Can you read? Honestly? Or are you just too lazy to read? I would like to know. I have said repeatedly that I'm onboard with a low payroll for this year, in the spirit of rebuilding.
I loathe this thread, therefore I skim. Regardless, Crane is investing in the right places - Draft, Int'l FA, Front Office, Management, Talent Development. Not sure why that leads fools like you to the conclusion that he's a cheapskate. This years payroll is the only argument one can make about Crane being cheap. However if you look a little deeper, it's quickly obvious there's much more to it than that.
Your reasoning is not sound. So you don't like a few things he has done with the Astros and MMP, and you can't watch Rockets games. That does not make Crane a cheapskate owner. He may turn out to be one, but it's way too early to give him that label. I'll revisit in 5 years. BTW, I'm now convinced you're just trolling.
Well this rubs me the wrong way. http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-b...ns-write-check-10-million-215556552--mlb.html
Well that's just not smart. I'm pretty sure attendance and memorabilia revenues have far exceeded $10,000,000, Jim. Calling the HOUSTON ASTROS a "private business" isn't exactly a way to garner more fans.
He's no smooth salesman like Drayton was that's for sure. All will be forgotten if when our prospects finally come up and he shells out some cash for FA's. If that never happens baseball will be dead for me in Houston until he's gone.
Baseball is a perfect business for soemone who want to make money. No salary minumum and revnue sharing. "Dynamic pricing" and a publicly financed place to play. No wonder Crane's been trying to buy a team for so long.
True in almost all pro sports...it's why the price to buy a team is so high. Even more so in the NFL.
Wouldn't that possibly perpetuate the cycle though? Prospects come up, we start having success, we add a couple of "missing link" high priced free agents. In the process, we lose some of the home grown prospects to free agency (can't keep them all), while keeping most of them, payroll escalates, more money spent on big league club leads to less money spent on draft/development... team gets older, quality of prospects coming up not as good (lower draft slots), team eventually becomes "mediocre" again... and the owner either decides to start chasing it (signing overpriced stopgaps), or tear it all down and rebuild again. Presuming that the homegrown prospects do pan out... and we do have a 5-7 year window of playoff contention baseball (much like 1997-2005), following this period would you then rather be "chasing it" (overall be mostly mediocre, with the off-hand chance of contention), or just trade everybody (and not resign your own free agents), and start over?
The hope is we continue to draft good prospects and sign ones internationally and there are always guys to plug in. Plus you hope the team trades the players that will leave before they hit FA (see Mike Hampton & Billy Wagner).
