On Point: Astros GM Jeff Luhnow

HOUSTON -- New Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow has spent his entire professional baseball career working in and around the field of player development. In his eight years with the St. Cardinals he was involved directly with scouting, drafting and developing talent for the organization. His success can be seen on the hands of the current Cardinals, via their diamond-encrusted World Series Championship rings.

The 45-year old Luhnow has similar aspirations for the Astros and he knows the path to that success runs through the organization's minor league system. And since the minor leagues have been his focus during his career it's not surprising he has definite opinions on how best to maximize talent development in that context. In between Houston stops of the Astros Winter Caravan he shared some of his ideas.

One of his primary precepts has to do with competitiveness. Luhnow is a strong believer in teaching players to win as part of their development."Our goal is to win at every level," he states. "We want players to get used to winning and by doing so learn just what it takes to get that done."

To fans that seems like an obvious approach but in reality there is no consensus philosophy regarding minor league success. More than a few other organizations treat the minors as nothing more than extended practice leagues, saying the development of individual talent is the only concern and team success is secondary, if it's considered at all. Luhnow politely, but insistently, disagrees.

"We want to see players develop in a team context, with each of them contributing his talents to the success of the team," he explains. "We're developing more than just their physical skills in the minor leagues. We're preparing them to not only be big leaguers, but to also be big league winners. And that starts in the minor leagues."

The 2011 season saw Hooks players Jose Altuve, Jimmy Paredes and J.D. Martrinez promoted directly to the Astros starting lineup, bypassing Triple-A Oklahoma City entirely. Some organizations regularly utilize such rapid promotion methods while others stick to a structured schedule, sometimes demanding players spend a full year at a level before moving upward. Luhnow believes the player dictates the speed of the process.

"It's as much an art as a science," he declares. "Basically, it's just a matter of using common sense and each case is different. There are some players who obviously need more experience before promotion but there's also no reason to restrain a player's advancement just because of artificial time requirements."

In similar fashion Luhnow is hesitant to embrace the concept that some organizations have regarding the psychological damage they feel can be done to a young player promoted too rapidly. He doesn't believe temporary failure at a higher level is especially detrimental to player development and if it is somehow traumatizing then that's something that needs to be dealt with anyway. "If a player can't handle the pressure of a promotion how is he going to be able to handle playing in the big leagues, much less playing in championship situations?", he asks. "That's something we need to find out and there's only one way to do that."

The day after Luhnow concluded his duties with the Astros Winter Caravan he was on his way to the Dominican Republic, where he was responsible for opening the Cardinals academy in 2004. As a bilingual native of Mexico City he is especially interested in expanding the Astros scouting and drafting activities in Latin America. "The franchise has a strong history in the region but we need to update our operations," he says. "I'm still in the process of familiarizing myself with our young players and that seemed a productive place to start before going to spring training."

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The Houston Astros return to Whataburger Field on April 2 to play the Hooks in an exhibition presented by AT&T. Call 361-561-HOOK (4665) for details. Purchase Hooks season tickets to reserve your seats to the game.