Jump to content

4th and 5

Legacy Members
  • Posts

    3102
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by 4th and 5

  1. While we were hunting a two man, two feeder blind this weekend, my boy (sophomore) confided in me that he just banged his (senior) girlfriend for the first time. Then he dropped a turkey with my .308.....

     

     

    The rut is in full swing. Talk about a special hunting trip.

  2. 6 minutes ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

    Hate steep groomers. Give me some bumps to break up the rapid downhill inertia please. 

    I was mentioning that for the old fucks in the post above, but Taos is world class for bumps

  3. Spoiler

     

    A group of Maryland football parents is strongly against DJ Durkin’s return

    DJDurkin_Parents-1024x729.jpg
    By Nicole Auerbach Oct 16, 2018comment-icon.png 51 save-icon.png

    As suspended Maryland head coach DJ Durkin’s job status remains unclear, a group of team parents is worried about his potential reinstatement and what it could mean for their sons.

    At least a half-dozen parents of Maryland football players have banded together to speak out against Durkin in recent weeks, including more attempts to speak to the commission that is investigating reports of a toxic culture under Durkin’s watch and in a recent parents’ meeting with athletic director Damon Evans.

    Three of those parents spoke with The Athletic on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution for their sons, who are all major contributors on this year’s team. They said their sons told them that until the collapse and subsequent death of offensive lineman Jordan McNair on June 13, none of them informed their parents about player abuse in the program because they weren’t sure their parents would believe them and they didn’t want their parents to worry.

    “This is stuff coming from these boys that have no reason to lie because they’re not nobodies,” one parent said.

    Said another parent: “There’s nothing for them to gain by coming forward. They cannot win. This is a no-win for them. … It’s not just some disgruntled players.”

    Said a third parent: “We are worried that this narcissistic sociopath is going to come back. To me, he should never coach again.”

    The University of Maryland announced on Aug. 11 that it would commission an investigation into Durkin and the football culture he oversaw in response to an explosive ESPN report published Aug. 10. That report detailed a culture of intimidation and fear at the hands of Durkin and strength coach Rick Court, Durkin’s first hire at Maryland. Much of the information in that initial report has since been corroborated to The Athletic by former staff members and current players’ parents.

    Now, with the investigation into Durkin stretching into its third month, these parents fear that Durkin will be reinstated and continue a coaching style built on verbal and physical abuse — even without Court, who resigned on Aug. 11.

    “We’re terrified,” one of the parents said. “We feel like we’re alone. I said to (another parent), ‘Honey, you and I, we are the resistance. This son of a bitch is not coming back.’ I don’t care what we have to do. He’s not coming back to hurt our babies again or anybody else’s baby, period. He will not.”


    All three parents said they have reached out to and have spoken to at least one representative of the commission tasked with investigating the culture of the football program under Durkin. Two said they felt they were taken seriously, at least initially, when they raised concerns and relayed anecdotes of abuse, both emotional and physical.

    But in recent weeks, they have been told things that chip away at their belief that the commission is truly trying to get to the bottom of what really happened. Some players and parents of players who have left the program due to abuse have not been interviewed or even approached, they said.

    “We’re worried that it is all predetermined,” one parent said. “That this is a whole charade meant to appease the people who feel like they have to say something.”

    In response to The Athletic’s inquiry on Monday regarding the parents’ concerns, a spokesman for the University System of Maryland released the following statement: “The University System of Maryland (USM) Board of Regents in August assumed full authority to appoint an independent commission of experts on college athletics — whose backgrounds include medicine, law, and public service — to review the culture of the University of Maryland, College Park football program thoroughly and independently. The independent commission is committed to being thorough. Given that the board has not yet received the commission’s report, the USM therefore cannot comment at this time on its findings.”

    A spokesperson for the University of Maryland told The Athletic on Monday that the school has actively supported the commission by “emailing parents, players and staff on multiple occasions to provide information about how to participate confidentially and encouraged participation.” Parents were given opportunities to meet with the commission in person after a parents’ meeting on Aug. 18 and to share concerns and questions with the commission at a parents’ meeting on Oct. 4, the spokesperson said. Contact information for all players and staff members since 2015 was given to the commission, and players also were given the opportunity complete an online survey that was created and handled by the commission.

    But these parents have been skeptical about the process given the Rod Walters investigation into McNair’s death, which initially did not reach out to current players who witnessed the workout and the aftermath. And when players were encouraged to sign up to speak to investigators on McNair’s death — on a sheet hanging on a wall that everyone could see, far from the anonymity they were supposed to be promised — some were pressured to protect Durkin and his staff, two players told their parents.

    On Monday, the University spokesperson sent the following statement to The Athletic: “The athletic department received feedback that it would be helpful to offer football student-athletes other opportunities to participate in the external review led by Rod Walters. The department then worked with the Walters group to identify a date where student-athletes could show up, without an appointment, to speak confidentially and participate in the external review. This was held in a convenient, central location on campus — not in an Athletics facility. All football players were encouraged to participate in the external safety review throughout the process.”


    At the most recent parents’ meeting on Oct. 4, a few dozen parents met both in person and over Skype with Evans, Maryland’s athletic director, and a representative for the commission. They gathered to address concerns about the status of the commission and recent news articles detailing support for Durkin from prominent boosters — including one who tried to blame McNair for his own death in an interview with The Diamondback, Maryland’s student newspaper. Players, angered by these comments, ultimately went to Evans to get the booster removed from the football team’s travel party.

    But parents hoping to gain clarity about the commission and a lack of follow-up on leads they have sent along were disappointed. Evans had few answers to their questions, they said. It’s a tenuous dynamic for multiple reasons, chief among them Evans’ potential responsibility and liability for a coach and football program that fall under his purview.

    And because there also is a subset of team parents who have expressed unwavering support for Durkin, there have been tense exchanges between parents who previously considered each other friends.

    “Some have said they don’t care, because their sons were not abused,” one parent said. “Do they not care that they’re supposed to be friends with Tonya (Wilson, McNair’s mother)? Do they not care that she has to wake up every morning with a dead son?”

    Said another parent: “They’re all saying we’re just hysterical moms. ‘You guys are overreacting.’ ”

    Said a third parent: “These other parents, I think, are trying to reconcile their decision to send their sons to Maryland. They are denying what happened.”

    A vast majority of the parents in the program have been quiet publicly, choosing not to take sides in the matter because it is such a fraught situation and because they believe it could affect their sons’ chances to play professional football.


