The Z Report

Lance Zierlein: Luhnow is hoping for his own Tyreek Hill ending

Lance Zierlein
Lance Zierlein: Luhnow is hoping for his own Tyreek Hill ending
Jeff Luhnow is facing a lot of questions over his latest trade. Bob Levey/Getty Images

Well, you wanted a closer to help round out the Houston Astros chances at repeating as a World Series champion. Hell, I wanted a closer too. I wanted one badly! Now we got one. Somehow, this isn’t what I had in mind.

The Astros decided to cash-in their goodwill within the community and trade for a talented, yet troubled closer from the Toronto Blue Jays, Roberto Osuna. Twitter and sports talk radio is full of opinions regarding Osuna and the Astros decision to add him after serving a 75-game suspension for domestic abuse, but where will everyone stand in October?

When the Chiefs drafted Tyreek

All of us have seen how this could end up playing out. We saw it in May of 2016 when the Kansas City Chiefs drafted wideout Tyreek Hill from West Alabama in the fifth round. Hill had been a running back at Oklahoma State but was dismissed from the school after being charged with domestic abuse and later plead guilty to punching and choking his pregnant girlfriend and received three years of probation. Hill eventually landed at West Alabama.

I was on the set of NFL Now’s broadcast of the 2016 NFL Draft and I was visibly dumbfounded that Hill was actually drafted by an NFL team. I simply couldn’t hide it. I didn’t think there was any chance that he would be drafted considering his guilty plea of such heinous charges. Chiefs fans weren’t too crazy about it either. Here is a sampling of some of the things were said on the comment section of Hill’s NFL.com draft profile:

Homework, time and talent

An executive from a separate AFC team told me they loved Hill’s talent and did their homework and believed that Hill might have beat the case, but that financial concerns over legal fees and fear of jail time caused him to plea out. However, pleading guilty to abusing a pregnant woman was just something they were not prepared to defend to their fans and media so they took Hill off the board.

The Chiefs did their own investigating and they believed that Hill was worth taking a chance on. He had elite speed, immense talent and they ultimately believed in the person. Despite the initial anger from fans and scrutiny of media, Kansas City was repaid with a rookie season that included twelve touchdowns combined (6 receiving, 3 rushing, 2  kick returns, 1 punt return) and a first team All-Pro designation.

After two years in the league, Hill is a two-time Pro Bowler and beloved by Chiefs fans. Chants of “Ty-Reek, Ty-Reek, Ty-Reek” rang through the Arrowhead stadium, Hill’s rookie season as the Chiefs clinched their first division title since 2010.

The Astros, like the Chiefs in 2016, are banking on their homework, the talent and time. There is no way the Astros haven’t done their homework on Osuna. Anything negative that comes out beyond this point is going to be extremely damning, but the Astros must believe they can fade it. They are getting a very talented player for a very modest price and history tells us that over time talented players who perform at a high level are shown forgiveness - especially by the local fanbase.

Paradigm shift for Luhnow and Astros?

I’m not here to argue whether or not the Astros decision to trade for Osuna is right or wrong. To be honest, the details of what went down haven’t been made public and the courts haven’t weight in just yet. What I can work off of, however, is that Major League Baseball suspended Osuan for 75 games and there was no appeal. Maintaining an adherence to “innocent until proven guilty” is challenging for all of us with that such a harsh suspension levied against Osuna.

As stated prior, I believe you will see fan anger over Osuna subside if he’s able to get guys out. It will also help his cause if the team starts winning and gets hot going into the playoffs. Is it right that our attitudes are tied to winning? Of course not, but that’s the way it is. Fight it if you want, but you’ll always find that few people show up at your meetings.

Then again, if Osuna struggles to find his form after sitting out for much of this season, Astros General Manager Jeff Luhnow will find himself in the crosshairs of a portion of the fanbase. This is the kind of move that can help remove the cloak of invincibility that he deserved to wear after building the Astros into a World Series winner.

The national media is going to stay on the Astros for using their ridiculous “zero tolerance” comment at the same time they traded for a player serving a substantial suspension for domestic violence. I still don’t understand why Luhnow would make such a potentially risky move  when there were other arms out there. My guess is that he simply couldn’t pass up on the perceived value.

The Astros have a great clubhouse and appear to love each other like brothers. It will be interesting to see how Osuna fits in with this tightly-knit crew. I guess time will tell whether Osuna is the next Tyreek Hill or if he becomes the player and the trade that caused Astros fans to fall out of love with this general manager.

 

Most Popular

SportsMap Emails
Are Awesome

Listen Live

ESPN Houston 97.5 FM
Have the Astros turned a corner? Photo by Logan Riely/Getty Images.

