Astros to close Venezuelan Academy: http://houston.astros.mlb.com/news/...t_id=3718999&vkey=news_hou&fext=.jsp&c_id=hou Will this really benefit our farm system - quicker player development - or is this just a thinly disguised attempt for McLane to save more money? I'm not that knowledgable on this stuff. What do you guys think?
They've opened an academy in DR and have greatly increased their presence in the Pacific Rim...signing the first Taiwanese player in team history recently. If you read the article, it makes perfect sense that they closed the Venezuelan academy.
What Leroy said. As far as "thinly disguised attempt for McLane to save more money" goes (insert rolling eyes here), he has *nothing* to prove. Nothing. (BB, the rest of this is in response to all the "McCheap" posters who've been crawling back out of their hiding places the last couple of weeks.) It's amazing, with the Astros recently being among the top five in payroll for MLB franchises, that as soon as a couple of cuts are made in response to bad economic times all the "Drayton is cheap!!" BS starts back up. Feel free, idiots, to look at the full body of work. We can play this rodeo again if you like: we can list the entire mountain of simple facts that point out how inane and stupid it is to think McLane has dealt "cheap" with the Astros. McLane, and every other owner not named Steinbrenner, will be making undisguised and unapologetic attempts to save money right now due to this little thing called a recession. Let's not expect the Astros to conduct their finances wisely, however; it'd be better to have an amazing, incredible load of talent for one year and then not have a team at all due to bankruptcy or sale. There's lots of stuff to b**** about with the Astros. b**** about nontendering Wigginton; that was stupid. But don't make stuff up.
I did read the article, leroy. I saw the reasoning laid out and just wanted to know if it was legitimate from somebody that was more knowledgable than me when it comes to baseball. I didn't pass any judgment. Not everything you read is always fact, obviously. There is often more to a story than meets the eye. According to you and msn, this was a reasonable move.
Aaron Boone to the Astros Boone signs with Astros The Astros on Thursday signed third baseman Aaron Boone to a one-year contract, pending a physical, MLB.com has learned. Boone seemingly fills the Astros' need for a utility infielder who has extensive experience at third. Boone has played in 950 career games at third, 102 at first, 30 at shortstop and 23 at second. He'll likely fill the role as a right-handed hitting complement to Geoff Blum, who became the incumbent third baseman when the Astros non-tendered Ty Wigginton. Boone, who will turn 36 on March 9, played in 104 games for the Washington Nationals in 2008. He hit .241 with six homers and 28 RBIs as a backup first baseman to backup to Nick Johnson and Dmitri Young.
Lol why in the world would you sign Boone? While we're at it let's see if we can still tag Vinny Castilla! Good job Uncle Dumbass!
Boone/Blum gonna be better or worse than the Berry/Spiers platoon at 3rd? I wish I could say better..
No. Let's just hope it's serviceable. ...and that somewhere during this winter something emerges that defines some sort of method to this madness.
Mike Hampton and Aaron Boone! Wow! Who's ready for another sub-par team that will suck for most of the year, then might make a run to sniff the wild-card and get everyone just excited enough to look forward to another year and continue to buy tickets to keep sales up so the team doesn't have to worry about building the farm system and putting together a legitimate contender!?! Seriously...I wish they'd stop piecing together teams and do some rebuilding so we'll have a real contender sometime soon. But I guess they are happy staying mediocre as long as they keep selling tickets.
I wish they'd tear it down as well, but I'll never complain if they do go on a run late in the season again. As mediocre as that team was last year, if it wasn't for Ike, there is a damn good chance they would have been in the playoffs. Meaningful September baseball is never not fun.
And that's the sentiment that keeps it going. If our teams, given the right spark, have a shot at the playoffs every year (and we all know anything can happen once you're there).. might as well keep trying to position for that until it really isn't working anymore. But as close as we've been, I don't think you can say it's not a definite possibility at least.. (yes, I'd also prefer a rebuild.. but I won't complain about it if they can keep doing what they've been doing at a minimum)
Yeah, that's their evil plan. "McCheap" knows that most Houstonians are far too stupid, except the very, very few enlightened ones like yourself, to ever conceive of this idea and that as such he can get away with it. So the Astros have hours and hours of meetings over the long fall and winter months to plan how they can have a top-10 payroll and still be just mediocre enough to be in it in September. It's a delicate line, but it keeps AIS!
I was hoping for a rebuild, too. The team that they built almost from scratch beginning in 1991 turned Houston into a baseball town and won our hearts (even the whiners--they weren't even whining about baseball until then) for 16 years, even with all the turnover. But they're not going that route. C'est la vie.
Ok, well obviously they don't plan on being mediocre spending that much money and hope the team does well, but a lot of that spending was done making the Lee deal and the Tejada trade, and while neither were busts, they obviously didn't put us over the top. And now we're stuck with those contracts and have to piece together a mediocre team around them. But hey, we have a top 10 payroll so they must be trying really hard to give the fans what they really want!
The Lee and Tejada acquisitions are examples of attempts to get better despite the cost. Yet here folks are accusing the Astros of not trying. The *merit* of the attempt is most certainly debatable! But the fact they tried--and did so at some expense--is not.
It's a two way street, the economy is in the crapper so he's not going to spend money to bring in free agents. That's cool and understandable - we are not the Yanks. But the economy is bad for everyone, and I don't think I can afford to go to any games with the product they will be putting out, which to put it bluntly is terrible. (after allstar break miracle runs are not calculated, not with this pitching staff)
I can't afford to go even if they're the '27 Yankees! Due to all kinds of factors including my own travel/work schedule, I haven't been able to physically attend a game since 2004. I'm having withdrawals.