    Maryland placed Durkin on administrative leave on Aug. 11, one day after ESPN published its initial report. Offensive coordinator Matt Canada, hired by Durkin in January, was named interim head coach.

    By all accounts, the Terps have rallied together and behind Canada, starting with an emotional season-opening win against Texas after the players dedicated the 2018 season to McNair. Maryland is 4-2 under Canada.

    The parents who spoke to The Athletic said their sons have told them they’re much happier playing and practicing under Canada. They said they have felt respected more than they ever have before.

    “They’re not scared,” one parent said. “It’s normal, it’s what they thought they signed up for: football. (My son) said, ‘You still get yelled at, you still get called names, but nobody is abused or degraded or hurt in any way — physically hurt.’ Nobody is scared.”

    One significant difference between Durkin and Canada, according to the parents, is the amount of time their sons are required to spend inside Gossett Team House on a daily basis. Under Durkin, players had to be there most of the day when they weren’t in class, even if there wasn’t a specific football reason to do so. To that parent, this reeked of a way to control his players, by controlling their time.

    “(My son) said Canada is like, ‘We’ll go in here, we’re going to get this shit done and then we’re getting the hell home,’ ” a different parent said. “They go in, they do their practices, and they go home. He said there’s no screaming, there’s no yelling, there’s none of that threatening or anything. He said Canada may yell, like, ‘What the hell are you doing?’ But he said, ‘He doesn’t get in my face. He doesn’t make me feel worthless.’ ”


    This group of parents knows time might be running out, with the final report from the commission expected soon. More than eight weeks have passed since the commission’s formation was announced.

    The full Board of Regents is scheduled to meet Friday, and it is unclear if Durkin’s status will be addressed at that time. Durkin remains on paid administrative leave.

    The parents fear that the length of the investigation suggests that Maryland may end up reinstating Durkin. This is despite the information they’ve submitted, as well as a letter that a former player’s mother submitted to school officials a year and a half before McNair’s death outlining her concerns about an abusive culture. This was early in Durkin’s tenure in College Park.

    Multiple players have needed to see therapists and/or been prescribed medication — anti-anxiety and anti-depressants — to get through each day, all three parents said. One parent said her son was one of them.

    These parents said they worry that players will again endure emotional and physical abuse, including punishment for injuries, should Durkin be reinstated. Coaches even punished players if they thought players were faking injuries, one parent said.

    “As a football player, they’re thinking, ‘If I don’t suck it up, I’m soft,’ ” one parent said. “ ‘As a football player, if I don’t take this, there’s something wrong with my manhood.’ ”

    But they watched one of their teammates collapse and not receive appropriate medical care. They saw why McNair died, and how the staff did not initially tell the truth about what happened. And then the floodgates opened, with the players telling their parents stories of verbal abuse — Durkin telling players that they were “thieves” who were stealing money from the state of Maryland because they didn’t deserve their scholarships — and physical abuse, like Court throwing weights at players when he was angry with them, multiple parents said.

    “Coaches come into your house and tell you they’re going to take care of your kids,” one parent said. “They say, ‘Don’t worry. We’re like a second family. I’ll get on his case about schoolwork.’ You think there’s no way these guys will do anything bad to my son. They have my son’s best interest at heart. …

    “What do we expect? We don’t expect our boys to be abused. We don’t expect our boys to collapse. We expect them to get full medical care when they need it. And we don’t expect them to die. Just because it’s Division I, Power 5, that does not mean that it’s right or OK. I’m not standing for this.”

    (Photo by Jonathan Newton / The Washington Post via Getty Images)

     

     

  4. Idaho wildlife official resigns after killing baboon family

    The Associated Press
    • October 16, 2018 02:30 PM

    Updated 57 minutes ago

    BOISE, IDAHO 

    A top Idaho wildlife official has resigned amid outrage over a photo of him posing with a baboon family he killed during a hunting trip Africa, ending days of turmoil for a state where big game hunting is popular but critics said the photo was seen as unsportsmanlike by hunting enthusiasts.

    Idaho Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter said in a statement that he asked for and accepted Blake Fischer's resignation on Monday, three days after the Idaho Statesman newspaper published the first report about a photo of Fischer smiling with four dead baboons propped in front of him.

    The photo and others of Fischer and his wife shooting at least 14 animals in Namibia were accompanied by descriptions in an email that Fischer sent to more than 100 recipients. Fischer has said he did nothing illegal, unethical or immoral.

    He didn't apologize for killing the baboons but said in his resignation to Otter that he "recently made some poor judgments that resulted in sharing photos of a hunt in which I did not display an appropriate level of sportsmanship and respect for the animals I harvested."SIGN ME UP!

    The baboon family photo showed blood visible on the abdomen of the smallest baboon, its head lolling back to rest on the chest of one of the dead adult baboons. Fischer killed them using a bow and arrows, visible in the bottom of the picture.

    It drew condemnation from longtime Idaho hunters, including Otter, who is 76 and said Tuesday that he has "hunted and fished all my life."

    "I would never have done that, and I would never encourage anybody to do that," Otter told The Associated Press in an interview.

    The photo of Fischer with the dead baboons hurts Idaho's reputation as a hunting and fishing paradise, Otter said.

    "I think it's tainted," he said. "Fortunately, he has resigned. We'd like to get this behind us because this is not us."

    Fischer was one of seven members on the Idaho Fish and Game Commission. Otter appoints commissioners and under Idaho law can also remove them. Otter initially appointed Fischer in 2014 and reappointed him in June to a second four-year-term.

    "I have high expectations and standards for every appointee in state government," Otter said. "Every member of my administration is expected to exercise good judgment. Commissioner Fischer did not."

    Fischer and his wife during their Africa trip also killed a giraffe, a leopard, an impala, a sable antelope, a waterbuck, a kudu, a warthog, a gemsbok (oryx) and an eland.

    Fischer has a business in southwestern Idaho that sells irrigation products used by ranchers and farmers. He did not return a telephone message seeking comment that was left at his business on Tuesday.

    Most of the photos with the animals were posed, like typical big game hunting photos from Idaho and other western U.S. states showing hunters with dead deer, elk and mountain lions.

    After the baboon photo was made public, at least two former Idaho Fish and Game Commission members to call for Fischer's resignation.

    "Sportsmanlike behavior is the center pin to maintaining hunting as a socially acceptable activity," former member Fred Trevey said in an email.

    The commission Fischer served on makes policy decisions about Idaho's wildlife, and it often manages game populations through hunting and fishing regulations.

    Those regulations are intended promote ethical wildlife hunting. Some of Idaho's policies, such as on wolf and grizzly bear hunting, have been challenged in federal courts.

