The Houston Astros Have Arrived Ahead Of Schedule

Jeff Luhnow stood in the visiting dugout late Monday afternoon and surveyed the field as his Houston Astros prepared for Tuesday night's American League Wild Card game against the New York Yankees. Even before the first pitch was thrown, 2015 had been a year of validation for Luhnow, a trailblazer whose work with the St. Louis Cardinals from 2003-2011—and then again since taking the general manager's job in Houston—has always hinged on questioning baseball's prevailing conventional wisdom.

It took the better part of eight years for Luhnow and the Cardinals to prove that their massive revamping of the team's player development, domestic/international scouting and, ultimately, valuations of every single player were anything other than a massive internal mistake. Specifically, it took the team's 2011 World Series win. Even in a game as inherently conservative as baseball, there is no arguing with a ring.

Even so, critics could hold onto a slim reed: Luhnow's methods only worked because it was the St. Louis Cardinals implementing them, with baseball genius John Mozeliak in charge of making it all work. Give Luhnow a team of his own, and watch it crash and burn. The Houston Astros did just that, and in the first three years of Luhnow's tenure the team lost 107, 111, and 92 games.

All of which means that these are difficult days for those still looking to discredit Luhnow, whose Astros won 86 games this season, as well as the AL Wild Card, and then knocked off the New York Yankees in convincing fashion on Tuesday night. The Astros are well ahead of the growth curve most expected for the team, but they have also delivered the best response that Luhnow and his Houston brain trust could possibly provide to the skeptics. The team is already winning. The story would be different if Houston hadn't finished a difficult September with six wins in the last eight games. After winning a one-game playoff at Yankee Stadium, it's even more different. In data terms, Tuesday's outcome means almost nothing. But given that baseball success is defined by moment and narrative, it's something else entirely.

"I think some of it will quiet down, yes," Luhnow said before the game, calmly observing his major trade deadline acquisition, Carlos Gomez, gallop toward the batting cage. Gomez smashed—and gleefully bat-flipped—a home run in the Astros' 3-0 win. "But part of this comes down to—we're on our way to more, I hope."

Luhnow's point is understated, but significant—everybody thinks the Astros are going to be better next year, and better still the year after that. Their best everyday player, Carlos Correa, just turned 21 last month, and might be the best shortstop in baseball already. Their second and third-best position players, Jose Altuve and George Springer, are 25 and 26. The oldest of their top three starters, Collin McHugh, is 28. An astonishing 17 of their top 18 WAR contributors this season were under age 30.

And here's what's coming: the Astros advanced to the postseason at the following minor league levels: Triple-A, Double-A, high-A, A-ball, low-A, short-season and rookie ball. Advances in identifying young, first-generation contract talent is how Luhnow, Sig Mejdal and many others revitalized the Cardinals. They've done it again in Houston.

All of which means that the debate has shifted irrevocably. You can hear the last dying breaths of an outdated worldview in this Bill Madden column from last October on A.J. Hinch, who navigated the Astros into the playoffs this year:

"And then there's the Houston Astros, whose embattled GM Jeff Luhnow decided that A.J. Hinch was the right man to guide them out of the losing wilderness and into postseason prosperity," Madden wrote. "And just what were Hinch's credentials?… Luhnow, the ultimate metrics guy, knows what he's doing, as Hinch is not likely to offer any resistance (as previous Astro manager Bo Porter did) to the analytical data (and lineup suggestions) coming from above."

On the heels of the 2015 season, the manager would have been excused for taking a victory lap.

"You're not the first person to tell me there were questions," Hinch said with a smile Tuesday afternoon. "I've had to answer a couple of those. I understand they're warranted. When you're in this game a long time you see a lot of different things and you feel a lot of different things. And what you learn is people have an opinion of you or on what you're doing in every way.

"So, validation? I don't need validation. I need the players' respect. I need the players to play well. Need a team identity and a team culture to show up every day to win. What it does for me when I get that, then that's the validation I'm running the club the right way."

Inside the Houston locker room, the players were every bit as aware as their manager that many within baseball didn't think the Luhnow project would work at all, let alone so soon. "It's been a good year," Astros designated hitter Evan Gattis said Monday. "I think absolutely, we have [proven something], already. I don't think it'll be just from one game. I think we already have. I think the experiment, if you want to call it that, is working."

Dallas Keuchel, the Astros' starting pitcher in the Wild Card game, is a statistical embodiment of the Astros' rise. In 2012 and 2013, his ERA topped 5. In 2014, he broke through and played marginally well. In 2015, he won 20 games and finished with the best ERA+ in the American League, 162.

Generally, rebuilding teams see their less effective pitchers give way to more talented arms. In this case, Keuchel's talent has gone along for the ride.

"I think a lot of people are still kind of leery of us," Keuchel said Monday. "And I don't really get that now. We secured a playoff berth, whether that's a one-game with the Wild Card, or if that's a five-game division series. We proved people wrong continuously throughout the season. I play with a chip on my shoulder, and I think a lot of guys in there do as well. We'll always carry that."

The entire team carries Luhnow's unmistakable imprint. Whether it was Keuchel, who credits his work with Luhnow's handpicked pitching coach Brent Strom with turning him from a fringe big leaguer into the American League's best starter, or a home run by Luhnow's big trade deadline acquisition, Carlos Gomez—or even a home run from Colby Rasmus, Luhnow's big early draft pick back in his early Cardinals period, who joined the team as a bargain-priced free agent—a Luhnow decision drove everything that determined Tuesday night's game. "Jeff has built a tremendous franchise that's on the rise," Hinch said. "I think some of our best baseball is still ahead of us. We don't really need validation. We just need to continue to build the culture that we have, to win games we're supposed to win."

But no one thought the Houston Astros were supposed to win Tuesday night. The much-discussed Sports Illustrated cover story on them last year predicted that Houston would be the 2017 World Series champions. That seems somehow conservative from the vantage point of October, 2015.

Catching up with Keuchel after his presser, as he headed into the clubhouse to celebrate some more, I asked him whether he thought the Astros had passed some test. He reminded me that the Astros were sure of who they were some time ago. "We've been doing this all year," Keuchel said, his postseason hoodie damp with champagne. "Now we get to show some more of America who we are."