MLB, Rob Manfred lays the gentle hammer on the Houston Astros
By Ryan Sanders
MLB lays the gentle hammer on the Houston Astros
Now lets talk about Luhnow and Hinch. AJ Hinch has been fired from his post as manager where he has been since 2014. While we can’t quantify the value or impact of a manager, writing a lineup card is done with input from the front office analytics, with the medical staff advising on players’ health, and the matchups of the day. The most important part of being an MLB skipper is keeping the locker room in order which there isn’t yet a metric for. This is a long way of saying the Houston Astros will miss parts of Hinch but his entire coaching staff remains intact so its next man up.
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Bench coach Joe Espada, who has been up for manager positions in the past, could get interviews to become the new manager and Hitting Coach Alex Cintron could move up to Bench Coach. There is an easy rally cry to unite the 2020 Astros of playing for Hinch and proving all the doubters who think their success is only a result of banging on a trash can. So the only part that advanced analytics don’t do, managing the locker room, is done. Hinch’s year-long suspension draws parallels to when New Orleans Saints’ Head Coach Sean Payton was suspended in BountyGate but his suspension matters less since he is fired. The Astros need a new manager but this job remains appealing and it doesn’t change the Astros win projection for 2020.
For GM Jeff Luhnow, his firing by the Astros changes the entire calculus of how much the suspension matters. If MLB banned Luhnow from all communication with everyone in the Astros organization, takes away his phone, and constantly monitors any tradecraft shenanigans the Astros could pull, then it might have had an impact. In the digital age where you can be connected and access personnel or databases from anywhere, his firing does a better job of making sure he is not involved in baseball decisions.
It will be interesting who the Astros select as interim GM to finish out the offseason whether it is Special Assistant Kevin Goldstein, Senior Director of Baseball Ops Armando Velasco, or some combination of senior personnel. Regardless, the Astros scouting, R&D department, analytics group, etc remain whole and will be filtering up the same information that made them Astros, there will just be a different final decision-maker. Whoever the new top decision-maker in Houston is, its likely they have been under Luhnow’s wing and knows how to make the most calculated decisions. It seems likely the Astros would promote internally to retain the organizational knowledge that has been developed in Houston.