    Otter said he has received several applications to fill the open commission seat but had no timeline for naming a new commissioner.

  5.  

    Cole’s hungry’: How the Astros and Gerrit Cole proved to be the perfect marriage

    GettyImages-1037474680-1024x757.jpg
    By Rustin Dodd  Oct 5, 2018comment-icon@2x.png 6 save-icon@2x.png

    HOUSTON — Last fall, as the Houston Astros sprayed Champagne after the first World Series championship in club history, Gerrit Cole watched at home. He knew all about postseason heartache after five seasons in Pittsburgh. He understood the pain of wild-card game losses and the thrill of a short series. He knew that opportunities could be fleeting.

    After a franchise renaissance earlier this decade, the Pirates had completed their second straight season without a playoff berth. Franchise pillar Andrew McCutchen was the subject of trade rumors. The window was closing on a once-promising core.

    To complicate matters, Cole was coming off a perplexing year. He had thrown 200 innings and tied for the league lead with 33 starts, yet his 4.26 ERA did not quite match his pedigree. He was a staff ace and former No. 1 overall pick, the son of a Southern California doctor who attained golden-boy status in high school and at UCLA through talent and temperament. He was so self-assured and likable as a teenager that he once turned down an offer from the New York Yankees out of high school, told his college teammates he’d go No. 1, anyway, then fulfilled the mission three years later.

    In the months after his 2017 season, Cole was proud of his durability and innings. He also knew he could be better. The sentiment was shared by a forward-thinking baseball front office still drying its clothes from the Champagne celebration.

    “You got to give players the benefit of the doubt when they have a body of work,” Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow said.

    In 2017, the Astros pushed their chips to the center of the table in late August, acquiring Justin Verlander from the Tigers and paving the way to a world championship. In 2018, Luhnow didn’t wait until spring training.

    On a Saturday in January, 265 days before the start of an American League Division Series, the Astros sent a package of four players to the Pirates in exchange for Cole. The price included third baseman Colin Moran, outfielder Jason Martin and pitchers Joe Musgrove and Michael Feliz. The move invigorated an organization and officially christened a title defense.

    “He was a perfect fit for us,” said A.J. Hinch, “and certainly one of the best additions imaginable for our team.”

    The marriage made sense for both sides. In six seasons in Houston, Luhnow had built a champion on a foundation of young stars, organizational depth and a front office geared toward analytical superiority. Yet the club has also engineered a player development machine that turns good players into great ones and great ones into MVP candidates. So when the club acquired Cole, 28, in January, Hinch wasn’t so much curious about why he labored in Pittsburgh but rather focused on a simple question: How quickly would he buy in?

    “My curiosity around Gerrit was just how open he was going to be to some subtle things that could make him a little bit better,” Hinch said. “What I learned quickly from him is he’s all in on trying to find a little edge.”

    Armed with a cerebral approach and desire to dominate, C0le arrived at spring training ready to work. The combination of world-class talent, analytical ingenuity and old-school coaching proved to be a potent combination.

    In 32 starts, Cole finished with 2.88 ERA, a 2.70 FIP and career-high 276 strikeouts, second in the AL behind Verlander. Three seasons after his first All-Star appearance in 2015, he returned to the midsummer classic and finished with the second highest ERA-plus (140) of his career. Cole’s resurgence helped the Astros weather a rash of injuries and finish with a franchise-record 103 wins on their way to a third postseason appearance in four seasons. On Saturday, he will start Game 2 of the ALDS and try to give his team a 2-0 series lead against the Cleveland Indians after a 7-2 victory Friday at Minute Maid Park.

    “Cole’s hungry,” said Astros third baseman Alex Bregman, who homered in Game 1.

    Cole and the Astros view his return to form in uncomplicated terms: His teammates speak of a pitching intellectual with a gift for mechanics and executing pitches. Cole speaks of an organization and coaching staff that aligned with his sensibilities.

    “You’re not asked to conform to a system,” Cole said. “You’re asked to use the system to make yourself better. So, from an analytic standpoint, from a scouting report standpoint, from teammates and instructors, there’s just a high level of quality here that’s ahead of quite a bit of other teams.”

    When Cole arrived, pitching coach Brent Strom, 69, asked him to pare back his two-seam fastball and throw more four-seamers — specifically up in the zone. The simple change resulted in a career high in strikeout rate and turned Cole back into an archetypical power pitcher.

    “They’re really forward thinking,” Cole said. “They think that they have great personnel that surrounds the players.

    Hinch also points to other, subtle factors. When Cole was in Pittsburgh, Hinch could see the arm and the talent. Yet he could not see the day-to-day approach. He could not hear the conversations in the clubhouse or the obsession with perfecting a breaking ball.

    “He has the mind of someone who wants to be perfect with his pitches,” Hinch said. “And I love that about someone who doesn’t just throw brain-dead pitches. He throws a pitch for a reason, and he holds himself to a high standard on execution.”

    The traits are not unusual in a clubhouse that features Verlander, former Cy Young winner Dallas Keuchel and one of the best starting rotations in baseball. Yet even Verlander, a future Hall of Famer, was impressed with Cole’s breath of knowledge. All clubhouses include detailed conversations among pitchers. But Cole, Verlander said, can take those conversations to a different level.

    “Gerrit knows his body really well,” Verlander said, “and (he) thinks about things differently than I did.”

    For now, of course, the Astros are hopeful that the marriage will result in another Champagne-fueled party this fall. Verlander has one season remaining on his contract, while Cole will reach free agency for the first time after next season. The Astros, Luhnow said, saw an opportunity to maximize their window when they acquired another potential ace last winter.

    For Cole, the sentiment was similar. On the day that his phone blew up last winter, he thought of October. The Pirates lost two wild-card games and a division series to the Cardinals during his five seasons in Pittsburgh. The agony included a losing start against Jake Arrieta and the Cubs in 2015 and a loss in Game 5 against St. Louis in 2013.

    “The wild card definitely takes some years off your life,” Cole said.

    This time, Cole will pitch in a different uniform, in a different stadium, for a different organization. He will have a tailored game plan and a lineup full of All-Star teammates and a support system that has maximized his talents. The Astros are positioned for another long run.

    In some ways, it’s been the perfect situation. Now, he’d like to pay Houston back and collect a ring.

    “Just as a player coming into a situation like this,” Cole said, “you just want to try to take advantage of it to the fullest and just be grateful.”

  6.  

