If you mean we take more chances on "high ceiling" guys over "safe bet" guys, then I agree with you. Ironically, Mark Appell was supposed to be the "safe bet" guy that year. Depends on the busts. When the #1 overall pick in the draft is a bust, that hurts. When your 6th or 12th round guys are a bust, then I agree with you.
The recent success of tanking would concern me if I were the MLB. There's no logical argument I can make against it on paper. If you trust your team to get it right, any short term pain with the fan base will go away if you do it correctly. However, tanking only played a helpful role in our success, it wasn't the driving factor. Any organization that thinks they can rebuild simply by getting high picks is gonna be in for a rude awakening.
This is what the "outside world" has done every year with the Yankees since 1920. So - congrats! We're now in the same class as the Yankees. Enjoy it!
Tanking is going to happen. If you aren't getting the 1st or 2nd pick, it isn't going to help much. Also, it seems outside of Boston, the best teams aren't overpaying in prospects/young MLB players. Unless a team gets a lot of luck, it isn't going to be a short term pain. There were a lot of rumors that the other teams were mad at the Astros for hoarding their prospects. Considering MLB is a zero sum game, you know your team is doing the right thing when the league doesn't like what they are doing. On tanking's role with Astros, it allowed the Astros to get Correa and Bregman. Also, instead of acquiring respectable, but not good starting pitchers for the rotation, tanking allowed the Astros to give a soft tossing lefty a shot to improve himself. It allowed the Astros to try out a lot of guys that failed. McHugh is one that didn't. It allowed the Astros to purge all the bad contracts such that when they had a good core, they could spend some money on Reddick and Gurriel. Kicking the can allowed the Astros to have prospects to trade for Verlander. While the Astros had a lot of luck, I don't see how Astros win World Series if they spent more resources (money, prospects, draft pick spot) to make team less of a dumpster fire in the past.
It was driving me crazy. I had listed Appel, but deleted it to re-word and for the life of me couldn't think of the 4th player I'd listed (I didn't originally include Reed).
The bullet dodged with Brady Aiken has worked out pretty well too. Wonder what all the folks who were excoriating Luhnow have to say after watching Bregman in the postseason.
By more chances, I just mean getting more good prospects than other teams. Whether it is by manipulating draft slot money, tanking for higher draft positions and more slot money, trading fringe MLB players for okay prospects, scouting low level minors to make sure the low level throw ins have a greater chance of being something, using whatever knowledge team has to draft better, etc. Getting more good prospects to AAA gives greater chances that more of them will make it to the majors. On Number 1 being a bust, would you rather Appel have been a starting pitcher for Astros instead of winning the World Series? You can have an infinite number of mistakes that don't have future implications (e.g., can be cut without a loss except what was needed to acquire) as long as team has enough successes. Hoes sucked. Singleton sucked. Oberholtzer was bad then sucked. Ruiz is not looking good in Atlanta. The majors are littered with guys that Luhnow cycled through. I hear Astros got lucky with McHugh, but the Astros during their tanking years must have cycled through 20 guys with limited MLB experience that ended up sucking and found 1 that was good. Astros gave themselves more opportunities for luck to happen. If I had to guess, I would say Astros have been unlucky on a per prospect basis...but just gave themselves more opportunities.
Nothing like being saved by the ego of a high school kid. Granted at the time, I think Astros would have preferred he not have a pre-existing condition.
To be fair, they didn't have to tank to get Correa... they were just really bad that year at the end of the Drayton era. Same with Springer the year before. They did tank to get Appel, Aiken (nee Bregman), and Tucker. The scary part is that this front office seems to be able to do just as well with some of the lower first round picks (if Whitley/Bukauskas end up translating), in addition to playing the slot money game to perfection. Draft picks are such a hit/miss proposition. Not many teams are going to be able to replicate the early round success of the Astros from Springer to Tucker even with a #1 pick every single year. They'll also never have the payroll flexibility they've had after the purge, to right now, going forward... its basically as if they started out as an expansion team in 2011.
What if he had taken the reduced/last second contract offer? Some things just end up working out for the best, despite first intentions.
It is a great time to be an Astros fan. The Astros are in a real good position short term. Long term, Astros are wide open. No bad contracts. A lot of great players still under club control for next 2-5 years. A couple of high level prospects not matched by anyone except rebuilding teams. Will likely have a drop off once Whitley and Tucker graduate or falter. Not a bad position to be in to have greatest need be a couple of relievers. LF/DH may be a little less sure of what Astros are going to get, but odds are good it will be better than last year.
Exactly. Bullet dodged. I didn't realize how terrible a year he had until I looked up his stats yesterday. I know he's young and it was his first full season, but damn. Bombing on back-to-back #1 overall TOR starters would have been not so good. Plus I love Bregman.
A lot of it is the GM. He is responsible for hiring extremely talented coaches, scouts, instructors and “minds” that are often unconventional but well ahead of the curve and provide the Astros organization an advantage when evaluating and developing players. Even with success, the structure of the organization is changed frequently by Luhnow because he is dynamic and his organization isn’t static. There is no Carlos Correa without the support system set up. Carlos would have fallen to 3-4 in the draft. Brady Aiken gets his full bonus with a bad ligament and the Astros don’t have Bregman. There is no extension for Altuve, Yuli isn’t signed, McHugh is left on waivers, Dallas is passed on, Castro is likely starting, McCullers is likely passed on and Peacock was long ago released, Martes is a Marlin with Marisnick and perhaps Springer is hitting at the bottom of the line up swinging at everything. I am not saying all of this would have happened for sure; but it isn’t luck that the Astros have elite scouts, elite instructors in their minors, have an elite saber/math department and an elite financial deapartment. Jeff Luhnow hired them all and set an example of what was expected and that they are in a growing/changing environment. He is just a great CEO. He isn’t even really a baseball guy, he is just really smart and really up to date on the game and management procedures that work.
Your last point there is why I don't think MLB should be all that worried. The success of the Cubs and Astros in back-to-back years might motivate teams to do complete tear-downs in the near term, but if there are some spectacular failures among teams who go the tanking route, it won't take long before organizations begin to try something different.
