At the height of Houston Astros-mania when they had just won the 2017 World Series and owner Jim Crane and general manager Jeff Luhnow’s tanking deployment was an undeniable success, the talk was not about how the apparent bubble could burst, but whether it was the first year in a pending dynasty. The narrative was dutifully promoted by the club, the players and the media.

The story’s feel-good attributes were suitable for family-friendly fare on the Hallmark Channel with the filmmakers likely to find a role for Lori Loughlin. The story of worst-to-first; baseball outsiders who had never played remaking the game; Justin Verlander and Kate Upton’s move from Detroit to Houston and fairy tale romance; Jose Altuve’s “size doesn’t matter” and “never give up on your dreams” rise to Most Valuable Player and super-stardom; all the way down to Carlos Correa’s over-the-top marriage proposal amid the postseason celebration – it was sweet, wonderful and objectively ludicrous to those who were cynical enough to understand both the fickle nature of crafted storylines and the reality that things are not always as they seem.

Still, had anyone said that the organization would be mired in scandal, vitriol and embarrassment just over two years after that November night, it would have been too much of a heel turn to be believable. Add that the replacement for Hinch would be the veteran manager who epitomizes what the stat-centric, supposedly forward thinking outsiders who have infiltrated and infested baseball have tried to eliminate – Dusty Baker – and the book proposal, movie treatment or teleplay would have been rejected as preposterous.

Yet, here we are.

Luhnow fired; manager A.J. Hinch, fired; the organization in disarray and doing everything it can to stanch the bleeding; and Dusty Baker is the new Astros manager.

Truth is stranger than fiction is an easy statement, but this goes well beyond a dystopian alternate universe where the blatant irony is too much to warrant the necessary suspension of disbelief.

Astroball, as we knew it, is officially dead. Rightly or wrongly, the Astros will forever be known as sign-stealing, garbage can-banging cheaters whose acts resulted punishments that are among the harshest in the sport’s history.

With Crane going so far to the opposite end of the spectrum in his managerial hire, Baker, the question why has some obvious and not-so-obvious answers.

In the end, the choice is a good one despite the Baker naysayers. Here’s why.

Dusty Baker is in charge, without question.

There won’t be any insinuation and threats coming from Dusty Baker. He protects the players and will calm the poisoned atmosphere. A player who cannot play for Baker cannot play for anyone. The rules are simple: be on time and play hard. There is the unsaid understanding that Baker is not a 40-something who will tolerate certain things just to keep the job, making it all-but impossible that the same sign-stealing and other untoward acts will happen while he’s running the team on the field.

Whereas Hinch openly stated that he meekly tried to put a stop to the signaling by twice breaking the replay equipment only to see it replaced, Baker will not need to break anything if the Astros dared to try to pull something similar. He’ll make them stop because, at his age, he has nothing to lose and walks in with the street cred for the players to listen to and respect him.

The contract Baker agreed to – one-year with a club option – has the tone of Crane taking advantage of Baker’s desperation to manage and the need to bring in a manager who he, the club and the rest of MLB can trust not to let the same issues crop up. But it also leaves Baker with a nothing-to-lose freedom. This is his best shot to win that elusive World Series as a manager and punch his ticket to the Hall of Fame. He need not worry about having a job in 2021.

An understated expectation is that Chris Speier will be on Baker’s staff. Speier has been Baker’s enforcer in every managerial stop and that will not change in Houston. Baker can play the good cop and the dad players don’t want to disappoint; Speier can give the withering glare and “take no crap” attitude he had as a player and maintained as a coach.

Baker’s strategic decisions are in line with the way the game is played in 2020.

Managerial strategies are notoriously subjective. If, for example, a manager has a reliever in the bullpen who is an obvious choice to face a certain hitter or two and he doesn’t use that reliever in that situation, it’s the foundation for criticism and assertions that he made a mistake. However, that reliever might have a tender elbow that day and the manager does not want to inform the media and, by extension, the rest of MLB about an issue that is not expected to warrant a stint on the injured list.

So, he takes the hit and says something like, “manager’s decision” or comes up with a ridiculous excuse. It might look bad to the media and fans, but it certainly doesn’t look bad to the players.

One of the biggest criticisms of Baker in the past was his attachment to certain players like Corey Patterson and Shawon Dunston – players who probably should not have been granted as many at-bats as Baker gave them at that point in their careers.

It’s a fair point.

These critiques might have been valid 10 to 20 years ago when managers had greater freedom to write the lineup. That is no longer the case. While the Astros might be reaching into the past for a veteran manager to clean up the mess Luhnow and Hinch left behind, that does not mean Baker’s strategies will deviate from the current norm. He’s not going to have Verlander or Zack Greinke throwing 155 pitches in a game. He’s not giving everyday at-bats to players whose role is pinch-hitter, pinch-runner and defensive replacement.