    He describes pressure as a privilege’: Bregman’s blast takes down another ace and adds to his postseason legacy

    USATSI_11378142-1024x683.jpg
    By Jake Kaplan  Oct 5, 2018comment-icon@2x.png 3 save-icon@2x.png

    Alex Bregman’s postseason book reads like a who’s-who of the game’s best pitchers. It includes two seven-time All-Stars, one of whom is a former MVP and three-time Cy Young Award winner, and a closer perennially considered among the elite.

    So it was true to form that the Houston Astros third baseman’s fifth career postseason home run — a solo blast that opened the scoring in Game 1 of the ALDS — came against a man who’s won two of the past four AL Cy Youngs. Corey Kluber, the ace of the Indians, joined an ever-growing list that already featured Chris Sale (twice), Clayton Kershaw and Kenley Jansen.

    “I love how he describes pressure,” Astros manager AJ Hinch said of the 24-year-old Bregman just minutes after his team’s 7-2 victory. “He describes pressure as a privilege.”

    Be it with a long ball off one of the sport’s greats, a pinpoint throw home in a tight game or a walk-off single, Bregman has put his stamp on each of the four playoff series he’s played. This time, he needed only two at-bats to make his dent. A sinker over the plate that he smoked into Minute Maid Park’s Crawford Boxes broke a scoreless tie and ignited Houston’s four-run barrage against Kluber over the fourth and fifth innings.

    The next time Bregman goes deep in October off a pitcher who has never been an All-Star will be a first. He is participating in only his second postseason, and the only players who’ve accounted for more playoff homers in Astros history are Carlos Beltran (eight), José Altuve (eight), George Springer (eight), Carlos Correa (seven) and Lance Berkman (six).

    It’s reached the point where Bregman’s teammates expect clutch swings like Friday’s as much as they count on a dominant performance from ace Justin Verlander. After a regular season in which Bregman should finish fourth or fifth in AL MVP voting, he has cemented his place as the best player on a team of stars.

    “He’s one of the best players in baseball,” Brian McCann said. “He is as good as they come, as prepared as anybody around. He’s just going to keep getting better and better, too. I think what we’re watching on a day in and day out basis is special. He’s going to be doing this for a long, long time.”

    Bregman’s tireless work ethic and his passion for baseball are go-to plaudits when an Astros coach or player is asked about him. Friday was no exception.

    “People that are around him every day, they see how put together he is as a professional,” Charlie Morton said. “He goes about his business like you would hope an experienced ballplayer would, like a veteran would. Some of the things that he does that are different, things that he picks up on, the ways that he picks up on things, he’s just different. He’s just a different young player than most guys.”

    “I think today he was jersey’d up at about 11:30 ready to go,” Josh Reddick said. “He just loves baseball, and we love him for that.”

    But sometimes the best perspective can come from someone who, up until recently, was an outsider. Enter Ryan Pressly, the reliever who knew Bregman only as the opposition before he was traded from the Twins to the Astros on July 27.

    “He’s the heartbeat to this team,” Pressly said after Game 1. “He keeps it light. He keeps it fun. It’s just a kid playing ball.”

    Bregman lives for moments like those October baseball affords. He started off his fourth-inning at-bat Friday by taking a sinker for a called strike. Two subsequent pitches he laid off for balls put Bregman ahead in the count, 2-1. Then came the mistake pitch.

    “He lives on the edges of the plate,” Bregman said of Kluber. “When he does that, you really just have to go into battle mode, and we did that. Then we’re able to hit some pitches over the middle of the plate, hit some of the mistakes, which, with guys like him and (Carlos) Carrasco and their team, you don’t get a lot of mistakes.”

    Kluber needed 31 more pitches to escape that fourth inning. Three innings later, Bregman tacked on a single off Trevor Bauer that plated Springer from second base to put the Astros ahead 6-2. Bauer started him with three consecutive sliders before firing a fastball that Bregman lifted into left field.

    “It’s amazing to watch him do it time after time after time,” Hinch said. “We’re getting spoiled. Guys aren’t supposed to do it at this level at that rate he’s been doing.”

    (Top photo of Alex Bregman celebrating with Marwin Gonzalez: Troy Taormina / 

    • Like 1
  7.  

    Stark: The Lessons of Justin Verlander

    GettyImages-1046267624-1024x683.jpg
    By Jayson Stark  Oct 5, 2018comment-icon@2x.png 50 save-icon@2x.png

    HOUSTON – He could have been a Dodger. He could have been a Cub. He could have been a Yankee. But that isn’t how life turned out for Justin Verlander.

    There are trades that work and trades that don’t, trades that fizzle and trades that sizzle. But you know what the trade that sent Justin Verlander to Houston did? It changed the baseball world. That’s all.

    We know that now, 13 months and one week after the midnight deal that made Verlander an Astro on Aug. 31, 2017. We know it altered the fate of his franchise. It’s fascinating to ponder how it also might have altered the fate of the franchises that said, “No, thanks,” and watched him lead the Astros to the parade floats.

    And on a Friday afternoon in October, on the kind of afternoon he lives for, Verlander did more than merely pitch the Astros to a 7-2 thumping of the Indians in Game 1 of their American League Division Series. He taught us two valuable lessons:

    1. He reminded us again that The Big Deal matters. It matters to the team that makes it. It matters to the teams that don’t.

    2. He reminded us, too, that, in an age when bullpenning and Openers are the trendiest topic in all the land, great starting pitchers still matter. And if he has anything to do with it, they always will.

    “I’m a believer in starting pitching,” Verlander said Friday, on the day he won the 12th postseason game of his Hall of Fame career, tying him with Roger Clemens for fourth-most of all time. “I think you need it. I think the more relievers get used every single day, it has an effect, in my opinion.

    “Whether you can sustain that for a year, two years, three years, throughout October, I don’t know,” he went on. “I don’t have the answers. But I do believe in innings. I believe in protecting the bullpen. And I believe in [the] starting pitcher.”

    His manager, A.J. Hinch, called his ace “one of the most dominant postseason pitchers of all time.” And it’s getting hard to argue. The numbers paint this picture. And at this point, that picture should be hanging in the Houston Museum of Fine Arts.

    • Only Andy Pettitte (19), John Smoltz (15) and Tom Glavine (14) have won more postseason baseball games than Justin Verlander has.
    • Among active pitchers, just CC Sabathia (10) and Jon Lester (six) have even won half as many games as Verlander has.
    • And among all the pitchers in history who have started as many October games as he has, only Jon Lester (2.51), John Smoltz (2.67) and Whitey Ford (2.71) have a better postseason ERA than Verlander (3.07).

