It looks like even his supporters agree that he's cut corners on the farm and that he meddles way too much in baseball operations when he should let the people who know what they are doing it handle it. This is what I like about Alexander and McNair- they are mostly hands off when it comes to making personnel decisions. I agree he's the best baseball owner we've had. I'm just saying he's coming in for well-deserved criticism.
I didn't mean to imply that he can't. He certainly has proven that he can. But he has increasingly made choices that don't lead to long term success. I think signing Tejada was one of those, but at least Tejada got people in the seats. I hope he is trying to rebuild the farm, but I think he believes that the team can be competitive and he spends most of his money on the field. Like someone said, the Astros were well below average in spending in the 2009 draft. The 2008 draft was good, but the 2007 draft was a disaster.
Absolutely we agree on that. I'm not sure all of those decisions are his solely though...are you assuming he initiated the Tejada trade over objection of his baseball people?? I'm not sure it's meddling if you're doing what your baseball guys tell you to do.
He's never had to rebuild before. It's not a coincidence when bagwell and biggio (the the veteran FAs he signed) left or went into decline the team did too. The rebuilding that led to the great astros teams in that period (and just think how much better it could have been without losing finley, caminiti, schilling, loften, etc) was done by the the apparently evil John Mcmullen. Exceptthey are not funding the draft. They have been at the very bottom of spending in the draft in the last 5 years, including this year. They been at the bottom of the league in money spent on international free agents in the last 5 years as well. That's great that they signed their picks, but it's not a good strategy to pass over better prospects (like what i'm afraid happened with smoak and castro)just to make a signibility pick. Heck shouldn't be handcuffed these next few years based on few million dollars.
Doesn't mean you can't play the system. I rather see more money invested in the draft with the chance for a good player to come out vs. signing aging vets who won't really help the team contend.
The entire baseball world thought we had made a genius pick with Chris Burke. Nobody knows if Smoak will be a productive major league player. When you are paying guys millions based on potential at age 18, it is high stakes gambling. I love how people start talking about a few million dollars like it is pocket change. It is pretty easy to spend that money when it isn't yours.
No, I'm not assuming that on the Tejada move. I don't know which moves ar meddling and which aren't, but even McLane's supporters agree he meddles way too much. He needs to let the GM run the show.
The question is how he's spending it. He hasn't been investing in the draft, the Astros rank near the bottom of the league there, and it shows.
It's all about how they allocate their resources. They're spending millions every year on players (darin erstads, ivan rodriguez, and doug brocails of the world) whose production could be duplicated or likely exceeded by league minimum players. At the same time they have failed to sign or passed up on prospects based on hundreds of thousands of dollars. This is even worse when you consider the state of the major league team, and the fact that studies show that first round picks have historically had an enormous return on investmenthttp://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/are-first-round-draft-picks-overpaid The draft is the one chance teams get to acquire talent without bidding against the yankees, redsox and the rest of the market. The talent is thus undervalued. It's not the area to skimp on funding. It's not that they don't have the money. It's just that they are spending it in the wrong places. It's a large part of what has gotten them into this mess and there is not convincing evidence (imo) that they've entirely learned from their mistakes.
Blow it up as in....Drayton McClain, leave town. He'll never sell right now. Selling low isn't in this guys best interest. He'll probably do a mini rebuild/reload(with what assets) and then sell... I'd love for this team to get back to building from within the farm system. Didn't we use to have one of the top-five farms in the MLB? I'd also hang onto Wade as it takes YEARS to build a MLB talent level team let alone a decent farm system. Oh and btw, I'd love for the Astros to start keeping their talent instead of handing it out to the other 30+ teams...
Well there are studies that show that draft position (within the first round, and between rounds) has a strong correlation to major league production. Draft picks are not a total crap shoot. It's more like buying a lottery ticket that has a 60% chance of hitting (ie a top ten pick) vs. a 20% (a bottom of the first round pick). There is risk involved with both, but the risk is different and the expected value of the higher pick is greater than the lower pick. If the astros pass up on more talented draft picks to make signibility picks, it is going to catch up with them. Well it already has caught up with them, but it will continue to haunt them unless they adequately fund the draft and int FA signings.
i have no idea if they're drafting the rights guys yet or not. i will agree with you that IF they pass up on more talented players, that would be disappointing. also, IF we're attacked by jawas, that would suck. because i'd feel bad about having to scrap with little jawas.