Regarding strategy, it’s laughable that fans of the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers are mocking Baker when their managers – Aaron Boone and Dave Roberts – made egregious postseason gaffes that stemmed from a lack of experience and adhering to the flowcharts and orders sent down from the front office. The deer in the headlights, “I dunno what to do!” look on their faces is part of the reason their teams lost.

Even Hinch got demolished during and after the World Series Game 7 loss after pulling Greinke and using Will Smith instead of one of his available starters who were in the bullpen. No manager is immune to it. It’s just a convenient excuse to attack Baker when he’s not managing any differently than other MLB managers.

Regarding the “playoffs are a crap-shoot” alibi presented by front offices who are running the team from top to bottom from the executive suite, it’s either the playoffs are a crap-shoot or you can blame the manager for making moves that don’t work. You can have one or the other, but not both.

The machine is in place.

The Astros are not in need of structural changes to the roster. The team is still more than talented enough to contend for a World Series. In today’s game, the manager is secondary to the talent level. The days of a Billy Martin-type whose mere presence meant at least 12 more wins than that roster should reasonably have accumulated are over. This is largely because Martin had a scorched earth strategy where he would push his pitchers beyond normal limits to do one thing: win. Every game was Game 7 of the World Series with Martin. In fact, his entire lifestyle was one in which he lived every day like it was his last.

No prospective manager with that attitude is getting a major-league job today – Wally Backman is a prime example. He’d win, but he’d also end up getting fired for reasons that had nothing to do with the won-loss record.

Baker has maximized the talent on his rosters wherever he’s managed. No, that has not translated into a World Series win. His teams have frequently been bounced from the playoffs when they were, on paper, better than their opponents. The key, though, is getting the team beyond this controversy, calming things down and allowing the players to play without relentless questions as to whether the 2020 wins are on the up and up. He is not, nor will he ever be a tool of the front office. He’s agreeable to listen to reasoned advice, but he’s not a yes-man. There is no need to worry that a Brandon Taubman-type will be interfering with the on-field product and, more importantly, clubhouse hierarchy.

Baker will not need to be asked those questions because he would put a stop to any appearance of impropriety. After this disastrous series of events, that’s what Crane and the Astros needed. With Baker, that’s what they’ve got.

Luis Rojas’ rise to become a major-league manager was somewhat conventional…until he actually got the job.

He started at the lowest rung, did odd jobs and made incremental steps throughout his career until he first made it to a big-league dugout as the quality control coach on former manager Mickey Callaway’s staff with the New York Mets in 2019. After Callaway’s ouster, Rojas initially interviewed for the job to replace him, but was passed over for Carlos Beltran. He was set to remain on Beltran’s staff. With the Houston Astros’ sign-stealing scandal making its way to New York and engulfing Beltran as one of the player-ringleaders in the scheme, his parting with the club reopened the job. This time, the 38-year-old Rojas got the nod.

His introductory press conference was mundane with platitudes that the Mets and all organizations teach players and staff to use when speaking to the media. This was to be expected. Personality and star power is the last thing the Mets needed right now after the sudden end to Beltran’s reign, counted in days instead of years.

Still, Rojas will face challenges. How he handles them will dictate the success or failure of his tenure.

Garnering respect from the veterans

Many of the Mets young players already played for or worked with Rojas and expressed their happiness with the move. It’s the veteran players who need to be onboard. Would they have viewed Beltran any differently than Rojas because Beltran was a superstar player? Perhaps at first. However, if Beltran was making egregious strategic mistakes and was clumsy in manager-player relations, how fast would they turn on him?

Will there be instances where Rojas needs to discipline the players? There always are. It helps him that the Mets are generally populated by good guys. This is a byproduct from the reign of former GM Sandy Alderson. One of Alderson’s first orders of business when he took charge was to weed out problem players from the bottom of the organization to the top. Since Rojas was a key minor-league staff member, he was a necessary part of that process.

It will help him that the star, veteran players who are impossible to truly discipline – Jacob deGrom, Marcus Stroman, Michael Conforto – are not the type to give him grief. Noah Syndergaard might get on his nerves, but it won’t be to the Matt Harvey degree, the barometer for the Mets in how much they’re going to tolerate.

Yoenis Cespedes and Robinson Cano will run to first base at their own pace and hustle when they feel like it, but that would have been a problem with Beltran and any manager the Mets hired. Showalter or Dusty Baker would not have been able to do any more than Rojas to stop that. It helps that Rojas is Dominican and is on the same wavelength as Cano and Cespedes. Every manager they’ve had shrugged it off out of necessity. The discipline will be closer to “Don’t make me look bad to the other players” and not “YOU’RE BENCHED!!!”

