The St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Derrick Goold has an article on former Cardinal Jeff Luhnow, and his resurrection process of the Astros. It's a good article (because Goold is a good writer), but there are a couple of things to note:
Jim Crane:
"That's something we were told if we wanted to own a team we'd have to go to the American League, and that meant if it was us or anybody. The fans like the National League, but it was out of our control. ... I told the guys if we're going to win the World Series, we're going to have to beat everybody, so what's the difference?"
Goold:
Luhnow said Houston's use of statistics in 2011 was similar to the Cardinals when he arrived in 2003. That's been brought up to speed. They were dial-up, now they're nearing 4G.
Luhnow, on the farm system:
"We're trying to take a farm system that by many third-party views is in the bottom five of baseball and turn into a top-five system. Part of doing that is acquiring prospects any way you can. We have to deal from areas where we have depth. And we're going to do it again, too."
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
