I don't know what I'm doing!

I don’t know what I’m doing!

I imagine working in the front-office of an MLB franchise around the trade deadline would be stressful. There’s a lot of chatter, analysis, offers coming in and going out, etc. It’s gotta be a nightmare. Luckily, the Houston Astros have a system to communicate within their club. It’s a great system, just not a very secure one.

Deadspin points towards some leaked internal trade talks from the system, called Ground Control, that recently surfaced online. And deep in there, in the talks about moving Bud Norris in late July of last year, there’s this:

“7/22/2013

[Astros GM Jeff Luhnow] told [Phillies GM Ruben Amaro] that we would consider Aaron Altherr. RA said that seemed like a reasonable ask and he was still evaluating where he was. He would get back to us.”

As one commentor over at Deadspin pointed out, when the Phillies were 7 games back and one game under .500, Ruben was still considering sending young outfielder (and recent Tony Gwynn Jr. part-time replacement) Aaron Altherr to the Astros for Bud Norris. Ruben was ready to buy at the deadline, but he still had to evaluate a little more. I’m pretty sure he’s still evaluating.