Enjoyable exercise. Of course it will need to go south in a hurry for 2026 or even 2027 to resemble 2012 or even 2013.
The biggest issue for the demise of most RSN’s is that they overvalue the rights fees for teams and end up paying exorbitant amounts (which the teams love) and they’re trying to stay competitive in the world of offering live sports (the only programming people watch live), thus they overpay without thinking about things like whether they can actually charge more for ad rates or even approach the possibility of optimizing streaming or latching on with the standalone services. While your article paints the picture of how this archaic business has been, and how it currently is (which isn’t all that different over the last THIRTY years), it just shows how the lack of evolution or realistic valuations can lead to the bubbles bursting. I do believe the only way to successfully run these channels is the team has to basically be the owners. Then it will be more akin to how the team accounts for stadium revenue, and how much they can optimize those revenues yearly. ideally all mlb teams in limbo should try and partner with a mega company (apple, YouTube) that has the infrastructure and access to widespread subscribers. They’d also probably pay inflated rights fees, but these companies are diversified enough to not just have one source of revenue… and they have to have an interest in live sports (which apparently WB no longer had, which is why the entire market is crashing as most teams were tied to those legacy groups).
1 of the huge issues is the number of innings he can give you. Our biggest problem last year was the staff was worn down. Lose Framber and that becomes more likely again
That sounds right to me. If you sold off those guys for roughly what I wanted to that nets out pretty similar to what we had back then- plus you add in 2 top 5/10 draft picks in 27 and 28, assuming you are pretty bad in 26 and 27 after trading all that major league talent.
Crazy world we are living in right now. Talks of Astros selling off while the Pirates are in on Cease and possibly Robert.
I left Alvarez, McCullers, and Garcia out of my list of trade chips. If Houston decides to rebuild after 2025, they should have a lot of ammo. Ideal timeline would be to win the World Series in 2024 and 2025, lose 100 games in 2026, win 75 games in 2027, then be back to 90+ wins for 2028-2038.
Brown will need to hit some homeruns in the early rounds of the draft. One of the things that people take for granted is the string of good luck we had with our first rounders panning out. Springer, Correa, Bregman, Tucker, McCullers. Then we had two occurences of lightning in a bottle in Alvarez and Altuve. Thats a lot of luck and execution. We haven't had a draft pick pan out since Tucker. Granted we didn't have high draft picks in two drafts, but we haven't had a mid draft pick pan out either. We got really lucky with Chas. I hope we stay competive but a lot has to go right. Thats the difference between us and teams like the Dodgers. The Dodgers can spend to stay competitive so they can don't have to trade their prospects away. That's a nice luxury to have.
I’m not sure I agree. I would say Houston had roughly above average luck with their top draft picks, especially considering they picked in the top 5 for 4 straight years. They missed on some first rounders (Appel, Aiken, Cameron, Bukauskas, Fisher, probably Whitley) and had dreadful luck with their 2nd round picks (Fontana, Thurman, Reed, Eshelman, Dawson, Martin, Matijevic, Schroeder). Their draft results since 2015 have been a combination of picking later, trading away top picks, and losing 4 draft picks to the sign stealing penalty. They’ve gotten very good production from a few later picks (Pena, McCormick, Meyers, Brown, France). It’s amazing Houston’s farm is as good as it is considering they only have 2 first round picks in their entire system: a failed 2017 pick, and the guy they just drafted in June. I do agree that Altuve and Alvarez were 2 gigantic pieces of amazing luck/genius that it’s very hard to predict happening again. Although Diaz could end up being a similar level of steal. Between uncovering hall of famers for nothing (Altuve, Alvarez), a steady stream of elite pitchers signed for nothing (Framber, Javier, Abreu, Keuchel, Brown, Garcia, Urquidy), and having their biggest trades pan out (Cole, Verlander, Greinke), we may look back on this run as a time everything came together and know it was unrealistic to expect it to ever be duplicated. I just hope they win won more to put them in the conversation for greatest 10 year run ever.
