I just want to give a shout out to Jim Crane. He has pretty much made all the right moves since he bought the team. Hiring Luhnow, Click, Hinch, and Baker. Letting them do their job and trusting the process even when it meant losing tons. Spending money when necessary and going into the tax when most teams outside of NY and CA avoid it like the plague. This team could have imploded when we got busted, but we kept on ticking and are back in the WS. I want to thank Crane for making the Astros my favorite pro sports team.
If Crane bought the Rockets instead of Tilman we would have 2 titles right now and still contending for another because he would have let his GM do his job.
Great owner, even though I think how he handled the Lunhow situation was the only knock on him. Honestly don't see the Astros window closing sooner than 2 years from now.
How did he handle the Hinch situation badly? He fired the guy who was directly in charge of the dugout and let the cheating continue in his clubhouse.
Firing Lunhow was the one that irked me.... Shouldn't have happened. Hinch was enough. I think its possible that Manfred made a deal that Crane couldn't refuse.
After seeing the aftermath, Luhnow must have alienated a ton of people since no one is willing to hire him. I mean he was the best GM in baseball and he was the least involved in the cheating.
Something weird there happened. Unbelievable that he hasn't been hired with his Astros/Cardinals background. Maybe he has told owners he isn't interested. Who knows. What is he doing now?
I wanna see what Crane does w/ Correa before I crown him fully. But he's probably the best owner in Houston sports right now. Granted, I know the bar is low on that one.
He was pretty well disliked throughout MLB. He's toxic. If he hadn't alienated MLB executives, he maybe never gets fired (Manfred certainly isn't as critical of him in his report), and he definitely would be a GM/President for a team right now. At the end of the day, the worst thing he did was trade for Osuna, and then vehemently defend his assistant by accusing Footer (and/or other reporters around her) of lying. From that point MLB wanted him gone.
Honestly that is the only way to explain why he is not around anymore. His track record speaks for itself.
Crane has been as good of an owner as any fan could ever ask for. Pro sports owners basically have 2 jobs: 1. Support the team financially. 2. Hire good management to run the team. Crane has been amazing at both of those jobs. There are nits to pick about how he’s handled various things (Astros going to AL, Astros TV deal, cheating scandal, Ozuna trade), but it is really really hard to say anything negative about his performance as an owner. His teams are fun to watch, and not just because they are so good. His team has some high quality people on it that are good for the community. Cranes been awesome. My biggest request from him would be to do what he can to make the Astros more affordable to watch on TV; the fact that I can get billions of dollars in content for $15/mo on Netflix but can’t watch the Astros unless I pay $70/mo is ridiculous; of course, that is more of an MLB issue than an Astros issue.
Well good for you LOL. The fact that I am in Austin means subscribing to an entire cable package just to get ATTSW. It’s insane.
He's probably up there in ALL-TIME ranks much less "now". I'm 39 so anything before the 80s is history I'm not familiar with but, in my lifetime, there's been: Charlie Thomas Bud Adams John McMullen Drayton McClane Les Alexander Bob McNair Tilman Fertitta Jim Crane Crane's gotta be, what, at least 3rd on that list just based on how his team has performed since his purchase? Sure his position can fall in the future if he screws up the inevitable rebuild but it wouldn't be a massive fall.
It has been nice that all the nay sayers have slowly been shut up. When he first bought the team there was a lot of concern that he would be a penny pincher because of the way they went into tank mode. Everyone assumed he would just pocketing the revenue sharing money from teams like the Yankees and Red Sox and wouldn't pay up for players when the time came. Then there was the noise about past sexual harassment or racism or whatever it was (I forget specifics). There was a stretch there where as an owner he was getting some bad PR and public opinion was low because the on-field product was crap. But he did what he promised and he's been fantastic. I hope it continues.
