Whitley had a terrible 1st (had to pitch around an error, but he was all over the place and gave up a grand slam to Wilson Ramos), then looked good in his next 2. Bielak didn't give up a hit, but did give up a run after walking the bases loaded. Verlander was Verlander.
$$... if the ratings don’t justify it, then advertisers won’t pay going rates, and networks won’t spend the extra money to broadcast and pay their talent when the revenues don’t support it. It is a warmup of sorts on the broadcasting side as well.... they don’t need 25+ ST games to get ready for broadcasting all 162. Now, the Astros could always start their own network... I hear that plan works all the time.
"After starter Collin McHugh exited his spring training debut with back soreness, the Astros will skip his second scheduled Grapefruit League start on Monday out of an abundance of caution." -- Rome "Right-hander Dean Deetz is a couple of weeks away from getting into games after showing up at camp with a sore right shoulder." -- McTaggart
With the kind of money they throw around in mlb, the cost of broadcasting a spring game at your home facility is extremely minimal, extremely. The games wouldn’t get great ratings, but the crap they put on there now doesn’t either.
Yep, that's fantastic! There is absolutely no difference in a sore back causing the No. 3 starter missing a ST game that he would play through in the regular season and spending 30 million plus on a free agent starter.
You can say that. It doesn't seem that the network agrees with you at least for the quality that the Astros/MLB would want (i.e., I doubt Astros would let ATTSW just broadcast a CF cam with little production quality).
Apparently this has been very common for McHugh early in STs. No reason to run him back out there and risk him overcompensating and messing up something else. Hinch did say they were going to give him a "very aggressive" bullpen session on Wednesday and see how he feels.
Would be cool if someday (hell, they may do it already) they could find a good way to half all the production costs (not just equipment) with the Nats.
Where did I say they should broadcast with a CF cam with little quality? Lol come on man we don’t have to agree but damn I said nothing of the sort
Yea he has struggled with injuries in the spring before, if I remember right he missed the start of the Great season of 2017 with a spring injury Hopefully it’s “nothing” cause with James already ruled out as a starter to begin the year, rotation options get thin fairly quick
You said costs would be "extremely minimal". That scenario fits extremely minimal, and is the only scenario I see fitting typical non-regular season programming costs for the network. If full production costs were extremely minimal, games would be on TV.
But you’re kind of making the point for yourself. With as much money that’s going into everything else, and with little return on the investment of broadcasting a ST game, what’s the incentive for the network? Networks pay for rights fees to the team. The network then has to recoup the cost in advertising dollars. The Astros also likely sold them a package that includes 10 ST games. The cost for broadcasting more goes likely beyond simply the per game costs. IIRC, they no longer broadcast live radio of the games either, but there’s still radio being done (just on a tape delay).