With 6 playoff spots in each league, it's more important than ever to simply find a way to make it in and be healthy (and hopefully hot) in October. MLB is more and more about luck every year, but teams still need to have a certain talent level to have a chance. Because of that, I think the 2024 Astros should have as good of a chance as any team. It's been pretty widely accepted that a team with 5+ star level hitters and 6 lights out pitchers is very dangerous in the playoffs. They have a lineup that (if healthy and hot) is 7 deep with 115 or better wRC+/OPS+ hitters plus 2 exceptional defenders who are not Maldy level bad with the bat in CF and SS. They have 3 SP who have pitched no hitters and had huge postseason success (but also stinkers) and a 4th who has pitched like an ace his entire career and just needs to get healthy. Plus they have several various starters to choose from if needed due to injury or in the bullpen. They have 2 of the best relief pitchers in baseball still in their prime. They have 2 starters with plus stuff that (should) play up in the bullpen and are not among those 4 slated to start. Then they have amassed half a dozen plus stuff guys hoping one or more figure it out. On paper this team may have the best chance to win a WS of any team during this era. The key will be overall health and McCullers and possibly Garcia deepening the pitching staff. OK maybe the 2019 team after getting Grienke looks better on paper.
Definitely agree that it's "unrealistic" to "expect it will ever be duplicated" again. Been following this team since '68. There's a lot of people in here who think this magical run is going to go on and on. Look at the Dodgers, with all of that $$ and prospects, and how many World Series have they won over the past 50 yrs. It's going to come to an end (and more then likely soon). After the '25 season they'll more then likely be without: Bregman/Tucker/Framber/JV/Urquidy/Abreu/Pressly. So I agree with you that hopefully they can win one more to add to this unbelievable run.
I will say that aside from the Astros, there’s really only been one other team that has done what Houston did (the Orioles), and Baltimore does look poised to have an extended run of success, especially if their ownership ponies up the money the way Crane has done. Other teams have rebuilt, but they either half assed it or didn’t have the money to supplement it at the right time. The Braves, Dodgers, and Cardinals have pretty much been able to stay good indefinitely thru aggressive roster management and player development (and in LA’s case, money). So in that context it might not be unrealistic to expect a similar run, provided the owner (whoever that might be) can stomach a FULL rebuild, hires a forward thinking GM, and provides the money to sustain a top 10 payroll.
It's tougher to build a team that way now. 1) more playoff teams = more luck 2) all the cutting edge technologies and ideas are now common throughout MLB organizations so a team won't be targeting different skills or players than other teams. Perfect storm. Let's hope a couple of the current youngsters - Dezenzo would be huge, maybe Corona or Melton can hit and keep the talent level high enough for a few extra years.
If 40 war is the standard for a playoff team and 50 is the standard for a true contender, Houston could easily keep it going. I have their 2027 roster at ~34 war with a meager ~$100M payroll: C: Diaz, TBD prospect; 3.5 war, $14M IF: Pena, TBD prospects; 7.5 war, $24M OF: Alvarez, Meyers, TBD prospects; 9.5 war, $24M SP: Javier, Brown, France, TBD prospects; 8.5 war, $32M RP: TBD prospects; 5 war, $6M
Yep, bottom line is if Brown does his job the Stros should be good for a long time. Rebuild the farm over the next 3 years and make some smart Morton type fa signings, as well as smart trades and this team should be contenders for the next 5-8 years. If I'm making the call, I'm paying Bregs because I want to keep the infield together. It's the strength of the team and I let Tucker walk in a couple of years. Hopefully by that time Baez is ready. Gotta keep adding pitching through all avenues.
I assume the pitching market is all waiting on Yamamoto. Montgomery and Snell rumors have been muted too. My guess is once Yamamoto signs you’ll see a bunch of pitchers sign over the following 2-3 weeks, although I guess we can count on that anyway since that gets well into January and most free agents want to know where they’re going by Feb 1.
People probably said that after Moneyball too...welp all the secrets have been let out of the bag. No more market inefficiency to tap into.... Just need to maintain forward thinking individuals in the front office, constantly probing for the next advantage. There will be someone that finds it. Just hope he or she is in our front office.
