Liftoff!: The Tank, the Storm, and the Astros' Improbable Ascent to Baseball Immortality
256
Liftoff!: The Tank, the Storm, and the Astros' Improbable Ascent to Baseball Immortality
256eBook
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781641250702 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Triumph Books |
| Publication date: | 07/03/2018 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 256 |
| File size: | 32 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Here We Go
It's a crazy journey, man. But I think I was the only one in 2011, '12, and '13, those hundred losses, three years in a row. It's not easy. But I kind of believed in the process. I believed in what Jeff Luhnow and Jim Crane used to talk to me, "Hey, we're going to be good. We're going to be good." Then, okay, let me keep working hard. Let me get better every year and try to be part of the winning team.
— Astros second baseman José Altuve
It is 2015, and they are tired of losing.
Two managers have been fired. A team president has departed. Names are going to keep revolving, but a few players are actually going to stick around in Houston, and one of them wants more than this.
Losing. Losing. Losing.
Enough.
José Altuve enters the office of the Astros' new manager. Altuve was never supposed to make it in major league baseball. Now he's one of the best hitters in the game. In three seasons, he will hit three home runs in a single playoff game, win the American League MVP award, and cement himself as the franchise face of a World Series winner. But in 2015? Altuve only wants to do the one thing he has never done in the majors: win.
The manager who will soon become so close with and trusted by his players — who will guide the Astros to 101 victories and through two playoff Game 7s; loudest vote in the clubhouse, calmest heartbeat in the dugout — listens and immediately gets it.
A.J. Hinch came to Houston to win. He became the Astros' next manager because the team had to stop losing. What Altuve has been feeling, Hinch already is, too. And soon the new manager will show the whole team the Astros' new world order. "When I got here no one talked about winning," Hinch said. "And that was one of the first things that Altuve told me in my office, that he wanted to win. And that represented what the next step was for this organization."
It is 2017, just four years after the worst team in franchise history went 51–111. An unprecedented rebuild peaks in Game 7 of the World Series, during a Fall Classic that instantly becomes one of the best in the sport's history. Justin Verlander wanted to join the Astros. The Boston Red Sox have fallen, the New York Yankees went down, and the Los Angeles Dodgers could not match the Astros' heart.
Houston's baseball team is saturated with young stars who will still be around the next season — the free-agency blues have not set in yet. The Astros now spend enough money to play the big game, but are also set up for years, and prime talent is still flowing through the pipeline. Many MLB clubs would do anything just to have Altuve in uniform. The Astros have Carlos Correa, George Springer, Alex Bregman, Altuve, and more.
Houston is a baseball town again. Minute Maid Park has roared. And two winners share the same stage inside Dodger Stadium, answering constant questions about what it all feels like.
"I always believed that we're going to become good," Altuve said. "Then I saw Springer get drafted, Correa and Bregman, and I was like, 'Okay, here we go.'" They were going to win more than they ever had before. But first the Astros had to lose. A lot.
CHAPTER 2This City Deserves Our Best
We laid the foundation. And it takes years to lay the right foundation. It's like building a house. You want to make sure ... that your foundation isn't cracked. That you've got the right foundation, so that as you build on top of it, you can sustain a lot of growth on top of it. And that's really what we're doing at all the levels.
— Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow
There would be much brighter days. There would also be dates that would come to define the rebuilt Astros — months, numbers, and years that proudly became part of franchise history.
April 16, 2014: George Springer makes his major league baseball debut.
October 4, 2015: Led by manager A.J. Hinch, the Astros make the playoffs for the first time in a decade.
July 25, 2016: Alex Bregman debuts.
August 31, 2017: Justin Verlander is traded to the Astros.
November 1, 2017: The Houston Astros win their first World Series, beating Los Angeles in Game 7 at Dodger Stadium.
But December 7, 2011, was the start of it all. It was when the full reconstruction began. New owner Jim Crane placed the Astros in Jeff Luhnow's hands, hiring the former vice president of scouting and player development for the St. Louis Cardinals and naming Luhnow as Houston's new general manager. Since 2003 Luhnow had risen through the Cardinals organization. In 2011 one of baseball's most storied franchises had won the World Series again, downing the Texas Rangers in a seven-game series. An Astros tear-down that began under former GM Ed Wade — who was fired, along with team president Tal Smith, on November 27, 2011 — would now begin in full under Luhnow.
As the Astros slid through the post — Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell era, below .500 seasons piled up and the farm system dried up. The franchise had not made the playoffs since its first-ever World Series run in 2005, and it required the team trading away its remaining stars (Roy Oswalt, Lance Berkman, Hunter Pence, Michael Bourn) for Astros fans to even begin to see a murky future. Still, the minor leagues were not barren: Springer, the 2017 World Series MVP, was taken No. 11 overall in the 2011 MLB amateur draft. José Altuve, the 2017 American League MVP, had made his major league debut on July 20, 2011, and 2015 AL Cy Young winner Dallas Keuchel had been taken in the seventh round of the 2009 draft.
