All signage throughout the ballpark the same as end of 2019 (with added areas on the blocked off seats)... and they also added the Michelob Ultra patio in RF upper deck. Forbes also estimated their value to go up 4% from last year, and they took into account the bad press. Again, you're going to have to prove that they've somehow lost money because of the cheating scandal, or even with the slightest loss how it somehow negates the gains they made in overall value from 2015-2019, the result of wining big with Luhnow.
Increasing pre-arb and arb salaries would ensure that small market teams pay more. Though, the reason payrolls are lagging behind revenue is mostly due to the larger teams spending a lower percentage of their revenues and mid/small markets not expanding payrolls when they are winning. The Yankees payroll has been bouncing around 205M for 15 years despite their revenues likely going up as much as the bottom third (rough guess) of the league during that time. Free agents just don't boost the win total as much as they use to. The Yankees would love to buy another World Series, but they could spend another ~100M per year and not affect their WS% by much. The Rays have a stacked 40-man roster. Yes, they could spend $20 million more this season, but there isn't a player that they could drop that $20 million on and increase their World Series Odds. Teams spend to win. As long as club controlled players are paid peanuts, the value added per dollar for free agents will be minimal, and there is not an incentive for teams to spend money. Triple or quadruple the salary of a rookie and maybe teams would be less willing to take a chance on playing a rookie over a veteran.
Forget free agent spending; I'd vote for a system that has small market teams maintaining or raising payroll during times of arbitration raises... vs. those teams getting rid of said players even before arbitration years. The Pirates not wanting to pay Cole $13 million when they were actively trading valuable prospects for Chris Archer is suicide small market mis-management. The Rays will trade every single player (like Archer) well before free agency, even if they're close. The Rays get somewhat of a pass because there is zero potential revenue streams there. But the Pirates play in a viable market with money-making amenities. The Marlins also possess such amenities. The A's have become so good at what they do, they probably know no other way now.
No, because you’re already balancing the championship gains against the tanking. Whatever that net gain is all there is left to balance against the cheating (among a lot of other things) if we are analyzing Luhnow’s financial performance. Not to move the goalposts, but this is really a silly conversation because financial impact is not at all how GMs are judged, at least by fans. Any concession of the financial points you’re making might make him a great GM by Crane’s standards (although I doubt that’s Crane’s opinion now), but in terms of how fans should judge him, winning is all that matters, and from that perspective he was merely average to above average (depending on how you value championships and view tanking).
The object of baseball is to win baseball games. Two of the teams you listed won their division and are in the top 3rd in wins for last decade. The Rays trade less wins for more wins. Damn right winning should get them a pass. On forgetting about free agent spending...free agent spending accounts for 70% of spending. Without drastically increasing club controlled contracts like I suggest, payrolls aren't going to go up. Paying club controlled players closer to what they are worth will fix most of the cases you cited, but it won't happen without increased revenue sharing. All the cases you brought up were teams trying to win more games or not to lose money after overspending trying to win...even if the Pirates weren't very good at it.
Is that a yogi-ism? My point is that small market teams could win more, for more years, if they kept players throughout their pre-arb years or even their arb years. But because the extra financial benefit of winning (more attendance, merchandise sales, etc.) does not off-set the $$ savings by not paying, they make the decision to let go of players who would give them wins now...and wins next year.... for wins possibly 5 years from now, but a short window that if it doesn't happen the cycle is re-set. I go back to the plan of less controlled years but the club has the sole option to extend. If the club chooses not to extend, they become free agents right then/there (no way to trade). Would incentivize clubs to invest more in young players. De-incentivize them to make pre-arb trades (as they're already going to be making money). Put a further emphasis on developing farm system products. And in some cases, increase the potential free agent pool as some players (on really cheap teams) may hit the market when they're 25 instead of 29.
No, they wouldn't. Sure maybe one year it helps, but long term..nope. They are trying to trade stars that would win less with them for players that will win more games for them. This is not easy which is why the Pirates look stupid and the Rays are in first. The Rays aggregated this talent by doing what you said they shouldn't. There is a reason why the Angels need a miracle right now to make the playoffs despite Astros having Verlander, Peacock, Pruitt, Osuna, Smith, Alvarez, and others out and Altuve sucking it up for most of the year. Depth matters. Small market teams do not have the budget to sign many free agents for depth.
By that logic, all teams should be doing this strategy... not just small market teams. Yes, its not easy or all that consistent/automatic. They do potentially shorten or close a window before in needs to be closed... while attempting to open windows that may never actually open. If the Astros were using solely small market strategy, Correa is traded 2 years ago, Springer 3 years ago, Bregman on the table for next year, and Altuve still playing on the $6 million/year generous extension. Not saying they should extend everybody past their prime years... but there are situations where everybody with 2-3 years pre-free agency don’t need to be jettisoned.
