2025 Season Astros General Discussion Thread

When will we invent a bat that gets us hits with RISP?

 

you have to get the ball into the air before those bats work.

 

I like that Altuve returned to 2nd base with intent, rather than just on a random whim. Let him play 2ns when we have a fly ball pitcher on the mound. Many thing's I have not liked in the past was less about what they did, but more about the timing being the opposite of a plan.

Honestly, I don't get too excited about hot or cold starts before summer.

 

The Brewers are worth $1.7 billion dollars; the Royals $1.3. Let's not confuse "can't" with "don't want to." Those teams can spend. The average MLB payroll is ~$170MM - the Royals are spending ~$124 & the Brewers ~$110.

The problem is *not* the teams that want to (& do) spend: the problem is too many teams are content to spend significantly less and pocket the money.

 

Everyone wants an owner like Balmer or Cohen who treats their team like a hobby and not a business. I know Yankee fans like Steinbrenner Sr better.

Dodger ownership is in a unique situation in where their market is only as big as their success. LA fans are the biggest bandwagon fans in the world. You win, they show up in droves.

 

That is pretty much universal.

 

Episode 97 of breathing orange fire is up on Spotify. We check in at a svelte 52 minutes. Now that we go in season unless we have deep dive stuff we will keep them under an hour. Listen, share, subscribe, review etc.

Also- have 2 tix tonight for giants. Free as always. First come first served.

 

there not worth that until they are sold. The issue is cash flow. Teams amortize their investments to avoid profit and it also increases the net worth of the business. If the revenues are not consistent enough to meet the operational expenses, it doesn’t make a bit of difference how much the franchises are worth since they appreciate over years not months. It would be interesting to see the cash flow analysis after the luxury taxes are divided among the have-nots. That would indicate the real value that the Brewers of the world have to spend.

 

So…they are worth ~.5 Ohtanis or Sotos. Pretty crazy that, even if you take away the Ohtani signing, LAD still ranks 1 in offseason spending. And if you take away Soto, NYM moves from 2nd overall to…4th

 

I feel like he’s faster than Bregman though. A few games back, he beat out the double play and then scored from first on Yordan’s double. I remember questioning if Bregman would have beat out that same double play.

 

Worth and profit are different. It wasn't that long ago the Dodgers were a mess with Frank McCourt. The Expos had to be bought by MLB. We are seeing a massive change in TV contracts for MLB teams.

Valuations do go up really well, but you still have to cash flow.

 

The Braves baseball revenue was $595M, operating costs were $504M, and Admin expenses were $85M, leaving $6M in EBITDA to cover cost of debt or fixed asset purchases. They are one of the most successful teams in baseball.

 

More small market teams should operate as the Braves, Astros and D’backs do.

That’s a bigger problem vs. asking everybody to spend like the Dodgers/Mets. Baseball competitiveness would be better if the bottom half of the league spent more (or spent at all!).

 

Teams ranked 20-30 on this list would be better if they spent more. They don’t have to spend Dodgers level, but all are profiting either via regular circumstances or via revenue sharing.

It’s a broken system without any floor/cap…. But it’s the floor violators that exceed the cap violators here.

 

Is Dana Brown on the hot seat this season? I would hope so. Still don’t understand why they let Click go.

 

Yep, it was a dumb move to fire click.

 

I wasn't saying fire brown. I was saying it was dumb to fire click. I never say anything about Brown.