BTW, in the Klawchat today was this re Laureano:
Keith Law: I really liked him out of AFL 2016, then the Astros changed his swing and he stunk.
http://meadowparty.com/blog/2018/09/13/klawchat-9-13-18/The "what changed for Laureano between 2017 and 2018" has been a recurring theme in prospect circles recently and this is the first time I've seen a swing change blamed for his 2017 troubles. Setting aside the obvious (why would the Astros have wanted to change his swing given Laureano's terrific regular season and AFL performance in 2016?), the consequences of this would have been:
Swing change----->Bad 2017----->Decision to not protect Laureano in 2017 Rule 5 draft----->Trade him to Oakland (who had inquired previously about him) in advance of the draft to avoid losing him w/o compensationJust to be friggin' clear: no finger-pointing going on here. Given lack of information, it's far more productive to try and understand why decisions were made rather than necessarily criticize the decision that was made.
Laureano's physical tools (howitzer for an arm, speed) were fairly obvious to all. There was some question about his future power. So let's pretend for a moment that the organization did tinker with his swing to generate a better launch angle. If that failed in 2017, given his physical tools wouldn't the better course of action have been to go ahead and protect him and have him revert to the old swing in 2018 rather than end up selling low? Obviously those decisions don't get made in a vacuum and putting him on the roster may have had knock-on effects elsewhere (although in hindsight there was an open roster spot which apparently Luhnow & Co. were saving for...Anthony Gose).
Or did his poor 2017 at the plate suggest to the decision-makers that his 2016 numbers were merely an outlier (2/3 of that season was spent at Lancaster, his AFL performance was SSS involving just 12 games, 2014/2015 numbers weren't particularly exceptional, unconscious bias against a 16th-round pick out of a podunk Okie juco)? Until I see some further evidence that a swing change actually occurred, if I were pinned down I would guess the "2016 was a mirage" mindset as the reason for the trade.
There obviously may have been other reasons for the trade and I await your
criticism of my speculations own rationales.
Whatever the reason for the trade, lessons to be learned here may be that swimming against the tide may not be helpful in all situations and the Astros should follow a couple of baseball truisms: (1) don't do prospect for prospect trades (2) don't make trades within your division.
[One thing more about a possible swing change. Let's again assume that in fact it did happen. Who's to say it didn't take until 2018 for Laureano to master it and is just now seeing it come to fruition with the unprecedented pop (for him anyway)?]