The Astros’ Current Strategy is the Right One

Our fans forget the fact that our team’s past strategies are not possible today. We don’t have a good farm system because we haven’t had high draft picks BECAUSE WE’VE BEEN WINNING. Back in 2012-2015 we drafted great prospects because the team’s record was horrible the previous season. That was Lunhow’s strategy and if he came back he would have to implement a different strategy, or else tank the team again in order to repeat what he did before. When a team gets to the top of the league more consistently, they HAVE to shift their strategy towards spending more on proven players/prospects and relying less on good draft picks. Although it didn’t work out with Jose Abreu and Montero, at least Crane has been trying to implement the new strategy by digging deep into his pockets (Hader, etc.)

Also: one of the highest-ups under Brown in the Astros organization is a friend, and I can tell you the rumor that they don’t have a strong analytics department anymore is completely false. They have a large group of extremely smart analysts – some are PhDs in fields we can barely pronounce – and a lot of them are there simply because they are lifelong Astros fans and are willing to work for a bit less to be part of the organization. They know what they are doing but it’s impossible in a competitive league for the result to be perfect, especially when you don’t have a lot of good prospects to bargain with. When we aren’t on pace to win 100 games our fan base simply gets frustrated and begins attacking the current strategy no matter what it is at the time.