After finishing up with the Guardians the Astros have a rather important series for early May with the Seattle Mariners heading to town for the weekend. While it’s still too early to be an absolute must-win series for the Astros, losing the series to drop seven or nine games off the division lead would make successfully defending their American League West title that much more unlikely.

Since their own stumble out of the gate to a 6-10 record the Mariners have been racking up series wins, including one this week over the Atlanta Braves. The M’s offense is largely Mmm Mmm Bad, but their pitching is sensational. In 18 games after a 4-8 start, the Mariners gave up five runs in a game once. In the other 17 games they only gave up four runs once. Over the 18 games their starting pitchers gave up 18 earned runs total with a 1.44 earned run average. That’s absurd. Coming into the season Seattle’s starting rotation was clearly better on paper than those of the Astros and Texas Rangers, and it has crystal clearly played out as such into the second month of the schedule.

While it’s natural to focus on and fret over one’s own team's woes when they are plentiful as they have been for the Astros, a reminder that not all grass is greener elsewhere. Alex Bregman has been awful so far. So has young Mariners’ superstar Julio Rodriguez (though not Breggy Bad). A meager four extra base hits over his first 30 games were all Julio produced down at the ballyard. That the Mariners are well ahead of the Astros with J-Rod significantly underperforming is good news for Seattle.

Caratini comes through!

So it turns out the Astros are allowed to have a Puerto Rican-born catcher who can hit a little bit. Victor Caratini’s pedigree is not that of a quality offensive player, but he has swung the bat well thus far in his limited playing time and provided the most exciting moment of the Astros’ season with his two-out two-run 10th inning game winning home run Tuesday night. I grant that one could certainly say “Hey! Ronel Blanco finishing off his no-hitter has been the most exciting moment.” I opt for the suddenness of Caratini’s blow turning near defeat into instant victory for a team that has been lousy overall to this point. Frittering away a game the Astros had led 8-3 would have been another blow. Instead, to the Victor belong the spoils.

Pudge Rodriguez is the greatest native Puerto Rican catcher, but he was no longer a good hitter when with the Astros for the majority of the 2009 season. Then there’s Martin Maldonado.

Maldonado’s hitting stats with the Astros look Mike Piazza-ian compared to what Jose Abreu was doing this season. Finally, mercifully for all, Abreu is off the roster as he accepts a stint at rookie-level ball in Florida to see if he can perform baseball-CPR on his swing and career. Until or unless he proves otherwise, Abreu is washed up and at some point the Astros will have to accept it and swallow whatever is left on his contract that runs through next season. For now Abreu makes over $120,000 per game to not be on the roster. At his level of performance, that’s a better deal than paying him that money to be on the roster.

Abreu’s seven hits in 71 at bats for an .099 batting average with a .269 OPS is a humiliating stat line. In 2018 George Springer went to sleep the night of June 13 batting .293 after going hitless in his last four at bats in a 13-5 Astros’ win over Oakland. At the time no one could have ever envisioned that Springer had started a deep, deep funk which would have him endure a nightmarish six for 78 stretch at the plate (.077 batting average). Springer then hit .293 the rest of the season.

Abreu’s exile opened the door for Joey Loperfido to begin his Major League career. Very cool for Loperfido to smack a two-run single in his first game. He also struck out twice. Loperfido will amass whiffs by the bushel, he had 37 strikeouts in 101 at bats at AAA Sugar Land. Still, if he can hit .225 with some walks mixed in (he drew 16 with the Space Cowboys) and deliver some of his obvious power (13 homers in 25 games for the ex-Skeeters) that’s an upgrade over Abreu/Jon Singleton, as well as over Jake Meyers and the awful showing Chas McCormick has posted so far. Frankly, it seems unwise that the Astros only had Loperfido play seven games at first base in the minors this year. If McCormick doesn’t pick it up soon and with Meyers displaying limited offensive upside, the next guy worth a call-up is outfielder Pedro Leon. In January 2021 the Astros gave Leon four million dollars to sign out of Cuba and called him a “rapid mover to the Major Leagues.” Well…

Over his first three minor league seasons Leon flashed tools but definitely underwhelmed. He has been substantially better so far this year. He turns 26 May 28. Just maybe the Astros offense could be the cause of fewer Ls with Loperfido at first and Leon in center field.

Catch our weekly Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast. Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and I discuss varied Astros topics. The first post for the week generally goes up Monday afternoon (second part released Tuesday) via YouTube: stone cold stros - YouTube with the complete audio available via Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

astroshouston astrosmlb

SportsMap Emails
Are Awesome