It's looking like he now WANTS the TV deal to fail. Gotta have some excuse on which to justify his continued ability to break the system, suck at historically bad levels while raking in the cash from revenue sharing.
Are you sure about that? Cuba has special rules to itself, so you can't compare Abreu. I'm not sure whether the Mexican League qualifies as a foreign professional league like Japan due to its status a AAA league. Edit: Legitimately curious since I have never seen anything definitive.
Yeah, basically the international pool applies to anyone not subject to the mlb draft (outside USA, Puerto Rico, and Canada), with a few exemptions The biggest exemption being that if the player is 23 and has played at least five years in a recognized professional league, then they are a free agent not subject to the international pool limits. The rule for Cuban players is similar but only requires 3 years of professional experience in Cuba. www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/international-affairs/2012/2613345.html
bump Crane could have fixed this and salvaged Aiken + Nix for $1.5M more than their last apparent offer. Nope, instead the fans are screwed again.
Screwed? Luhnow and Co just get an extra year of "hope". Jeff just bought himself an extra year of "patience".
If they draft a star next year with this pick and Aiken blows his arm out will this still have been a disaster.
If the Astros win the world series this year, and Nix wins a grievance against us, that pick that we would have to forfeit wouldn't be so bad. Well, the 2nd overall pick would suck to lose, but losing our own wouldn't be bad, right?
Whoever it is that finally got Crane to STFU is a pretty amazing person Don't make Crane a better person, but at least we don't have to listen to the junk that comes out of his pie hole much anymore
Whatever. This Purpuraesque blunder today convinced me that it's a different owner, but the same BS. My boycott of the Astros begins once again. The sad thing is, Jim Crane doesn't care about you. He doesn't care if you don't watch his games. He doesn't care if you don't go to the games either. He could play 81 games in an empty stadium with a 0.0 rating and generate a profit, by fielding a team with a 25M payroll and reaping in all the revenue sharing funds. It's a total scam.
in fairness one truly can't answer that question until more details of Aiken's UCL are released. but even Crane expressed sincere disappointment over not being able to sign Aiken....possibly just posturing but we don't know for sure
They wanted Aiken, badly. But this UCL situation made him a massive risk. If the Astros were simply playing hardball and using the UCL as an excuse, they would have blinked at the end and got a deal done. The fact that they didn't tells me the injury caused them to really not want him that badly anymore. Everything about this is disappointing, but just like the Parsons situation, long term we don't know yet whether it was the wrong decision. Combined with the Appel situation it certainly sucks at the moment.
