The fans won't immediately come back, this is something this organization seems to be ignoring. Even if they start winning again it will take a little time, they of course will eventually flock back to a winner, but not immediately. This franchise will still have no momentum heading into next season in the eye of the casual fan. Between CSN, lack of stars, and of course losing there is no reason to tune in, even if you can. Springer can inject some life into this team, maybe we win a few games and suddenly Springer, Castro, Altuve (we're talking casual fans) and our good young pitching staff and maybe there's something to look forward to next year. Rebuilding fan interest long term is far more valuable than an arbitration year that may not even matter.
Again, unless Springer is going to solidify our bullpen so that the casual fan can take notice of what some of our young starters are doing, it's not going to make that big a difference. We're 23 days away from a Super Bowl contending team taking the field for the first time...that's not enough time to turn this current squad into something that's going to generate buzz for next year any more than spring training knowing Springer will most likely be our starting CF for that year and hopefully the next 15 will.
Springer is not going to make a difference to casual fans. Most have already tuned out, and those that haven't don't know any of the minor leaguers. Even if he came in and took the team from 109 loss pace to a 100 loss pace, which would be a phenomenal accomplishment, no one would be able to tell - it would still appear to be a terrible team playing terrible baseball. I think he should come up just to get some MLB experience and get some of the growing pains out of the way. But fan support has little to do with it.
Yep. If they had any kind of reasonable bullpen work this year, they would probably easily be on pace for 70 wins.
If Springer were called up he would instantly become our biggest offensive weapon and most exciting position player. That would catch the attention of "the casual fan". If your objective is not to make the fans happy, but rather save a buck 6 years down the road, then fine, leaving him in AAA is the right thing to do. The collection of all these poor decisions that don't consider the fan perspective all add up. From the left field advertising wall, to the Comcast debacle, to leaving your most exciting player in AAA...Crane is effectively dropping his drawers and squeezing out a warm pile on the fans.
For me, it would open them up more to just criticism by the fans and media. They are avoiding that by speaking in vague terms as to why he is still down. It's not like this is a market that won't pack the seats or support a winner no matter what. This is not Tampa or Oakland.
Most franchises, even the well monied ones, take the arbitration clock into consideration when considering calling up young players. To not do so is irresponsible franchise management. If they call him up, it has nothing to do with baseball and everything to do with trying to sell a few additional tickets in a lost season. Then you have to deal with how to handle it if he comes up and struggles like many young players do. Anybody else remember the first time they brought Berkman up? I do. They had to send him back down.
so to recap 1) you don't care about selling additional tickets 2) you fear Springer will struggle at the MLB level sorry, but I don't buy that logic
Berkman was not brought up to be an everyday player. He started only 21/34 or so games due to injuries. He also was on a playoff/division winning team that could not afford a player to go through adjusting to the big leagues... Totally different situation.
He's most likely going to struggle his first time up, as most players do. I'd rather that struggle be at the end of a crappy season than the beginning of a new one. Mike Trout is an example of this - he sucked in 2011 when they brought him up, then was put in AAA to work on his issues to start the next year, and then dominated in his 2nd call up. Obviously, no one is predicting Springer to be Trout, but if he's ready, he should come up. If he's not, he may need to come up to realize his weaknesses or whatever he needs to work on. Better to do that sooner than later and waste next season too, IMO. I think the fan stuff is garbage - the team should be making moves exclusively to get good as quickly as possible. That's what's going to drive fans. The short-term thinking of trying to keep fans interested is what caused the Astros to hold onto Berkman/etc too long and destroyed the franchise in the first place. Sucky team will have sucky attendance - no use trying to fight that.
My logic is much more sound than your theory of a conspiracy by the team against its fans. You reference CSN in your theory, but conveniently omit that the deal was signed long before Crane even bid on the team much less had any signatory authority.
Conspiracy? I never said that. More like clueless-ness regarding how to make fans happy...which is kind of important now that we're going on our third year of 100 losses. And now you say that Crane is powerless in working with CSN? huh? You're really an apologist, but one that lacks sound logic. I suspect you're just trolling me taking the other side of whatever I say.
What the astros are doing is beyond sucking. They have a have payroll less than 60 players in the majors. If they took that money and signed a guy like puig or another one of those cubans well you could say it was money well spent. With baseballs new CBA there is a salary cap on what you can pay your draft picks so there is no benefit to saving so much money on the payroll. It is basically going straight to crane and his investors pocket books not that there is anything wrong with that. The astros over the last three years have been the worst team in the majors in 50 years or basically the worst team since the 60's mets.
Why is everyone acting so surprised? They made it quite clear that this was going to happen for the first few years of his ownership.
Technically, there is a benefit - you get a better draft pick. If the Astros had them in the right years, that opens the door to getting a Puig in the form of a Strasburg or Harper. Unfortunately, they've had those picks in years where there wasn't necessarily that one player that's a class above everyone else. Personally, I just don't care if the team wins 30 games or 40 games or 60 games. I know they are going to suck, and making them a little less sucky doesn't mean much to me.
