We Don’t Talk About Luhnow
Welcome to Warning Track Power, a weekly newsletter of baseball stories and analysis grounded in front office and scouting experiences and the personalities encountered along the way.
Jeremy Peña, the Astros rookie shortstop, circled the bases earlier this week after launching a slider from Jimmy Herget of the Angels deep into left field. As Peña rounded third, I wondered if I, too, was turning a corner.
Like some of you, I have decried and rooted against the Astros ever since they were exposed for the elaborate cheating scandal that enabled their 2017 World Series championship.
But, for the sake of forgiveness and not letting my anger over the Astros’ transgressions rot me from the inside, I want to get over it. I want to see the orange and blue — and the old yellow, orange and red rainbow, too — along with the block letter H atop the star and think of Nolan Ryan, Enos Cabell, J.R. Richard, and a young Craig Biggio.
This week, when I looked out at shortstop and saw Peña — not Carlos Correa — I had hope.
Peña, son of a former big leaguer, was Houston’s third-round selection in 2018. The scouting director at the time was Mike Elias, current GM of the Orioles. The Astros’ dirty secrets had not yet been revealed.
As for Peña? He was still at the University of Maine when visiting teams were having their signs stolen at Minute Maid Park.
It’s a great time to embrace this Rookie of the Year candidate; equal to Peña’s on-field upside is his potential to serve as a bridge away from the 2017 roster.
Correa, a leader of the World Series team, was cast as a villain, targeted by his peers (remember Joe Kelly?), and despised in the Bronx and in many other cities where fan bases eagerly shared their antipathy for the Astros’ subversive practices. This year, Correa entered baseball’s version of the witness relocation program. He’s keeping a low profile while playing in Minnesota for $35.1 million.
As the Astros’ free agent exodus continues, how long will the stigma attached to the 2017 team endure?
In some New York City dive bars, where smoking has been banned for two decades, the smell of cigarettes remains. It lives in the wooden walls, persisting like the colorful comments etched and drawn on bathroom stalls.
Is that the Astros fate? Will the stench stick to future generations, too young to have had any fun when banging trash cans was all the rage?
For guidance and therapy, I turned to former Astros player and current team broadcaster Geoff Blum. We caught up shortly after he asserted himself as the unofficial spokesman for Karbach Crawford Bock beer.
I confessed to Blum that I can’t help but dislike the Astros.
“I’m okay with that,” he says. “I still hate the Dodgers from my Padres days — and now you have a reason not to like the Astros.”
That’s not to say Astros bashing isn’t without its challenges.
“It’s frustrating for several reasons,” Blum says, beginning with guilt by association. “As a team employee, I get lumped into it... I’m one of the cheaters.” He finds that baffling, bothersome, and laughable.
But he concedes, “Society and culture will ask of winners: ‘How did they get there? Why did they get there? And how do I bring them down?’”
Given the evidence against the team, though, he can’t deny it. Regardless of how talented those teams were, their accomplishments come with MLB-issued suspensions, fines, and the loss of draft picks.
“Being around all the guys, seeing and understanding them and realizing how good and how great they are makes me upset,” Blum says, because the cheating scandal “makes them look bad as players and people.”
This is where Jeremy Peña comes in. One day, the Astros could be his team. Not Correa’s, not Altuve’s, not Bregman’s. The 24-year-old has been widely praised by teammates and coaches for both his ability and character. Now he has the chance to show the world and begin to change the perception of the organization.
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Yeah, I still hate ‘em.