Best possible hire they could make. And actually has a stronger pedigree from a draft/developmental standpoint than anything tangible we could have assigned to Click. Will obviously need to assemble a good team working around him, but I'm glad we've gone from acquiring braintrust from the most consistent/successful team of the early 2000's (Luhnow) to the braintrust from the second most consistent/successful team of the 2010's (Rays) to the braintrust from the second most successful team of the 2020's (Braves). Crane certainly knows which organizations he would most like his team to try and resemble... and he takes the best/most available person from there when making these decisions.
Especially since it seems pretty obvious that Crane will be very involved in contract negotiations (and so far, seems to do a good job at it). Our strategy is fairly obvious too - obtain the majority of our talent to come through the draft, international signings, and minor trades/FA signings. Developing those players into top tier MLB talent, retaining only the most important/cost-effective pieces, and letting the rest go. Rinse, repeat. Talent evaluation, player development, and maintaining a robust pipeline is what Crane needs his GM to excel at. Everything in Brown's background says this is exactly what he does best.
This has been the #1 thing I wanted the team to take into consideration and I'm glad they stuck to it. From Lunhow to Click to now Brown, these are some of the best run FO's in all the league.
Luhnow disciples have had mixed results so far. Stearns didn't get Milwaukee over the hump and didn't leave it in that great of shape. Elias is still incomplete in Baltimore although they are trending up. Will see what Pete does in SF, although he probably still has to answer to Zaidi who is in charge of baseball ops and he was more of an Ed Wade disciple anyways.
Steans did a great job and had the Brewers right there on the cusp of a WS. Harder let him down. Elias has the Orioles in better shape than they've been in, in years.
In 2019, Alvarez showed he was a great slugger. In 2020, Covid and knees pretty much made it a non year. in 2021, he showed he wanted to be a great hitter. In 2022, he had a couple of off months with his wrists. In 2023, he'll have a healthy year and blow everyone, including Judge, away.
I don't have a lot of knowledge of what would make a good/great GM and which candidates would be better than others...but from what I've read on this message board I'm pretty happy with Dana Brown. Really didn't want Ausmus. I didn't realize until now that Brown is African American and he'll be the first black GM in the league. That's nice PR.
In general, the biggest thing for a GM is talent evaluation whether from the scouting or analytic side. Semantics are notable here. Brown won't be the first black GM (a few have come before) but he'll be the only black GM in baseball next year. Kenny Williams of the White Sox is black, but he has the title of Executive Vice President (which oversees White Sox GM Rick Hahn). Both are considered "head of baseball operations" for their respective ball clubs despite different titles.
I dont care about his race as long as he can nail the draft like he did with the Braves, the Stros should be really good for the rest of this decade. Maybe even longer.
When was this? They won 1 playoff series during his tenure. In 2018, they beat the Rockies and then took the Dodgers to 7 games, so I assume that series is the one you're talking about. Hader pitched 8 innings in that series, had 12 Ks, allowed 5 hits and 0 runs. They pulled a Click this offseason - tons of money to spend, and signed no one.
Well, I would say I don't have much knowledge of Astros front office history. I didn't know about the previous black GM. But I also meant to say only black GM since that was what I had just read. But I suppose if you wanted to try and make someone feel stupid and make yourself look "good" in the process you could say it the way you said it.
It all good man. I have a feeling a lot of posters were unaware of Watson's tenure and what it meant in MLB.