The Astros went 56–106 in 2011 under manager Brad Mills. Their final game was an 8–0 home loss to the Cardinals before 24,358 fans at Minute Maid Park. The 1–9 names: J.B. Shuck, Altuve, J.D. Martinez (who would hit 45 home runs in 2017 and receive a $110 million contract from the Boston Red Sox in 2018), Carlos Lee, Brian Bogusevic, Jimmy Paredes, Clint Barmes, Humberto Quintero, and Brett Myers. Not exactly world beaters.
The team went 55–107 during Luhnow's first year, as Mills was fired, Lee was traded, and the names kept coming and going. But by October 2012, the GM believed he was watching a plan slowly come together, while outside critics thought they were only witnessing destruction.
How would Luhnow fix Houston's broken baseball team? Was it truly possible to revive and rebuild the Astros? How do you turn 213 losses in two seasons into a clubhouse loaded with consistent winners and a youth movement that long-frustrated fans wanted to buy into?
Of course, Luhnow had a vision. A team that was part Moneyball Oakland Athletics and Tampa Bay Rays, part big-city Los Angeles Dodgers and Rangers. A club that grew internally and developed its own talent, but could also spend big money when it needed to.
During the early years, the Astros' propensity for losing games was only rivaled by the franchise's intent on cleaning house. Familiar names were gone. New uniforms containing throwback colors and images were unveiled. Minute Maid Park was upgraded. Most importantly, as the Astros' major league roster hit financial and statistical rock bottom, a once-depleted farm system was being restocked.
An unprecedented rebuild was fully underway.
"We'd like to [watch] it go as fast as it can without making promises on any time frame," Luhnow said in October 2012. "This city deserves a baseball team that they're not only proud of, they're excited to come to the ballpark and watch. And I don't think we're that far away from being able to deliver."
Gradually torn down and remade, the Astros began emphasizing improved player promotion guidelines — only promoting a prospect when his play and development merited reward — while deepening the international talent pipeline and reconfiguring roles and departments. Minor league affiliates were streamlined, and winning was emphasized there first. By the time a young athlete arrived in the majors, they would be used to daily victories and winning the right way.
"One of the things that we're doing here — and I think we're going to do exceptionally well — is linking everything together so there are no [breaks]. The guy who runs international feels like he's connected to the front office," Luhnow said. "Everybody has their area of expertise. But the more we can be sharing experiences and collaborating on things, I think the more we can be better as a team."
But how long would the rebuild take? Two years? Five? What if the blueprint failed, and the Astros — the worst team in baseball for two consecutive seasons — became the next Pittsburgh Pirates, reaching a hard ceiling, then tearing it down and rebuilding all over again?
"You compare our roster to the Rangers', we're not there yet. But will we be in five years? I hope so. Will our payroll be up in the range where it can compete with the Rangers? I hope so," Luhnow said. "But for now, we're not even close. So we know we have our work cut out for us. I think what'll be fun for our fans is to experience the cycle on the way up. Our fans have gone through the painful experience of the cycle on the way down, from the World Series in 2005 to basically two 100-loss seasons in a row. This is as far down as it goes. From here, going forward, it goes up."
To slowly build upward, the Astros drastically changed almost everything. Players, staffs, scouts, TV faces, and radio voices, longtime employees ... the team colors, logos, and even the mascot. By 2015 Minute Maid Park would feel like a completely new place, and the on-field product would be worlds beyond the 2012 team. But Luhnow also relied on several key, lasting names — Mike Elias, Kevin Goldstein, Sig Mejdal, Oz Ocampo, Mike Fast — within the franchise's remade baseball operations side. Hires initially questioned by some became critical components to the rebuild. In 2015 a Milwaukee franchise trying to return to .500 ball and then the playoffs hired 30-year-old David Stearns — who had worked closely with Luhnow from 2012 to 2015 as the Astros' assistant general manager — as the Brewers' next GM.
Still, the early years were an awkward balance for the Astros — and that is putting it nicely. There were social-media blunders, stadium embarrassments, and an insulting on-field product that only got worse. By September 2014, a much-hyped manager would be coldly replaced, while the team president/CEO would have already resigned and also be replaced. The franchise dug down so deep that the only way to make the reconstruction worth all the pain was a World Series trophy. There was also a coldness to the initial stages of the rebuild — arrogant and dismissive, calculating and even ruthless — that only fed into a belief that the Astros were running a baseball team like a modern business experiment and building a big-league club the wrong way.
Most pro organizations put on a warm public face, then are calculating and all business behind closed doors. The Astros regularly asked for patience as their plan unfolded and explained the lengths they were going to, to fully turn the franchise around. But by tearing everything down to ground level, they also put their business on the table.
The recurring word from 2011 to 2014: assets.
"Major league value, that's the objective, that's what we're trying to produce," Luhnow said. "And the way you produce that is you acquire these assets — whether it's through the draft or through trades — that have the possibility of becoming that. And then you need to set up a system so you can constantly acquire these things as well or better than your competition. So what does that mean? It means having good scouts and good processes for identifying the universe of talent that's out there that you might bring in. Being good at negotiating and doing the right deals to get it in. And then having the right pieces to help build it."
