Wasn't that Postolos? To your other point, I am really impressed that they've dedicated financial resources to the international players (and scouting and development and...) That was missing from this org for years.
Yes, George and his subordinates apparently thought you run a baseball team the way Whitey Bulger ran the Winter Hill gang. Eventually someone that shouldn't have been talking to Crane persuaded him to strongly suggest George go back to his consulting gig. George and Tal Smith can go to Vic & Anthony's and discuss stupid **** no human being really cares about.
Sounds about right. I don't know of anyone, myself included, who has ever had positive dealings with G.P. Curious about the "...shouldn't have been talking to Crane..." part. That sounds like good "over a beer" conversation.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">With five strikeouts today, Astros pitchers have set a team record with 1,283 strikeouts for the season.</p>— Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) <a href="https://twitter.com/brianmctaggart/status/777626895105921024">September 18, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
All I want to know is, specifically, how much debt is still owed to the other investors.... over 5 years, figuring conservative returns, he should be close. The increased payroll has mirrored improved revenues. As long as that trend stays positive, they should be in decent shape.
The Astros didn't sign Fister to be their #2 starter. When we traded for Kaz, LMJ was still an unknown. We made the playoffs and should have went to the ALCS with Kazmir pitching like a #5 starter. I think the Astros felt pretty confident in a Keuchel/LMJ/McHugh top 3. Unfortunately LMJ was hurt, and Keuchel/McHugh had a steep decline in performance.
I'm not sure Astros made money with CSN-Houston. Crane likely thought he was getting a much better deal with CSN-Houston than he ended up getting with Root Sports (i.e. only getting profits from Astros instead of Astros and owning network). It is hard to know how messed up Crane is based on needing investors and CSN-Houston going bankrupt. Caveat: I probably have a much more pessimistic view of the Astros financials than most.
I know its impossible to really gauge their financials. No team is going to open the books. See the Marlins who for years claimed they were losing money, and needed a new stadium, when in fact it was discovered they were flat-out lying. Of course the CSN debacle not only falsely inflated their franchise value but ended up being a near total loss (they were not being paid rights fees). They are now getting decent, not great, rights fees from ROOT, but they have no equity in the network itself. But still... despite all that... he's still seeing steadily rising revenue based on attendance, based on the rights fees, and he's been on the plus end of the MLB revenue sharing/media rights sharing program for 5 years. And within that time, they've spent the bare minimum on MLB payroll expenses... meaning there very well could be some significant headway made on the internal debt.
It is possible they have made headway. I look at the long term financial commitments of the Astros and I see Yuli. Investors looking to cash out typically prevent long term financial commitments as they seem themselves as the long term financial commitment that needs to be paid first before others are acquired. Granted, this could change quickly this off-season as it is a lagging indicator. Edit: I just don't know what it is, but I'm pessimistic that the investor thing isn't fix soon (i.e. before offseason of 2018)
