Heard anything more about this, Nate? Linares and Ensberg are surprising moves, to me at least.
I haven't seen or heard anything else (other than Jayne's comment on twitter about hearing "mixed reviews" of MoBerg's management skills).
Trying to speculate beyond that as far an overarching reason for all four being fired is probably a fool's game. If wins and championships are part of the development equation (and from his comments over the years I think Luhnow does believe that), then obviously 2018 was a huge success. You had pop-up prospects on the pitching side all over the place this year so nobody can be unhappy about that. Hitting-wise it was a bit disappointing but is that being perceived as a failure on the development side or simply a lack of talent? If it was the former, seems like more hitting coaches or a coordinator would have been let go in addition to Robinson.
With all the recent accolades/accomplishments (multiple manager of the year awards for Linares, both winning championships this year or at least taking the club to the playoffs, recently voted best manager in their respective leagues by their peers), the firing of Linares and Ensberg is not going to be seen positively in the industry and could affect future hirings from other clubs. But that's something Luhnow obviously doesn't care about. If you look at a number of the coaches and even managers brought into the organization at the minor league level the past few years you'll see a lot of this:
Graham Johnson joins the Astros for his first season as pitching coach at Quad Cities after spending the last six years as a coach at Morehead State University.
Rafael Pena joins the Astros as the development coach at Quad Cities following a stint as an assistant coach at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma. Pena played two years at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma and two years at Western Oklahoma State.
Jason Bell will hold his first career managerial post in 2018 as manager at Tri-City. A development coach at Quad Cities last season, Bell played at the University of Central Missouri, and coached at the University of Maryland-Eastern Shore and Heartland Community College prior to joining the Astros.
Todd Naskedov joins the Astros as the organization's complex pitching coordinator based out of their complex in West Palm Beach, Fla. Naskedov has served as a pitching coach at the community college level, a head coach and assistant coach at the high school level, and has also worked for USA Baseball as a National Team Trials Coach, and Major League Baseball as an International Envoy Coach in the United Kingdom and Holland.
[BC hitting coach Ben] Rosenthal joined the Astros last year as hitting coach at Quad Cities, where he helped lead the club to a Midwest League Championship title. He joined the Astros after a three-year coaching stint at Point Loma Nazarene University.
[BC developmental coach Nate] Shaver has over a decade of coaching experience at various levels, most recently at Wake Technical Community College.Shaver played one year with the Joliet Slammers of the Independent League, and two years at Division I New Mexico State University.
Ray Hernandez joins the Astros as development coach at Fresno after spending the last three years as pitching coach at Cosumnes River College in Sacramento, Calif. Hernandez pitched in the Arizona Diamondbacks minor league system from 2011-13.
[BC pitching coach] Drew French is coming off of two seasons at Lee University (DII) as an assistant coach, and three seasons at Florida International University (DI). Prior to that, he spent four seasons at Alabama, three of which he was Director of Baseball Operations.
[CC pitching coach Bill] Murphy was the pitching coach at Brown University following a stint as co-manager and pitching coach for the Northwoods Collegiate League Battle Creek Bombers. Murphy graduated from Rutgers University in 2010 with a bachelor's degree in psychology and a minor in history. While at Rutgers, he was a pitcher on the baseball team for three years.
Why that emphasis? Here's what Luhnow says in a just-published interview with his old employer McKinsey&Company about getting players to buy in:
We hired an extra coach in the minor leagues at each level. We found enough players who had played in college, maybe one year in the minors and understood analytics. They could explain why we asked certain things of players, and the players began to trust them.
https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/the-organization-blog/houston-astros-winning-the-world-series-with-advanced-analyticsIt seems that philosophy extends to other coaching positions and even managers. Neither Linares nor Ensberg are exactly old but younger guys (such as Bell who at age 27 was the second youngest manager this season in affiliated ball) who grew up in the analytics era may be the preferred player development type for the Astros. Darryl Robinson is 51 and may have been considered too "old school" as well. There are still some exceptions of course--Dyar Miller for example is 72 and seems to be retaining his job but he has Cardinals connections to both Luhnow and Brent Strom.
Maybe I'm completely off base (and like I said above it's probably foolish to even speculate) but this is the best rationale I can come up with.