Luhnow used a manufacturing analogy about "raw material" and referred to the Astros being in a "zero-sum game."
It was not all about green grass, an open field, and the classic crack of a bat. It also was not just about outsmarting the game.
"A win for us is a loss for someone else," said Luhnow, whose unique background included general manager and vice president of marketing at Petstore.com and work with a global management consulting firm, graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with degrees in economics and engineering, and earning an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
"There's certain things where the industry gets smarter and better as a whole. But we're still competing with one another on a daily basis, so our advantage needs to come at someone else's disadvantage," Luhnow said. "So we're always looking to gain an edge. And it's not just in one area. You can gain an edge in 50 different areas that add up to a meaningful edge. And in some you're going to have a deficiency because of your market or your current situation."
The heart would eventually be everywhere on the field: a fun, lovable, addicting team led by Carlos Correa, Altuve, and Springer.
The Astros' first critical step forward began in the 2012 draft. Corey Seager went to Los Angeles at No. 18 overall. Addison Russell was drafted by Oakland at No. 11, then eventually traded to the rebuilding Chicago Cubs. Marcus Stroman went to Toronto at 22. But in a draft that would not stand out as an all-timer years later, the rapidly changing Astros made two crucial selections that would come to define their new era.
Correa was taken No. 1 overall on June 4 as a 17-year-old shortstop out of the Puerto Rico Baseball Academy. Opting for Correa instead of outfielder Byron Buxton (Minnesota, No. 2) or a collection of college pitchers, the Astros made a selection that would come to capture the all-in nature of their rebuild. They could be criticized and picked apart from the outside. But within their franchise, they had a vision and they were sticking to it. When high school pitcher Lance McCullers Jr. was taken at No. 41 overall in the supplemental round, the Astros collected two key names who would be hoisting a World Series trophy just five years later.
On the major league field, though, the Astros were a disaster and only getting worse. The "Lastros" were laughable.
Houston's baseball team drew 3,087,872 fans in 2004, ranking seventh in MLB in home attendance. By 2012, the total number had almost been cut in half (1,607,733), and the Astros ranked 28th out of 30th teams. Tickets were a struggle to give away. Fans knew the season was over before it began, and a new TV regional sports network became an albatross, limiting viewership and further alienating already turned-off supporters. The rebuilding Astros were not worth watching — and it was a challenge just to find them on television, if you were foolish enough to try.
Then there was the actual on-field product. As bad as the 2011 and 2012 teams were — and they were horrible — the next version was even worse. Bottoming out their major league roster and payroll, the Astros essentially began holding MLB auditions for minor leaguers, many of whom were not ready for the pressure or demands of the show.
By 2015 the initial false steps of the Astros' rebuild would be filed away and on the verge of being forgotten, as a young core began to carry the team and the front office started to get ahead of the game. In 2013 the Astros talked up a team that ended up losing a franchise-record 111 games.
"You take a step back, and you really realize just how special it is," said new manager Bo Porter, during his introductory press conference. "It's like I told Jeff and I told Jim: this is not a steppingstone for me. I'm not looking to build the Houston Astros up to a championship organization and then run off and go someplace else. I'm all in. They know that, and they're all with me."
Porter, who was hired on September 27, 2012, boldly spoke of setting high expectations and constantly inspiring his team through leadership and personal motivation. He sounded more like a preacher or football coach than the manager of a "Quadruple A" team that would soon fight just to win 51 games in a six-month season.
"The players that we've been able to acquire, they might not be known to the baseball community or they may not be household names," Porter said. "But when you look at the talent level and the projection of that talent level, we know what we have. It's just a matter of basically getting them to play to their potential."
A rising name in MLB, Porter had been the third-base coach for a Washington Nationals team that had won 98 games in 2012, eventually falling to the Cardinals in a National League Division Series finale. Washington had gone from a 69-win team in 2010 to one of the game's most-thrilling clubs in just two years. The energetic and charismatic Porter had connected with the Nationals' young players, and his ability to overcome a tough childhood had also led to an edge the Astros were looking for. If you were going to run out prospects and no-namers, you needed daily discipline.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Liftoff!"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Brian T. Smith.
Excerpted by permission of Triumph Books LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Author's Note vii
1 Here We Go 1
2 This City Deserves Our Best 3
3 Saving Our Powder 13
4 The Underdog All Year 24
5 We're a [Freaking] Playoff Team! 39
6 Getting into Our Window 48
7 Opening Day Next Year 60
8 When the Star Goes Up 72
9 People Are Just Wooing 83
10 It Will Bring Hope 99
11 You Don't Even Know, Man 109
12 I Got to Wake Up 120
13 Bring Your Earplugs 136
14 He Put Us on His Back 151
15 If You Like October Baseball 161
16 It's Your Time 181
17 Forever Special 191
18 Anything Is Possible 200
Acknowledgments 208
About the Author 209