Every clueless poster who thinks the Astros are merely pulling a Cleveland Indians from Major League should read this article and get an idea of the organization's long-term plan and strategy (what people who follow the team already understand).

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There's not much of an incentive in the draft for a good team to be mediocre, or for a mediocre team to be bad. But there's a huge incentive for a bad team to be awful. The Astros had more than $11 million of cap money to play with, and only one other team had even $10 million.3 And while the slot values are so high at the very top of the draft in order to allow teams to sign the draft picks with the most leverage, there's no law that mandates they do so.

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The Astros could be bad, spend a modest amount on payroll, and have the benefit of a good draft position. Or they could be awful, spend a tiny amount on payroll, and have the tremendous benefits that go with the best draft position. The latter option saves millions of dollars and will probably lead to a faster rebuilding process. The downside is that you have to put up with people snickering at you for a while. It seems like a fair tradeoff.

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Two years ago, the Astros' farm system was nearly as bad as the varsity team; Baseball America ranked their system 26th out of 30 teams before the 2011 season. The system Luhnow inherited after that season was a little better; they ranked 18th last year. This year, they were ninth, and that ranking figures to only get better with time. While minor league win-loss records are mostly meaningless, it's telling that the Astros' affiliates are a combined 88-60 this year. Two years ago, their minor league teams had the worst combined record of any organization in baseball.

This post was edited on 5/14/13 at 4:03 pm