    But Verlander also reminds us every time he takes the mound that it’s not just about talent, not just about his elite, still-evolving stuff. It’s also about mindset.

    “I’ve always enjoyed the moment,” he said. “I think it’s something that you don’t take for granted.”

    But his seven trips to this tournament have helped him understand there is even more to it than that, he said. There is a method to handling that moment and channeling the energy that wells up. And now that he has completely processed all that goes into that, he has owned nearly all his October moments over the past five years.

    Since he got hammered in The Pablo Sandoval Game, in the opener of the 2012 World Series, Verlander has pitched in 11 postseason games. He is 6-2 in those games, with a 2.04 ERA and 70 strikeouts (but just 40 hits allowed) in 66 1/3 innings. His team has lost four of his starts in that time. But even in those losses, his ERA was 2.08, and he averaged nearly 6 2/3 innings a start.

    There is a responsibility that comes with acehood. And those numbers, in the biggest games of his life, are a statement on how much Justin Verlander has always embraced that responsibility. It allows him to put his own inimitable stamp on games like this. And on Friday, once again, he did exactly that.

    “He’s a big-time, big-adrenaline pitcher that never ceases to surprise you or amaze you,” Hinch said.

    Look, we understand that there is more than one way to win in baseball and more than one way to win in October. So more power to the teams that try to bullpen their way through the postseason minefield. If it fits for them and works for them, hey, that’s cool.

    But if you polled 30 general managers, we guarantee all 30 would rather hand the ball to one of the great starting pitchers of his generation and watch him do what Verlander did Friday – kick off his team’s postseason by spinning off five hitless innings.

    “That’s just what we expect him to do,” quipped his grateful teammate, Josh Reddick. “I actually expected him to go nine and pitch a no-hitter.”

    OK, not this time. Instead, the Indians were able to wear Verlander down and get him out of this fray in the sixth. But he’d already left his mark – in a way that only aces can.

    “Justin always seems to show up when we really need him,” said fellow pitcher Lance McCullers Jr., “whether it’s during the season, we’re on a little bit of a losing streak, or when the bullpen is kind of banged up and he goes deep that day. But you saw it last year when he came over here. We needed a little bit of a spark, and he supplied that spark.”

    Ah, but this was no spark. This was a five-alarm inferno. And it’s still blazing.

    Verlander now has been to the mound 46 times as an Astro, counting the postseason. He is 26-10 with a 2.32 ERA. And as the stage gets more humongous in September and October, he’s the ultimate big-game monster. In two seasons of September and October baseball in Houston, he has gone an incredible 14-1, 1.80.

    Feel free to swirl that around your brain one more time – 14-1, 1.80.

    That big-game brilliance has already put World Series rings on his teammates’ fingers once. And a year later, his immense presence, as the centerpiece of one of baseball’s most dominating rotations of modern times, has the Astros in good position to win again.

    So take a step back and play the what-if game. What if he had become a Dodger 13 months ago? What if he had become a Cub? What if he had become a Yankee?

    All those teams inquired. All those teams kicked his tires. All those teams pondered whether they really wanted to pay the steep price the Tigers had placed on the then-34-year-old. Every one of those teams took a pass – once in July, then again in August when they allowed Verlander to clear waivers and make that deal to Houston possible.

    So think about this: How different would life be, would baseball be, would the Astros be, if he’d landed in one of those destinations instead of Houston?

    “Oh, we’d have figured him out and raked him anyway,” Reddick deadpanned. “That’s the obvious answer from me. But I’m just happy he didn’t [go somewhere else]. I’m just happy this front office went out and got a guy like that – not just for what he does on the mound but what he does in this clubhouse.

    “He brings a lot of respect,” Reddick said. “And a lot of guys look up to a guy like that. Even myself, and I’m an outfielder. But he’s a guy you can talk to about anything – whether it be hitting, baseball or other stuff. He’s just been a great guy to have around.”

    He sometimes feels like an ace who rode in on a time machine from the 1970s. But when you watch him on these electric October afternoons, he’s a reminder that aces never go out of style. And the Houston Astros, a team built around a rotation that would have felt totally at home in the ‘70s, are grateful for all the aces they’ve collected – but especially this one.

    “He’s been the cornerstone for us,” McCullers said of the great Justin Verlander. “He’s the guy we rely on to pitch the big game – and you saw it again today.”

    • Like 1
  8.  

    Stark: The José Altuve Effect is real

    GettyImages-1046754468-1024x683.jpg
    By Jayson Stark  Oct 6, 2018comment-icon@2x.png 24 save-icon@2x.png

    HOUSTON – Five feet from home plate, the MVP was on his hands and knees, trying to avoid a face plant … trying to pretend his knee wasn’t throbbing … trying to pretend he’d just hit a rocket up the gap instead of a dribbler up the line.

    Little did José Altuve know he’d accidentally started the craziest game-winning postseason rally of his life. Little did he know that, simply by picking himself up and staggering toward first base, he was going to cause an October baseball game to spin in a whole different direction.

    And most important of all, little did he know that just the sight of him falling down in front of the batter’s box was threatening to send the entire roster of the Houston Astros to the coronary-care unit.

    “Everyone’s heart stopped for a second,” said Carlos Correa.

    “I panicked,” said George Springer.

    We often grope for the words to describe what Altuve means to baseball’s defending champs. But on Saturday afternoon at Minute Maid Park, it was all summed up in just a few brief moments.

    A swinging bunt, a messy tumble, a painful trip up the first-base line … and its powerful impact on, well, everything that happened next in Game 2 of the American League Division Series.

    “Every time he’s on the field,” Correa would say of Altuve, after the 3-1 win that gave the Astros a 2-games-to-none lead, “he makes special things happen.”

    This hasn’t been Altuve’s greatest season. He’d be the first to tell you that. And in a related development, it certainly hasn’t been his healthiest. So it was almost fitting that Saturday, on another magical October day in Houston, Altuve’s game-altering impact was eclipsed by the 12-strikeout brilliance of Gerrit Cole, the four hits of Marwin González and another Alex Bregman long ball.

    But let’s take a step back from those headlines and remember something important. It’s now about seven weeks since Altuve returned from the disabled list after an extended battle with knee soreness. The Astros’ record since he got back on the field?

    Only 30-9.

    Yessir. That’s the best record in the whole sport since then. Of course it is.

    Or how about this: In games Altuve has started this year, counting the postseason, the Astros are 50 games over .500 – yeah, 50. As in 94-44.

