quote:
I understand the people who always want the manager fired because there is always somebody who thinks they could do better, but anybody wanting to fire Lunhow is a ****ing lunatic.
I don't necessarily want to fire Luhnow (yet), but I think it's fair to start calling into question his ability to assemble a championship roster. It's possible that his role in St. Louis was his ceiling (assistant GM, identify/develop young talent, using math/stats to recommend bargain bin steals, etc). In other words, like others have discussed, there are signs of Morey 2.0. Great at making a bad team average or an average team good via his aforementioned strengths, but doesn't understand how to assemble a championship squad.
Just look at the Cubs offseason acquisitions over the past two years with a proven GM and what we did. And I think the comparison is valid because the Cubs/Astros are in similar stages of their growth cycles. Both Epstein and Luhnow did a great job stocking talent from 2012-2014 and getting their teams set for a run, but only one seems to know how to take the next step...
Cubs:
Sign Jon Lester - proven big league starter
Trade for Dexter Fowler - proven big league CF, took advantage of Luhnow making a salary dump
Sign John Lackey - proven big league starter
Trade for Adam Warren - probably the least proven of the six but had a nice resume with the Yankees
Sign Jason Hayward - proven big league outfielder
Sign Ben Zobrist - proven big league infielder
EDIT: Sign Joe Maddon as manager - proven winner in the postseason
NOTE: Epstein only gave up Valbuena and Starlin Castro in the trades for Fowler and Warren.
Astros:
Sign Colby Rasmus - credit to Luhnow
Trade for Evan Gattis - generally unproven when acquired, bust
Trade for Luis Valbuena - generally unproven when acquired, bust (meanwhile, Fowler is killing it)
Trade for Carlos Gomez - hadn't done much in the two years prior to our acquisition, bust
Trade for Mike Fiers - did ok last year, not a bust but certainly not pitching well this year
Sign Doug Fister - bargain bin pickup, signed him with crossed fingers on his recovery, bust so far but still early
Trade for Ken Giles - young talent, great arm, but unproven closer in pressure situations, bust so far but still early (meanwhile, I'm sure Luhnow would give his right *** to have Velasquez back)
EDIT: Sign AJ Hinch as manager - unproven
There may be a few more on each squad that I'm forgetting, but in general, it's clear the type of acquisitions Luhnow targets as opposed to Epstein.
TLDR: I'm not disagreeing with you at this point in time and he's done alot of good things since taking over as Astros GM. I'm just not sold on his ability to assemble a championship roster. It's possible Luhnow was the perfect guy to get us to today, but we might need someone different to get us a ring.