BJOL Org's and Eras Project - the Astros
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Whoever heard of lining up teams by their mascot names alphabetically ... grumble, grumble. And could swear this is the first time I ever saw James do that. The one time I cared. mumble, crumble.
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James' method is to assign each year's team a "strength score," like this one he has on the Astros:
|
|
0 |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
|
196- |
|
|
7.21 |
6.56 |
5.97 |
5.37 |
5.29 |
5.01 |
4.96 |
6.51 |
|
197- |
6.79 |
7.05 |
8.91 |
10.18 |
11.26 |
10.15 |
10.17 |
11.25 |
10.77 |
13.34 |
|
198- |
15.90 |
17.87 |
17.00 |
17.73 |
17.07 |
17.67 |
20.08 |
18.94 |
19.30 |
19.90 |
|
199- |
18.71 |
16.96 |
17.43 |
18.13 |
19.06 |
19.61 |
19.92 |
21.32 |
23.80 |
25.73 |
|
200- |
23.81 |
25.47 |
25.38 |
25.49 |
26.93 |
29.04 |
29.49 |
27.31 |
27.22 |
25.30 |
|
201- |
23.69 |
20.89 |
18.28 |
15.63 |
14.49 |
16.52 |
17.23 |
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|
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All of us -- and by "all of us" I mean SABRMatt, naturally -- could take a yellow pad and make a long list of + and - for this method. If you have your own laboratory, go to it. One of the strengths here is that with the gentle "Up cycle, Down cycle" turning points, you've got a lot of reliability. A lot of data and a macro point of view. After he has 30 teams, will James get to attaching things to each turning point -- a Top 50 SuperDuperStar or a change of owners or whatever -- those "Seismic Events" will correlate well with franchise health going forward.
Or so it seems to me.
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HOUSTON ASTROS
They had some similarity to the M's:
- Juuuuuuust a bit more recent than, say, the Philadelphia A's
- Way, WAYYYYY underneath New York's radar scope (my own thought)
- A lot of failure after expansion
- Some epically poor GM'ing in their first 25 years - Cuellar to the O's for zip, Joe Morgan to the Reds for zip, "donated" John Mayberry to the Royals, etc etc
- A good taste of success for 10-15 years (late 80's thru early 00's) due to Stars & Scrubs ... Mike Scott, Nolan Ryan, Roy Oswalt, Bagwell and Biggio, etc
- Another (surprising) valley in 2007-14, being made fun of a lot for weird stuff because they were bad
- 2015-17 and forward Jose Altuve years
So it's a stimulating comparison to the M's. Using our own verbiage rather than pull quotes, since talking points themselves aren't copyright territory. We'll just continually remind you that $3/month isn't even subscription money unless you're putting yourself through college on a Denny's paycheck like some of us did. Let's take a glance at James' suggestions for the causes of the turning points:
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| Era | Result | Possible Cause |
| 62-68 Colt .45s | DOWN (from expansion level!) | Terrible Scrubs |
| 69-86 | UP | (Despite catastrophic trades) XLNT farm system, and draws at scrap heap deck (Jose Cruz, Joaquin Andujar) |
| 87-91 | DOWN | Stars got old in Gillickian fashion |
| 92-06 | UP | Bagwell, Biggio, Oswalt, Berkman ... nimbly working talent market for 1-2 year players. But didn't come up with ENOUGH support impact players |
| 07-14 | DOWN | All the above players got old togther (see post-Gillick M's) |
| 15-18 and ff | UP | (BJOL doesn't say anything. Obviously farm system, and patience with K's, was a plus) |
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At first glance we can compare Ken Griffey Jr's arrival in 1989-90 to any of the Astros' three UP cycles. In fact the 1995-2005 Astros remind us a whale of a lot of the 00's M's.
Cheers,
Dr D