    And in the games he hasn’t been in the lineup? They’re five games under .500. As in 9-14.

    You think this is a coincidence? You think this is just fun with numbers? You think this is merely circumstantial evidence disguised as some sort of trend? Sorry, not buying it. And Altuve’s teammates aren’t buying it, either.

    “He’s our leader. He’s our captain. And he’s our guy,” Springer said, without much prompting. “When he’s in our lineup, it makes everybody kind of slow down and relax, because he’s our mainstay.”

    You don’t need to program any complicated algorithms to analyze why that is, either. It’s pretty frigging obvious, isn’t it? He’s one of the best hitters in the entire sport, right? Is that a basic enough analysis?

    He became a regular player for the Astros seven seasons ago. He has the most hits in baseball and the highest batting average in baseball over the last three, four, five, six or seven seasons. Pick a time span. He’s still That Guy.

    And this season was going to be no different until the last week of July, when he fired an RBI double to right center at Coors Field, tried to accelerate to beat the throw to second base and came up limping.

    At the time, he was leading the league in hits, was second to Mookie Betts in batting average and was hovering around the league-leader board in on-base percentage, stolen bases and doubles. He then missed the next 21 games. The Astros had a losing record without him (10-11). And their lead over Oakland shrunk from six games to 1 ½.

    Then back he came in late August, at around the same time as Correa and Springer. The Astros got the band back together. They’ve been a behemoth ever since. So you do that José Altuve math. It’s not a difficult equation.

    “He’s a superstar,” said veteran catcher Brian McCann. “He’s the MVP. He’s one of the best players in this game. And when he’s in there, there’s a difference – a huge difference. It’s what he brings in the clubhouse, what he brings on the field. He gets a lot of rallies going. He’s a big piece that we were missing.”

    But what happened Saturday was a reminder that he’s still not the healthiest player in baseball, even now. Asked to describe his current state of health on a scale of one to 100 percent, Altuve grinned. That wasn’t happening. Not now.

    “You don’t know,” he said. “I could tell you that after the season. But in the playoffs, there is so much adrenaline or something that right now I feel 100 percent, because of the adrenaline in my body.”

    Well, whatever it is that’s keeping him going, it allowed him to leave his mark on a pivotal postseason baseball game. The Indians held a 1-0 lead as Altuve stepped in to lead off the bottom of the sixth against Carlos Carrasco. Until that moment, no team that scored first had lost a game in this postseason. In fact, there hadn’t been a lead change – in eight games.

    But not for long. Altuve topped a 1-and-2 changeup down the third-base line. The exit velocity of this mighty blast was a whopping 56 miles per hour. It was the softest ball hit off Carrasco all day. It had a hit probability, according to Statcast, of 22 percent. And even that seemed high.

    But whatever that hit probability it was, it plummeted precipitously when Altuve got one step out of the box and then found himself on his hands and knees. His cleats must have gotten “a little wet,” he theorized. But this was no time to analyze why he was slip-sliding in the dirt. This was a time to struggle to his feet and start running.

    If he hadn’t fallen, Indians third baseman Josh Donaldson wouldn’t have done what he did next, either. He would have just let this ball roll foul. But merely by making the effort to pick himself up and keep running, Altuve caused Donaldson to make a game-changing decision his team could wind up regretting all winter.

    Under “normal circumstances,” Donaldson told the Athletic’s Zack Meisel, “I let it go [foul] every time.” But under these circumstances, he thought he had “an easy out.” So he grabbed the baseball, fired it to first base and wound up heaving it halfway to Galveston. It was scored a single. But that’s a debate for another time.

    What seemed to matter most at that moment, though, was that Altuve had seemed to pull up as he approached the bag, then limped around uncomfortably as his manager and athletic trainer sprinted out for a visit, their blood pressure skyrocketing.

    “I was a little sore after that play,” Altuve admitted. “I was a little scared … I mean, you don’t want to be hurt during the playoffs.”

    But what were the odds of him coming out of that game in that moment? About the same as Nolan Ryan popping out of the box seats to pitch the last three innings. And by that we mean: zero.

    “For him to leave a game like that, he’d have to die,” Springer quipped. “Die. That man’s a warrior. He’s not coming out. He’s like all of us. If I can walk, I can play.”

    So because Altuve somehow found himself standing on first, a comatose ballpark suddenly rocked back to life. Alex Bregman worked a walk. Carrasco was exiting. Andrew Miller was entering. Gonzalez sliced a two-run double into the right-field corner. And guess who suddenly felt so much better, he was able to sprint home from second to score? Yep. The MVP.

    So think about this. Think about what just happened here. Jose Altuve has started many rallies in his day. But it’s safe to say none were as crazy as the way he started this one.

    “Yeah. Crazy,” he said. “But for me, it feels the same as getting a line drive or homer, because I just wanted to get on base – and I did.”

    It was almost as if he willed himself to reach that base. Whereupon his team willed itself to turn this game and this series upside down. And that, friends, is the José Altuve Effect. When he’s on the field, stuff just happens.

    On Saturday afternoon, somehow or other, it happened to the Houston Astros and Cleveland Indians. And now this ALDS might never be the same.

    • Like 2
  9.  

    Why Ryan Pressly has become the Astros’ most important reliever

    Pressly-1024x683.jpg
    By Jake Kaplan  Oct 7, 2018comment-icon@2x.png 10 save-icon@2x.png

    CLEVELAND — Before he threw his first career postseason pitch, Ryan Pressly peered into the Minute Maid Park stands. As a way of slowing down the moment, veteran Tony Sipp had suggested to Pressly he locate from the mound his family and friends in their seats.

    The exercise proved futile when Pressly couldn’t find his personal cheering section through the sea of orange. “It’s a lot easier to find them in the minor leagues,” he would say later. “I can tell you that much.” The 29-year-old right-hander spiked his first pitch and a run scored easily from third. Welcome to October baseball.

    By month’s end, Pressly should be vastly more experienced pitching in the games in which the stakes are highest. If the first two games of the Astros’ ALDS against the Indians prove to be any indication, manager A.J. Hinch will rely on Pressly in high-leverage, non-closing situations more than any other reliever.

    It could be the sixth inning like in Game 1 on Friday or the eighth like in Game 2 on Saturday. If the opposition’s best hitters are due up in a tight game, Pressly has emerged as Hinch’s go-to weapon out of the bullpen.

    Astros relievers have been tasked with 17 outs through their first two victories against the Indians. Pressly has gotten seven, the same amount as closer Roberto Osuna has. Collin McHugh, Will Harris, Josh James and Tony Sipp will enter Game 3 on Monday afternoon at Progressive Field yet to even appear in the series.

