Sure path to MLB’s summit? Tanks but no tanks

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Monday at the White House, Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow described the team’s rebuilding plan, its “vision,” as “radical.”

Apparently, radical is a fourletter word.

When the Astros set a franchise record for losses in a season (107) in Luhnow’s first year at the helm (2012), then broke that mark by dropping 111 games the next year — doing it in style by finishing with a 15-game losing streak — their plan was characterized by a whole host of words stronger than radical. The expletives were not deleted. Times have changed. The Astros started from the bottom. Now they’re hearing what geniuses they are.

Such geniuses, in fact, that copycats are believed to be popping up all over baseball.

Same goes for the Cubs, who posted their first 100-loss

season since 1966 in Theo Epstein’s first season as President of Baseball Operations (2012) but won the 2016 World Series.

Tanking has made its way to MLB, and not everybody is happy about it, especially the Major League Baseball Players Association, which saw the free-agent market run dry this offseason as teams were more reluctant than ever, it seemed, to hand out big-money contracts.

The idea that you can lose your way to the top, because that’s how the Astros and Cubs did it, isn’t radical. It’s ridiculous.

Not so simple

“If it were only that easy,” MLBPA executive director Tony Clark said. “You know there were a lot of right decisions along the way and, probably just as importantly if not more so, bringing in the right group of guys with the group of guys that they had.

“When it happens, it’s magic. Obviously, it was for these guys (the Astros) last year. But I don’t think it’s as simple as this is the blueprint, and it’s going to work. It’s just not that simple.”

Clark and others from the players union visited the Astros at spring training last Friday as part of the organization’s annual tour. What he sees in this young, talented team isn’t a group built from losing but one built with winning moves. Copycats beware. “It’s a hard path to follow,” Astros pitcher Dallas Keuchel said. “I think both ourselves and the Cubs had some really good players in-house.

“It’s not easy to just hit on draft picks year after year. You’ve gotta be very lucky with who you hit and at what point you hit, because it could crumble. And some of these teams are going to see it crumble, because it’s not going to work for everybody.”

Teams that want to win are willing to overpay free agents. If winning doesn’t matter, those teams turn their backs on high-priced talent.

That’s what appears to have happened this winter. Let’s hope the trend doesn’t continue next offseason when a number of name free agents (including Bryce Harper, Manny Machado and maybe even Clayton Kershaw if he opts out of his Dodgers deal) will be on the market.

This year it was a “race to the bottom,” Clark said.

“You don’t want to see that,” Keuchel said. “That’s not good for baseball.”

The players union filed a grievance against the Marlins, Athletics, Pirates and Rays, claiming the clubs weren’t putting their revenue-sharing dollars toward improving the product on the field, as is required.

A sport already struggling to find ways to attract a younger audience can’t afford to turn anyone away with the idea that winning isn’t important to a third of its teams.

“Players are interested in playing against the best players,” Clark said. “Fans are interested in seeing the best players.”

That the word integrity is thrown into this discussion is unfair to the players. This is about organizations tanking, not individuals.

“I don’t know anybody that shows up on the field trying not to win,” Astros manager A.J. Hinch said. “The players that show up every day are trying to win. And I know managers are.”

There is no question about that. But give any manager a roster like the one Bo Porter had in his first Astros season (2012), and 100 losses are a virtual certainty.

Still, losing wasn’t the most important ingredient in Houston’s winning formula, and the Astros’ climb from the cellar wasn’t all about high draft picks. Players like Keuchel and AL MVP Jose Altuve were with the team before it bottomed out.

Busts of their own

And as Keuchel pointed out, Houston didn’t get every draft pick right. Mark Appel, the No. 1 overall selection in 2013, never made it to the big leagues and recently retired from the game.

Even so, the Astros’ radical vision turned many away from the game. Winning brought them back, though. In a big way.

Imagine how dead baseball would be in Houston if the Astros hadn’t done almost everything right.

Going from the bottom to the top isn’t done at the drop of a hat. (Or the dropping of 100-plus games.)

That is probably something a number of teams will find out over the next few years.

And baseball in those cities will suffer for it.