The new Houston Astros-Babies may soon shift to a new logo with a uniform patch that boosts a sleeve-patch date of their expected maturity as a contending AL club.
It’s not everyday we get to watch a pretty good AA-AAA level club knock off a good MLB team two games in a row with walk-off hits, but it happened for the Astros on Friday and Saturday nights at Minute Maid Park against the Milwaukee Brewers. And it came fairly close by set up to happening again Sunday afternoon, but all the magic star dust had settled to earth by that time and outcomes had returned to what has steadfastly become the arrival of our normal expectation: The Astros lost to the Brewers, 5-3.
Look! This is a very young team! What should we expect? Jeff Luhnow could have kept Wandy and Carlos and Myers, et al and maybe added a few other cheaper vets who could help the club under the 100-loss mark and closer to .500, but so what? Would we still feel good about this team’s future with that load of older high-dollar fellows that couldn’t make the magic of 2005 repeat over the six seasons that followed?
I don’t think so.
Like most of you, however, and in spite of the fact that I get the reasons why we now have a short-term loser on our hands, it’s hard to watch, unless you’re focused on minute improvements in how fielders handle the cut off plays, etc. That’s a gruel unless they pay you as a coach or scout – and I’m assuming that your fan spot on that one is the same as mine: We don’t get paid for anything. The payoff for multiple year patience with losing and a lot of ineptness along the way is the expected delivery of a competitive club by rebuilding the farm system and making intelligent free agency additions to the mix along the way. The real pressure is on Astros owner Jim Crane, President George Postolos, and, especially, General Manager Jeff Luhnow. Their futures, jobs, careers, and professional reputations are on the line.
As fans, we have it easy by comparison.We are free to either go, or not go watch through the impatient years. We can even take a “wake me when it’s over approach” or just B****-Blog our way through the long lonely night, but that doesn’t sound like any fun to me. The present Astros really young. Jeff Luhnow is just doing what he said he was going to do – and that’s refreshing in itself today. It’s getting harder to find people who actually do what they promised to do. Let’s give Jeff, the Astros, and the time-table a chance to prove itself.
The current Astros roster is capable of coming together at game time in Manager Brad Mills mind as a nine-man starting lineup that averages 23.6 years of age, if you go with Jordan Lyles, P (21); Jason Castro, C (25); Brett Wallace, 1B (25); Jose Altuve, 2B (22); Matt Dominguez, 3B (22); Marwin Gonzalez, SS (23); Fernando Martinez, LF (23); Jordan Schafer, C (25); and Brandon Barnes, RF (25).
If these, or guys like them, are good enough, it will be OK for the Astros to average close to 27 years of age in the year they finally win the World Series.
Wake us when we get there, Jeff. Some of us are behind you all the way – way behind you.
Tags: 2012 Houston Astos
The Pecan Park Eagle 
August 13, 2012 at 2:40 pm |
“It’s not everyday we get to watch a pretty good AA-AAA level club knock off a good MLB team two games in a row with walk-off hits..”
Question: Can a major league club have a roster of minor league players at almost every position represent the team as major league caliber baseball? I am interested as to how others feel view this situation.
August 13, 2012 at 2:59 pm |
Can they? We’re watching it. Should they? Do they have an obligation to those who bought season tickets to put a major league-caliber product on the field?
If Jeff Luhnow wanted to, he could take 25 grandmothers or 25 children from a poor South American village and call it “major league baseball” but that doesn’t make them competitive.
Yes, we sold our major league souls to restock the minor league system and, with any luck, that will have its reward in 3-5 years. I get it. But what obligation is there to the Houston fans, the ticket-buying public and the other 29 big league teams to field a sham in the interim? And does this strategy make sense as they seek to launch a new cable channel as a key source of revenue?