You forgot the part where he tapped into the Latin American market and got us Framber, Javier, Bryan Abreu, Ronel Blanco, etc. As for trades, he brought us Yordan and Gerrit Cole for peanuts. Pena and Hunter Brown were both Lunhow drafts. Literally nothing significant has been done via trade or the draft since he's left. Every significant extension or signing, outside of Yordan, we have made since he left has been garbage. Oh, and these idiots even traded Wilyer Abreu, another Lunhow signee, for a backup catcher that barely played because the GM and manager weren't on the same page. It's honestly kind of impressive they haven't managed to draft even one impact player since he has left. It would be almost impossible for him to have "not done much better than how it played out".
I covered those pitchers under “maximizing certain kinds of pitchers”. Luhnow traded away Josh Hader, Ramon Laureano, and Teoscar Hernandez for peanuts. 3 all stars. He cut JD Martinez who got MVP votes for a half decade. Luhnow’s drafts after 2015 produced almost nothing; his 1st rounders during that time were Forrest Whitley, JB Bukauskas, Seth Beer, and Korey Lee. Yikes. Al that casually ignores the fact that he was where the buck stopped with the sign stealing crap. Which is part of the reason the farm went to **** and a big reason it sucks to be an Astros fan sometimes. Like I said, he deserves credit for the tank job and getting the rings. But I very much doubt he would’ve done much better than what we’ve seen from Click and Brown. Adding good players when you draft at the back of the 1st round and when you lose draft picks is really hard.
So Hunter Brown and Jeremy Pena are nothing? Those are two damn good pieces to get in the draft after 2015. That Hunter Brown pick got us an additional first round pick this upcoming draft too so you can thank him for that as well. Jake Meyers is at least a MLB level player as well, which is more than we can say about any position player we've drafted since he left. We have had 6 drafts since he left and haven't produced a damn thing. Yeah, it's cool Neyens is hitting some homers but once again looks like we have another K machine. You're way off here. Clearly you have some hatred towards him and are just emotional about it, especially since you brought him up for a McCullers extension that wasn't even him - then you ignored the responses telling you that you were wrong there.
I don’t have any animosity toward Luhnow, I just think the fellating he still gets around here is mostly unwarranted. I think he was a very good GM. He did some good things and some bad things, hit some home runs and had his fair share of strikeouts and errors. He won rings but he also was involved in multiple scandals and fielded some of the worst rosters in MLB history. His winning percentage as GM was .523. The only thing I think he did that warrants a label of “great” was sell Crane on the plan to tank and take advantage of the rules as they were at the time. And since you seem to desperately need it, here you go: I WAS WRONG ABOUT LUHNOW BEING RESPONSIBLE FOR LANCE MCCULLERS JR’s EXTENSION.
Why would you bring up his winning % as a GM knowing he tanked? In the same paragraph, you're saying he was "great for convincing Crane to tank" but at the same time discrediting him because of his winning % while saying he "fielded some of the worst rosters in MLB history" lol I'll agree with you that people go overboard about his capabilities and act like he had some magic wand but I find it hard to believe he wouldn't have been better than Click and Dana.
The tanking can both show his excellence and stain his legacy. He doesn’t get the rings without running out 3 of the worst teams in MLB history. It’s called nuance. Which is really my point. To say Luhnow was an unparalleled genius as a GM lacks nuance and is an inaccurate portrayal of how good he actually was. Luhnow was never the GM of an aging roster with a maxed out payroll who’d picked near last in the draft for going on a decade with a bunch of lost picks. So we’ll never know how he would’ve done. But to me there’s nothing in his time as GM that shows he would have done much better than what we’ve seen. If I’m being honest I wish he’d gotten the chance but that’s not how it went.
If you think it sometimes sucks to be a fan of one of the two best MLB teams in the last generation, the problem might be you.
Meh. Luhnow’s at least part of the reason fans of other teams can legitimately call the Astros cheaters and accuse them of employing wife beaters (and depending on what you believe about Mike Fiers, pedophiles). That **** is annoying.
Not sure how much Astros knew about Fiers and when, I hold the Osuna thing against Luhnow. Considering how fans of other teams have handled the sticky stuff scandal, I think it is pretty clear that the Astros were cheaters, but so were at least 25 other teams. The big difference is the Astros got caught, admitted it, and apologized. I don't watch as much NL ball as I do AL ball, but to me, the Astros 2021 WS appearance and WS victory were helped by basically every decent team in the AL other than the Astros having an organization-wide drop in spin. The AL's ERA jumped up about 0.28 in ERA while FanGraphs calculated the Astros edge with banging to be about 0.04 runs per game. On the low side, I've seen a 0.12 ERA number, but that was MLB as a whole and took into account hitters perform better later in the year. Regarding cheating, I think it is pretty clear the Astros hitters were not nearly as big of cheaters as opposing teams pitchers in general. Granted, I think Verlander and Cole benefited a lot from sticky stuff. It typically, benefitted high velo guys over the high spin guys.
Who cares what other fans say. There’s been so many players, that weren’t on the Astros either, come out and say they know for a fact the majority of the league was cheating. Beltran being let into the HOF tells you what the actual people around baseball think. They’ll never take away the enjoyment and memories I got from winning in 2017.
No but he could execute a pick six for 57 yards and had an entire country thinking we had buried the bills after 31 minutes of play in 1992. I see his name and that’s the play I think about…..
He deserves credit for building a dynasty that has lasted 6 yrs after he was fired. Those busts you listed were traded off for players that helped the MLB team.
No they weren’t. Hader was traded for Carlos Gomez one of the worst bust trades in franchise history along with Mike Fiers who is the sole reason the sign stealing **** blew up. Laureano was traded for a prospect that busted. Teoscar was traded for Francisco Liriano who threw 14 innings for the Astros going 0-2 and posting 0.0 war.