    “I’d like to get some other guys some action, but that means we need to have some different circumstances, or [starter] Dallas [Keuchel] can throw the whole game,” Hinch said on Sunday at Progressive Field. “I don’t think I can go in set up with any preconceived notions. We’re trying to get 27 outs. How we use and who we use, the matchups we use, the game will dictate more so than me pre-planning it. We’ve not used some pretty good relievers. We’ve got some options in some areas that now we have some new looks, or maybe we go back to Press and Osuna and close out a win. That’s fine too.”

    Having Lance McCullers Jr. as an option to set up Osuna this postseason makes it easier for Hinch to use Pressly earlier in games if the scenario warrants it. And Pressly’s arsenal makes him a good matchup for the Astros against both right-handed and left-handed hitters. Any hitter who has trouble with the ball up in the zone is vulnerable to his 96 mph riding four-seam fastball. Those who struggle with power breaking balls will see a heavy dosage of his 90 mph slider or his 83 mph curveball.

    Hinch telegraphed Pressly’s increased October usage by how he managed the reliever’s workload late in the regular season. He didn’t use him for more than three outs in any of Pressly’s final 23 appearances and used him only once, for an inning, in the team’s final six games. Even so, Pressly led AL relievers in appearances with 77, 51 of which he made before the July 27 trade from the Twins to the Astros. His 71 innings ranked only 15th in the AL.

    “I feel good,” Pressly said before Game 2. “It’s my job every day to get my body ready no matter what, no matter what the situation is. It’s postseason too, so your adrenaline’s kicking pretty hard.”

    A few notes ahead of Game 3

    — The next home run by George Springer or José Altuve will set an Astros’ record for career postseason homers by an individual player, with nine. Springer and Altuve are currently tied with Carlos Beltrán with eight. Carlos Correa has seven, and Alex Bregman (6) is quickly catching up.

    — Brian McCann is expected to catch Dallas Keuchel in Game 3, a reflection of both Indians starter Mike Clevinger’s drastic righty-lefty splits and Keuchel’s ability to control the opponent’s running game. But even in this scenario, Martín Maldonado will all but certainly play a role in the game. Expect Hinch to treat Maldonado as the catcher version of Jake Marisnick, an elite defensive replacement he deploys in the sixth inning or later.

    — Hinch used identical lineups in Game 1 and Game 2 but Clevinger’s vulnerability against left-handed hitters (.726 opponents’ OPS in the regular season as opposed to a .586 versus right-handed hitter) presents an opportunity to switch things up. In addition to playing McCann, Hinch could consider starting Tony Kemp over Tyler White at designated hitter to get an extra left-handed bat in the bottom third of the lineup.

  10.  

     

    In their sweep of the Indians, the Astros showed why their pitching staff is unrivaled

    Astros-pitchers-1024x749.jpg
    By Jake Kaplan  Oct 8, 2018comment-icon@2x.png 24 save-icon@2x.png

    CLEVELAND — Records of the American League Division Series that ended late Monday afternoon at Progressive Field will show that the Astros held an Indians’ lineup that scored 5.05 runs in the regular season to merely six runs across three games.

    But even that astoundingly low total doesn’t fully capture the pitching staff that has the defending World Series champions four wins from a second consecutive AL title. To better contextualize the dominance of Houstons’ arms, consider those who didn’t even make an appearance in the series against Cleveland.

    Zero pitches were thrown by Charlie Morton, last year’s Astros’ postseason hero who had a career-best 3.13 ERA in 167 innings this season. Nor were any thrown by Josh James, the revelatory rookie who touched 101 mph in relief in September. Ditto for Tony Sipp, their lone left-handed reliever, who had a 1.86 ERA in 38 2/3 innings.

    And that’s not even accounting for roster omissions like Héctor Rondón, Joe Smith and Brad Peacock. Still, Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole & Co. limited a lineup headlined by José Ramírez and Francisco Lindor to a .144/.196/.222 batting line in 90 at-bats.

    “I have no idea. I’ve got to tell you,” Cole said when asked how exactly the Astros accomplished that feat. “I just thought from my perspective, from what we can control, we were aggressive in the zone. I thought we were convicted with what we were throwing. There were a couple times where maybe we weren’t, actually, and as a group we discussed it and moved forward from it. 

    “They’re a great team. A lot of credit to them. They had a great season. They won the division for the third year in a row. They were as potent as ever. We just did a good job of doing, I guess, what we do.”

    What the Astros did was shut down every Indians hitter save for Lindor. They held Ramirez hitless in 11 at-bats and limited Edwin Encarnación and Josh Donaldson to a combined 2-for-21. The only Indians home runs came off the bat of Lindor — against Cole in Game 2 and Keuchel in Game 3. A Yandy Diaz double in Game 3 represented their only other extra-base hit in the series. They didn’t muster a single hit with a runner in scoring position, the first in a playoff series to fail to do so since the 2010 Reds team that was no-hit by Roy Halladay.

    This ALDS began, of course, with Verlander not allowing a hit until the sixth inning of Game 1. Cole one-upped up the AL Cy Young Award contender with his 12-strikeout, zero-walk performance in Game 2. Dallas Keuchel walked a tightrope at times in Game 3 but ultimately pitched five innings of two-run ball.

    The Astros’ bullpen was just as effective. Ryan Pressly, Roberto Osuna and Lance McCullers Jr. each made two scoreless appearances. Collin McHugh struck out four in two perfect innings of middle relief on Monday before George Springer and the Astros bats broke open their series-clinching 11-3 win. The run that scored on Will Harris’s two-out wild pitch in the ninth inning marked the only run allowed by Houston’s bullpen in the series.

    “We had a good game plan going in and our pitchers executed almost flawlessly,” Astros manager A.J. Hinch said. “They had a couple big swings, but we really did a good job of executing. 

    “I look at today’s game as a perfect example, where Collin McHugh comes in, largely overlooked when you start looking at how we won the first couple games, and has huge strikeout after huge strikeout. It’s a really deep team with a really good bullpen, and the execution was the difference maker.”

    Their remarkable pitching performance came on the heels of a regular season in which the 534 runs they allowed set an AL record for fewest by an AL team in a non-strike year since the DH’s introduction in 1973. These Astros led the majors in rotation ERA (3.16) and bullpen ERA (3.03). Their 1,687 strikeouts was a major league record, surpassing last year’s Indians’ staff (1,614).

