Eh... not many people are going to MMP to go see Hunter Pence. Sure, they cheer for him (maybe a little more than the other guys) because they know him, but they're not going because of him. Hell, theyn had 29,000 there yesterday for a 1pm game against the Nationals. As bad as they are right now, that's a pretty good crowd. Also had some good crowds for the Pirates series. It will never get as bad as it was in the Astrodome, where there were more people going to Rockets games than Astros games...
i said this earlier in another thread. MMP itself is too much of a draw..given location and how great a ballpark it is. downtown businesses will form a season ticket base that will never allow us to return to astrodome crowd days.
i have seen parking around the stadium decrease from 25 to 10 dollars at some lots. i don't know how much of a draw the stadium is right now
The HRs were expected to be in the 10-15 range. RBIs he only has partial control over. My concerns with him are if he can hit big league LHP and if he can cut down his strikeout rate (25%).
I sort of felt that is due to more general fans growing more comfortable parking a bit further away from the stadium or using the metrorail to go to games. Neither of those had been major options at the Astrodome or Summit, so it took some adjustment for Houston fans to understand it it MMP.
I have never paid for parking to go to games at MMP.... not when it first opened, not when they were drawing 3 million fans a year, and not for the playoffs. I echo the above posters' sentiment. There are plenty of places to park downtown that don't require you forking over $20 for a lot which is normally only $2 to park in during the day.
okay, maybe the fans have gotten smarter, but working downtown the shift has been dramatic, i'm talking premium prices two seasons ago. the average is down five thousand from then, maybe that's not a dramatic shift, but i think they actually picked up during the summer. we'll see how it finshes
Well, they are the worst team in baseball. Certainly no Astros fan is going because they want to watch Happ walk runners home, Myers giving out souvenirs while he is on the mound, guys striking out with runners on base, and all the other awful crap they have to suffer through.
actually, looking at the numbers i'm surprised they are what they are. i guess the appeal of minute maid may keep some people at that park when there's nothing to do. i mean, being the worst team in your franchise history, i would have expected a more dramatic drop, but then again, percentage wise 5k from 31 to 26K is a 16% drop.
It's also not like Oswalt has been setting the world on fire in Philly either. He had a good finish to last season, no doubt, but now he's nursing yet another back injury and some believing that he might just hang 'em up.
I also think the drought has had an untold effect of attendance to go to games. Honestly, you can talk yourself into taking the family to an Astros game even if they are bad if it is say high 80's-low 90's with a bit less humidity. But when it is consistently nearly 100 degrees with high humidity, that becomes pretty big no even though the stadium itself is air conditioned.
I'm also willing to give him a pass on some of those free agent acquisitions too since they were certainly done with pressure from Drayton. If I was given an ultimatum by my boss to not rebuild and keep the team in contention, I probably would have made similar signings.
They are terrible... and the in-game promotions have gotten unbearable to watch as well. The only reason I went yesterday was to see Altuve. I'll probably go more if they get some of the younger guys up here soon as well (Keuchel, Martinez, Paredes). But, that's why I brought up the point that attendance could be much much worse given the product that's on the field. Maybe they're all going to see "El Grande" (big video board... which is a dumb name for it... given by the Astros marketing group).
i'm not real concerned about the surrounding parking lots when talking about this. i have no doubt there's diminished demand. my point is that the 'stros had trouble drawing even 15K to a game when they were this bad in the early 90's and still playing in the Dome. right now, they're on pace for their worst season ever and they still draw nearly 27K/game in tickets sold. they're still towards the middle of the league (average) in terms of total tickets sold and percentage of tickets sold. as bad as they were last year, they still sold 2.5 million tickets, which is a healthy number (albeit a reduced number from years past).
I have a close friend who's a phillies fan who put more stock into the job Ruben Amaro jr (the current phils GM) did building the club as an assistant GM than Wade did as the GM. Certainly all the moves RAJ did had to be approved by Wade but it doesn't mean Wade was the mastermind of that team.
No... they're not going *because* of him - but I think there's a good number of people who *won't* go if he's gone... Very fine line but there is a difference. There has to be something/one for fans to root for. If you populate your team with a bunch of unknowns - and that's their minor league system pretty much in a nutshell these days - you absolutely risk turning people away *and* pushing the next generation of fans out the door. We, as adults, might understand the value of trading Hunter Pence - but ask 6-year old generic Astro fan if they should trade him. And then ask if they can name another player on the roster? And then how long before they buy their first Yankees/Red Sox hat.......
How would he know? Can any of us differentiate the work of Wade and Bobby Heck? Maybe Amaro was the mastermind - who knows? I just think its silly for fans to pretend they know.
True, I doubt my friend knew for certain. But scoreboard don't lie. Amaro's got a ring and Wade don't. If Wade were really that good then he'd have been the GM when the phillies won it all.
