Back around 2013, uninformed media personalities like Evan Dreilich and Jake Buchanan’s (remember him!) better half were making comments to the effect that Houston would never spend money, and that their young talent would eventually find a winning team when they could sign with New York or LA. How quaint! But at the time it provoked some hand-wringing because, well, the Astros were historically bad and literally everything was going wrong. This is all to say that, whatever Luhnow’s genius, the Astros would only become a franchise of lasting impact if they could lock up their guys, and even then, only if they locked up the right guys.
Extend George Springer!