    Then pare the staff down for October and factor in that game planning, communication and awareness are heightened in a postseason format.

    “We really bore down and really went to the homework drawing board and tried to figure out what we could do, what we couldn’t do and in tough situations what pitches to make,” Keuchel said. “And more times than not, we made the pitch when we had to and then we got the big hit when we had to.”

    The first postseason series sweep by the Astros in franchise history now affords Hinch and pitching coach Brent Strom the luxury of lining up their pitching staff for the ALCS. Because they didn’t have to battle it out with the Indians for four or five games, Verlander and Cole can start Games 1 and 2, respectively, on seven days’ rest. The bullpen will be as rested as possible for it being this time of year.

    It’s a luxury their ALCS opponent won’t have, one last year’s Astros didn’t have after using Verlander out of the bullpen in their clinching Game 4 of the ALDS. The depth of their 2018 pitching staff is unmatched, a fact Keuchel summed up well Monday amid the champagne celebration in Cleveland’s visitors clubhouse.

    “If we didn’t win today,” he said, “we had Charlie Morton going tomorrow.”

     

     

    • Like 2
  11.  

    Bowden: How Jeff Luhnow’s shrewd, lopsided trades got the Astros to this point

    GettyImages-1046730690-1024x683.jpg
    By Jim Bowden  Oct 8, 2018comment-icon@2x.png 64 save-icon@2x.png

    The defending World Champion Astros did not rest on their laurels after winning the world championship last season. Instead of tweaking the roster, GM Jeff Luhnow decided to aggressively upgrade it, adding 10 new faces to the team since last year’s division series. Complacency can’t even be considered in Houston’s clubhouse.

    The Astros’ offensive core was built from within thanks to years of strong drafts and an elite player development department that has produced such All-Stars as José Altuve, Alex Bregman, Carlos Correa and George Springer. Their position players include solid free-agent signings like outfielder Josh Reddick and infielder Yuli Gurriel.

    However, the key to this team’s legitimate chance at back-to-back championships is Luhnow’s shrewd, lopsided trading. One only has to look at their first two victories over the Indians in the division series, and the two aces who flat-out dominated Cleveland. In Game 1, Justin Verlander threw five no-hit innings before being relieved in the sixth; the next day, Gerrit Cole threw seven shutout innings with 12 strikeouts and no walks. Both starters were acquired in trades. The acquisition of Verlander in August 2017, right at the waiver deadline, is one of the main reasons the Astros won last year’s World Series. Cole, acquired this past offseason in a blockbuster deal with the Pirates, has put Houston in a strong position to repeat.

    In both trades, Luhnow refused to give up any of his very top prospects, instead using Houston’s deep farm system to make moves based on quantity over quality. Not that the Tigers and Pirates didn’t get quality prospects back, but how in the world do you get Verlander and Cole and not give up your top-tier prospects? Luhnow kept grinding, he kept persisting, he stayed engaged, but he drew the line before trade negotiations began in both cases and never moved off of it.

    By the way, he’d already been pursuing several elite starting pitchers via trade before he got Verlander and Cole, including former White Sox pitchers Chris Sale and José Quintana. But every time potential trade partners insisted on getting back third baseman Alex Bregman in the package, he just said no. He never wavered. It didn’t matter how many phone calls were made; he wasn’t afraid to walk away from the trade proposals.

    Before Luhnow engages in trade talks, he polls his top evaluators, analytic experts and trusted confidantes about which prospects they would and wouldn’t include, then does his thing, dealing but keeping the Bregmans and Kyle Tuckers off-limits. Now, no other American League postseason team has a one-two punch as good as Verlander and Cole.

    The back end of the Astros’ bullpen is another key. Luhnow traded for closer Roberto Osuna and set-up reliever Ryan Pressly midseason, which has put the Astros’ late relief in the strongest position it has been in during this era. Osuna was acquired from the Blue Jays after a domestic violence arrest, and served a 75-game suspension from Major League Baseball, but criminal charges were dropped when Osuna agreed to a one-year peace bond in a Toronto court in late September. However you feel about the circumstances of the trade, from a pure baseball perspective, the move has been effective; the Astros have the closer they didn’t have last year.

    Pressly came over in an under-the-radar trade with the Twins that sent two Double-A prospects to Minnesota. Pressly has become the Astros’ best set-up man, throwing 95-97 mph with a knee-buckling curveball. All of a sudden, the Houston bullpen has been upgraded so dramatically that two relievers who got postseason saves for the Astros last year, Chris Devenski and Brad Peacock, were left off the division series roster, as was Héctor Rondón, who was actually their closer for most of the regular season.

    There are a number of elite GMs and presidents in Major League Baseball, including three-time world champion Brian Sabean of the Giants, Theo Epstein of the Cubs, Brian Cashman of the Yankees, Dave Dombrowski of the Red Sox and Andrew Friedman of the Dodgers. They have a few key traits in common. They build teams from within first, and when trading, they are clear on what they’ll give up before negotiations start, rarely move off of their positions, and aren’t afraid to walk away, a trait that is necessary for success. But they’re not afraid to trade prospects, and they all have track records for trading for proven starting pitching and middle-of-the-order bats. The group is also special in its ability to acquire undervalued players and knows how to put the right mix of players and human beings in their clubhouses. They’ve all either won a World Series or taken their teams to multiple fall classics.

    Over the last 15 months, Luhnow has put himself in this elite group of star GMs thanks to the deals for Verlander, Cole, Pressly, Osuna and Gold Glove catcher Martín Maldonado.

    His influence in scouting and player development with the Cardinals was instrumental in the years of their postseason appearances. His overseeing the drafting of Bregman, Correa and Lance McCullers Jr. and his past free-agent signings of Charlie Morton, Gurriel and Reddick speak for themselves.

    Luhnow is respected by his peers because of his honesty and straightforward approach. He doesn’t play games. If he says he won’t trade a prospect, he won’t. Other GMs know he’ll walk away if he has to. They also know, now, that he’s become one of the game’s best.

    (Top photo of Cole: Bob Levey/Getty Images)

    Boom! Glad you really enjoyed it.
    rated-awesome@2x.png
    Jim-Bowden.jpg
    Jim Bowden, a staff writer for The Athletic MLB, is the former general manager of the Cincinnati Reds and Washington Nationals. He is also a regular co-host on the MLB Network channel on Sirius XM Radio, and the year-round analyst on the Fantasy Alarm show on Sirius XM. He previously wrote for ESPN.com. Follow Jim on Twitter @JimBowdenGM.
    • Like 2
×
×
  • Create New...