Hmmmm. Interesting conversation. I have more questions than answers. Speaking generally and a little philosophically, various strategies sometimes work or dont in great part due to who else and how many other team are employing it. An NBA example would be our dear Rockets. The smallball strategy depends on your opponents having bigs that you can take advantage of with smaller quicker players. Whether this strategy will ever work is still to be determined, but the point is, against another small team, smallball ceases to have both its advantages and its disadvantages vs tall teams. So, if every team utilized the small market strategy, it would level the playing field where at least in certain areas, the target of your strategy doesn't exist anymore. If everyone was trying to move the same type of players with the same ARB status, the market would flood, and you wouldn't get the returns you would if most of the other teams were not doing the same as you. Every team tries to give itself an advantage based on where its inherent strengths are. NY and LA teams can out spend everyone, so that is what they do. And in their cases, its an advantage they have had for some time and will continue to have for the foreseeable future. Not many small market teams are go to win against those guys playing the game their way. So you have to come up with something else. And this strategic maneuvering goes on and on where your always looking for an edge, looking at a way to exploit the system in a way that plays to your strengths. Meanwhile, the landscape is always shifting. Teams fire their GM's. Owners sell. Rebuilds happen.
All the rest of this is great! But Villar is a loss? When/how/why? (no offense, but Rojas made an ass of himself recently) Grossman. JD Davis. Who else? Beer! Bukauskas? Martin? Who did we get for those kids? Was it worthwhile?
It’s all about the loss of Deshields... he gave up football to be drafted by the Astros. How dare they. (Pause to google search which team he’s actually on now...)... ah, his career .666 OPS is now on Cleveland. Maybe the Astros will face him in the playoffs. Luhnow messed this one up big-time.
Yeah, but it's also the "can't keep 'em all" thing... Sure, Villar and Grossman had many times to play, so they went elsewhere and played some more and actually got decent. Teo and Laureano? What's Moran doing? Feliz? Going out on a limb here, but I'm guessing the Stros have won trades in this decade. Gotta give things to get things, right?
In 2-3 years we should be able to do a proper accounting of Luhnow’s trades. Never know if a guy like Celestino or Franklin Perez will break out. Villar put up 8.6 fWAR in 4 seasons away from Houston, including star-level performances in 2016 (60sb 19hr) and 2019 (40sb 24hr). I keep repeating, I am not a Luhnow-hater. I think he deserves credit for bringing a worlds series title to the Astros. But what set him apart from average GMs was his ability to sell Crane on tanking. He made some good trades and some bad trades, signed some good players and some bad players, drafted some good players and some bad players.
Villar was mediocre with the Stros, and he had no real position (CF? 2B? SS? those were pretty much locked down). I liked him, thought he'd be a player eventually. They had 2 guys, the other was named Marwin, who did the same job. They kept one.
True and that was a mistake IMHO If you're going to hire a GM then he should have input on hiring the manager.
This is what happen when you build a stacked farm system. You're going to lose some good players. The only bad trad Luhnow made was the Gomez/Fiers trade and there was sound reasoning behind that trade at the time. Like I said I would feel much more comfortable if Luhnow was still here to rebuild the farm while maintaining the MLB excellence he's proven he only cares about winning championships and nothing else. It's too bad that MLB/Media did what they did to him. What I find hilarious is that the media is trying to get Hinch re-hired when he was directly responsible for the cheating that was going on but the media has made Luhnow out to be a pariah.
Three 100 win seasons and Luhnow was merely avg? OK if you say so. Tell me what you consider avg to below avg. LMAO
Crane would be too much of a pansy to rehire Luhnow. In the very myopic sense of only baseball considerations, it's a bit of a shame that Covid hit as late as it did. The Astros could have just put everything off for 2020, the baseball year that didn't exist, after which point Luhnow's penalty would be up and he'd be hireable again. They also could have looked at purging the coaching staff sans Strom and just started fresh in 2021. Basically the opposite of the Texans who treat every viable year as if it's a transitional, bullshit year that doesn't matter. Unfortunately, the Astros got DPed (and I don't mean double played) by making long lasting hiring moves right before a year that meant nothing. Of course, as I said, Crane would never have had the stones to do it. Even though Luhnow fully serving his one-year suspension should be enough of an argument to say STFU, Crane never understood that nothing he did was ever going to make this go away. Manfred had no power nor incentive to make it go away. The Astros were always going to be endlessly shat on by the media no matter how much bending over Crane did. They're the Houston Astros. If they were the San Francisco Astros or the New York Astros, this wouldn't be a blip on anyone's radar. Crane's an idiot for not knowing that. In my fantasy ideal world, I'd go get back the guy that knows what he's doing more than anything, because as a matter of "reputation," it doesn't ****ing matter. Someone else is going to pick up Luhnow. Some media-protected team who currently sucks should do it. They'll be completely left alone to reap the benefits of the Astros' lynching.
