A Cards fan's take on the Luhnow hire

Cardinal's fan and friend of mine Chris Hettenkofer (@c_hett) was gracious enough to give us his take on the Jeff Luhnow hire.

"Congratulations to the Astros on getting the right guy at the right time. Luhnow resurrected a struggling Cardinals farm system when he arrived in 2003. The Cardinals had the last ranked farm system at the end of the 2004 season and today have a mid-range ranking, despite big league promotions of impact players to the World Championship team and using some as trade material for Holliday. Everything changed for the organization when he took over both scouting and development, smoothing these two usually at odds groups was a brilliant move. I’m sure whoever he puts in place in Houston will follow a similar philosophy.

He’s a very rational guy who seems able to balance both the sabermetric side of things with the “art” of scouting; at the very least he can get people from both sides of the spectrum to co-exist. He seems to understand the value of his prospects, which should help at the one facet that is really a question mark, how will he do when it comes time to sell off some pieces to make a move. The Astros are still a few years away from this really being a big problem, and in that time they will only get better and more stocked at the early levels.

As a Cardinals fan I’m very sad to see Jeff go because I think he has had as much, if not more, to do with the World Series we just won than any other member of the Cards front office. You’re in good hands Astros fans and who knows, you may even end up with Colby Rasmus before it’s all over."

The national response to this hire has been mostly positive, an unusual phenomenon for recent Astros moves. Obviously time will tell, but so far it seems that Crane and Postolos have the organization turning back towards a place of respectability.