situation, I think the Abreu mess was out of his control. No manager is gonna always make choices I agree with. Ultimately if pitchers pitch well managers always seem smart, if they don't..not so much.
10-24 in games decided by 2 runs or fewer. Tonight's game easily could put us at 10-25. These are really the games you judge how the manager is doing. Anybody can manage a 7-2 victory. We aren't out of the woods yet with Espada.
They're a .500 team today. If you look at the roster and all of the injuries, that's probably about right give or take a few games. I do not think he's done a good job, and I think he's made a lot of bad decisions, but there's no real reason to do anything until after the season. They're clearly trending in the right direction finally.
They're clearly winning in spite of Justy Espaker. But at least now we know that JAbreu was indeed limpin' and not pimpin'
Nah bro. Nah. F*** you Joe. Seriously. This team is going nowhere with this clown at the helm. Any winning is being done IN SPITE of him. What a joke.