The days of the Ralph Houk/Billy Martin-type closing the door to the manager’s office and challenging players to a fight ended 35 years ago and it doesn’t matter who the manager is.

Steve Cohen’s pending majority ownership and how it impacts the club

Rojas signed a two-year contract with options. It sounds short-term, but Beltran’s contract was for three years. Most managers hired today sign short-term deals. Even the “name” managers who were hired this offseason – Joe Girardi and Joe Maddon with the Philadelphia Phillies and Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim respectively – signed three-year contracts. Obviously, Rojas’ deal is for less money and with far less say-so than those decorated MLB managers have, but the duration is not significantly different.

According to the New York Post, the Mets current front office led by Brodie Van Wagenen is concerned about its future if and when Steve Cohen takes control of the club. This will have a direct impact on Rojas. Of course, it’s possible that Cohen will come in with a wrecking ball and clean house to bring in his own people. Barring a World Series win in 2020, there is little that can be done to change that. It’s likely in the back of their minds, but as a main objective in ingratiating themselves with the incoming majority owner, it’s relatively pointless.

Cohen has the cash to go in whatever direction he wants.

If he wants to buy a championship fast, Dave Dombrowski specializes in that style of operation and is out there waiting for his next opportunity.

If he wants to go the data-centric route, he would have no compunction in hiring the currently suspended Jeff Luhnow to run the team.

Either way, Van Wagenen’s status is tenuous. Rojas? Judging by the history of the two extremes mentioned – Dombrowski and Luhnow – he’s exactly the type of manager they would hire. Dombrowski thought outside the box when hiring Brad Ausmus when he was running the Detroit Tigers and Alex Cora when he was running the Boston Red Sox. Luhnow likes younger managers with the skill set Rojas brings to the table.

You never know until you know

Had Twitter been in existence in 2000, the hot takes and savage assessments of the New England Patriots hiring Bill Belichick would still be rehashed, retweeted and mocked for the past two decades and forevermore. And after his five years in Cleveland as head coach of the Browns – pockmarked with the team moving to Baltimore and Belichick’s miserable personality alienating a significant portion of the organization, the media and its fan base – those assessments would not have been wrong.

Many of the best managers and coaches in sports came from nowhere and elicited confusion and outright anger. On the other hand, name managers and coaches have taken jobs with great fanfare and enthusiasm only to see their tenures end in disaster.

Trey Hillman had a sterling resume when he was hired to manage the Kansas City Royals after the 2007 season. In fact, he was on the short list to replace Joe Torre as manager of the New York Yankees and might have gotten the job given his relationship with general manager Brian Cashman and how respected he was within the organization. It was only when he was managing the Royals that his flaws were clear. He was inconsistent with his strategies, could not handle the media (in Kansas City – imagine him in New York!), and accrued a 152-207 record in two-plus seasons before being fired.

Torre himself was ridiculed as a mediocre journeyman manager when he replaced Buck Showalter as Yankees manager in 1996. Showalter is now categorized as the old-school manager many teams avoid so the front office can maintain control. At the time the Yankees hired him in 1993, he was using statistics, arcane numbers and his own analysis to decide how to deploy his players. Showalter’s minor-league managing bona fides are eerily similar to Rojas’.

Terry Francona had spent four years managing a bad Philadelphia Phillies team with the results to prove it. After he was fired, he spent three years in a variety of jobs in front offices and on other managers’ staffs before being a surprise – and questionable – hire for the Red Sox to replace the reviled Grady Little. Look at him now.

In a link to Rojas, his father Felipe Alou was passed over for the Montreal Expos managing job in favor of a new, hot name in Tom Runnels. The veteran Expos players shook their head at the 36-year-old Runnels. He didn’t help his cause by arriving at a spring training game in military fatigues and saying, “We have to win today.” Remember, it was spring training.

That he later said it was a joke – and it probably was – is irrelevant. When he was fired, he was replaced by Alou who was an organizational lifer, had been intensely loyal to the Expos, had respect throughout the organization and in baseball in general, and whose deftness at handling the clubhouse in making strategic decisions was welcomed. Alou epitomized being in the right place at the right time to get the opportunity previous denied him, the same as his son.

How these men got the job means nothing. The opportunity supersedes credentials.

If the resumes of Beltran and Rojas were placed side by side in a blind taste test, who would have been the better choice? The former star player who had never managed a game in his life or the young baseball lifer from a decorated family in the sport who worked his way up from the bottom? Beltran’s star power might have gotten him the job, but Rojas’ resume may have earned it.

Rojas is well-equipped to do the job effectively. His future depends on his results on and off the field. It could be argued that he should have gotten the job in the first place. Like all managers, the only way to determine whether it was the right hire will be in retrospect.