Houston Astros: Astroball is a must read for every baseball fan

The Prime 9

With all the talks about a potential Astroball movie coming out, at least in our inner circle, we might have to wait a while as Reiter’s book continues to gain momentum. So far, the reviews I’ve read were 4-5 star reviews, which shows that this book is on pace to be a national bestseller. I think for those that either might not be tech-savvy or into baseball, they’ll definitely be into the stories or the Prime 9 as I like to call them.

Choosing Tyler Greene over Jed Lowrie

Lowrie, who is a common fixture in this book, was believed by Mejdal to be the better player of the two. But Luhnow ended up drafting Tyler Green in 2005 because they were in the early stages of gradually incorporating their plan to work the system out. That sometimes meant losing early battles. But the other reason was that they were working with the Cardinals, who were a good organization at the time.

The Drafting of Mark Appel over Kris Byrant

This does get talked about in the book, but not as much as it should. This was one of those early mistakes made not only because Appel became the biggest bust in recent history. But the Cubs drafted Kris Bryant, who had an MVP season in 2016 while leading the Cubs to a World Series title.

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Keeping Dallas Keuchel, George Springer, and Jose Altuve

If we were fans of any team in 2013, we would seriously want to trade Dallas Keuchel for real. Any other franchise would trade Keuchel. The funny thing is that no one was willing to pick up Keuchel when the Astros. This forced Houston to keep him because they didn’t have any good pitchers.

With Springer, he was one of the last picks of the previous ownership. But Luhnow kept him around even though he struggled early on his time as an Astro. Luhnow saw something in Springer and that was the moment when he felt that the Astros would be good.

And Altuve? Well, we know the story of how he got to the bigs. But keeping Altuve to where he would sign an extension in 2013 was a huge move because Altuve showed what an incredible player he was. The only adjustment that Sig and Jeff had Altuve make was how to limit his swings on pitches he can cause damage with. Worked out well, didn’t it?

Drafting Carlos Correa and Lance McCullers Jr.

You’ll be surprised as to how the Astros were able to draft both Correa and Lance McCullers Jr. in the same draft. I’ll leave you to read for yourself in this chapter. All I can say is that this was a brilliant move made by Luhnow.

The Brady Aiken Scenario

This issue would make soap operas like General Hospital and As the World Turns re-evaluate their scripts for next week’s episodes. This is what really turned the Astros around from the worst to a contender. The fact that the Astros drafted a high school pitcher that they thought was their guy was one thing. But then to sense that something was wrong with his elbow, lower the offer originally made to Aiken and not be able to sign him is another thing.

Any other team would have an understanding from the public. But with Luhnow, it was just another thing that got him a bad reputation with the naysayers. Even when Aiken had Tommy John surgery and Luhnow was proven right. But there was one silver lining to all this. A compensation pick was rewarded and Alex Bregman became a member of the Houston Astros.