Today’s news of the Red Sox firing their President of baseball operations (Jeff Luhnow equivalent) Dave Dombrowski was a bit of a shocker considering he put together the best team in the majors that won the World Championship less than 11 months ago. As the Red Sox have struggled to a winning season in 2019 that likely will not include a playoff run, there have been rumblings about both Dombrowski and manager Alex Cora being on the hot seat.
Now, the Red Sox under their current ownership group have been a quick trigger group. Despite winning 4 World Series in the 2000s (starting in 2004), they have brought in 4 managers since firing Grady Little after the inexcusable sin of leaving his ace in the game during the 2003 ALCS against the Yanks. Terry Francona managed from 2004 to 2011 and led the team to their first two World Series championships since the team sold off Babe Ruth a little after the War to end all Wars. Bobby “we hardly knew ye” Valentine came in for one disastrous season – 2012. John Farrell won another World Series in his time in Boston (2013 – 2017) as has Alex Cora (2018 – 2019). Perhaps the ownership impatience paid off as three of the four managers (Francona, Farrell and Cora) won the World Series in their very first season with the team. At the higher level, along with Dombrowski being fired less than 1 year after winning it all, he was the same man who replaced Ben Cherington in 2015, who had put together the 2013 champions.
So, the question for today is what would it take (other than an off the field scandal) for the Astros to fire and replace Jeff Luhnow and/or A.J. Hinch?
If Jim Crane had the patience and foresight to stick through the franchise nadir (2012-2013) with Jeff Luhnow it is hard to see that anything short of an unexpected collapse over multiple years would undermine his trust in the man. Luhnow has run the team exactly as agreed with his boss. He completed the teardown and cut the payroll to the bone just as agreed. He then built a fine minor league foundation for the team, grabbed some top players through the draft, through the waiver process, through a big investment in the international market and through trades and finally free agency.
Luhnow has fairly quickly worked out a relationship with his boss, where he has his support to spend money for the right reasons but has limited the long term investment in huge contracts. Along with this of course has been the gathering of complex and deep player data, and more importantly the application of the data for player improvement. The Astros are headed for their 5th winning record in a row, 4th playoff run in 5 seasons and 3rd 100 win season in a row. The team is not only very good, it looks sustainable. Behind the core they have signed for a number of years, there appears to be a pipeline of good minor league players to move to the majors or to move for major leaguers.
It would appear that if the team hits a speed bump of underperformance over a number of years that Luhnow may be safe and the finger pointed at A.J. Hinch. After all this is what happened earlier on when Luhnow hand-picked Bo Porter as manager and then sent him packing less than two seasons later.
However…..if Hinch continues to listen to the input the wonks send his way, continues to tightrope walk between being a player’s manager and a disciplinarian and continues to show a cerebral approach to the game there is a good chance he would survive a win drought of a few seasons. This is especially true if there are good reasons for it, such as age or injury.
It is a gut feeling that this owner will listen reasonably to his baseball people and not knee jerk between GM and manager pairings. This may or may not result in the short term success the Red Sox have enjoyed, but it certainly has resulted in more sustained success here than any other era in Astros’ history.
ALL THINGS ASTROS 
90 responses to “What would it take to fire Luhnow or Hinch?”
It is not your imagination. Astros continue to lead MLB with 134 – Grounded Into Double Plays.
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Can’t say enough good things about Urquidy and Abreu’s performances lately. While some guys we have relied on have crashed and burned [Miley, McHugh, Devenski, James last night] and other new guys have been absolute gas cans [Biagini, Sneed, Valdez], those two guys have actually shown the ability to miss bats and get outs. How refreshing – I mean, for a change of pace, and all.
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By the way, the Express lost again last night. They face elimination Friday evening. We may be seeing Armenteros [who is pitching for the Express in the elimination game], Mayfield, and some new guy named Correa, sooner than later. Christian Javier, anyone?
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They can keep Correa I’m happy with Toro.
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Astros thoughts:
*Interesting that Hinch said yesterday he wanted Yordan on the team out of Spring Training. Would the Astros be farther out front if they had kept Yordan and ditched an out of shape Tyler White?
* Going into the season, the back end of the rotation was the big question mark for the Astros and five months later they are in the same spot.
* If Round Rock loses Friday, do Correa and Pressly join the Astros anyway? If RR wins, do they stay in RR for the weekend?
* Biagini throws a meatball fastball. His 95mph is worse than anything I have seen this year. It gets to the plate and just sits there as if on a tee.
* Brett Anderso is another crafty pitcher who made Houston’s lineup ineffective. How do the Astros constantly take or miss 91 mph fastballs down the middle and then swing at a changeup at the ankles. So frustating!
* Josh James faced four batters last night and threw a total of only 5 fastballs. None of those were as high as 97 mph and not one of them was put into play. His last fastball hit the batter. All three of the hits off of him were off of his slider.
* Semien’s home run in the 4th inning was off a fastball, the seventh fastball he had seen from Urquidy in two at bats. He was ready for it.
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OP – I’m with you until your last point. Urquidy gave up 1 hit and had 10 Ks in 5 innings. That is a Verlander / Cole line (except for only going 5 innings by manager’s choice). I’m not going to second guess him for his Verlander/Cole moment of shutting down the opponent except for a lone solo home run.
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Jose is at 135 innings on the season. That’s the most of his career. He threw 103 last year after missing all of 2017. If I’m Hinch, I’m seriously considering him for the post season at this point. And if that’s the case, I’m using him as little as possible the rest of the way.
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All I was saying about Urquidy is that he threw one too many fastballs to Semien.
Semien’s heat map with two strikes on him this year. His slugging percentage with two strikes on fastballs is .700.
http://www.espn.com/mlb/player/hotzones/_/id/32146/marcus-semien
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Take the heat map and change it to 2-strike fastballs and you will see how his heat map changes with two strikes on him. He hunts high fastballs with 2-strikes and hits a lot of them.
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As I said last night I was PO’d that Urquidty Was taken out. I would have let him start the inning and taken him out if he showed signs of faltering. Considering the latest bullpen episodes I don’t think it would have hurt. It’s not like he’s a top of the line guy (hope he becomes one). The game looked to be tight so play accordingly. That loss was on Hinch IMO. But I also agree with 1OP’s analysis of our hitting approach .
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OP, I’m scrolling down your list…
* Why was YA withheld & whose decision was it to keep him down on the farm?
* In CC’s absence little said about him in Astro circles, almost like he’s nonexistent.
* Biagini’s FB has absolutely no movement. It’s like a hovering UFO anywhere inside zone, hence a ‘meatball’.
* Ineffective/frustrating when this lineup undisciplined you wrote. It’s mind boggling how any tm (esp ours) goes from from sit & hit, to chase & whiff. How does a tm selectively choose to be patient at the plate or buck wild?
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