ASTROS DETERMINED TO FOLLOW GRAND PLAN DESPITE CRITICS

The Houston Astros Front Office made the decision to terminate Mgr Brad Mills and two coaches over a week ago according to General Manager Jeff Luhnow. "We wanted to do it before next road trip and it seemed like an appropriate time"

This painful process has placed Crane, Luhnow, and the Astros in a no win situation in the here and now having to completely rebuild a franchise virtually destroyed by the previous ownership. An ownership guilty of; (a) not signing draft picks, (b) very poor scouting (c) terrible, or questionable at best, baseball hiring practices (d) bad player development.

The Crane Group must somehow try to convince their fan base that they are doing what is necessary to realize success of their grand plan all the while keeping the butts in the seats. They already are the most flexible, fan friendly ownership group in the history of the franchize changing and bending long standing rules designed to do nothing more than line the pockets of ownership. Instead the Crane group has sacrificed those profits as a true gesture of goodwill to their fan base.

Considering the instant gratification world we all live in now it should come as no surprise that criticism of the new Astros regime is a plenty from the pinheads of the national media to local grinders. Everyone from Buster Olney (ESPN) all the way down to Matt Jackson (KBME-790) could be read taking shots at the Astros.

But all the while Crane and Luhnow are sticking to the plan. The plan that will surely pay dividends at its maturity right? Well, maybe. People must understand, this is baseball! There has never been any such thing as instant gratification in this game. Success comes from a well run program from the owner, GM, all the way down to the bird dogs. Everything must click and fire on all cylinders for years, not just weeks and months.

Crane and Luhnow have a plan and if you understand the game of Major League Baseball in your market you will quickly come to the realization that the plan will take at least three years to bare fruit and likely five years to mature at its earliest.

With no offense to Hunsicker and the 1998 Astros Front Office, Jim Crane and Jeff Luhnow have put in place the best "Baseball" personnel the club has ever realized in their Front Office and Player Development and they are still tweaking it to their plan as to continuously improve. It will continue to be fluid and setbacks will happen, but how the current administration handles those setbacks will define their tenure.

My guess is they will handle them with their own personality and certainly will not let local or national media derail their massive task at hand. Hang in there Houston, you will be proud of this organization and if you were to study all the actions of the new regime and their massive undertaking, you really should be proud now! It will only get better.