Over at Baseball Prospectus, Ben Lindberg drops some knowledge about how hard it is for smart GMs to stand out any more. He runs through some very salient points, including quoting some users over at TCB, including me.
↵I'm happy he came to our humble site for some reaction, but I feel I need to clarify. The point he was trying to make is a good one, but it's one I feel like most TCB readers already knew. We were all aware of how many smart GMs there are out in the world, since the GM search was talking mainly about proteges from these guys.
↵No, the reason why I made the comments I did wasn't that I thought the Astros had cornered the market now, but that they were finally catching up to the league. For years, Houston had been led by a very traditional baseball culture. It was one that got T.J. Steele roundly mocked for years at TCB, because it valued tools over production and constructed a team that absolutely hated taking a walk for four years straight.
↵Baseball teams are all aware of things in on-base percentage and there aren't any gains by that to be had any more. But, for an organization to ignore that new line of thinking, that made so many teams successful in the past decade was very frustrating.
↵Getting past that was the real victory for Houston. Now, they're up with the rest of the league and can get busy trying to gain an edge. It won't come easily, but it's a start.
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