You must be forgetting the Astros had one of the largest payrolls in baseball a few years back with winning comes attendance and with attendance comes locking the players up long term. I have no fear at all in Anaheim. They are loaded with vets and no farm..sort of like the 04-05 Astros. It's win now for them. Mariners have a worse team and farm than the Astros. Oakland has a worse team and is entering the same rebuilding mode as us only we had better pieces to trade away like Pence and Bourn. Rangers farm is great but let's see in a few years once their current team starts breaking down from injuries what they have vs. us. It's not too many years back when they were selling off ARod and drafting 1st overall too. I'm happy to stack whichever pitcher we draft first overall, Cosart, Lyles in his prime, Norris and Clemens/Oberholtzer/Weiland or whoever else against their rotation. Bottom line we have a GM who for the most part drafted the team that just beat the Phillies, Brewers and Rangers in the playoffs.
This looks good to me, too. It's always fun having young prospects come up. And you're right, with the number one pick this year and the potential of a Wandy trade, you guys look to be adding quite a few new solid pieces to help the process along.
Not at all. I feel that it's going to be VERY difficult for the Astros after this move. Currently, they play in a league and a division where the rebuilding process they are currently following can actually yield results. With the move to the AL West, I don't believe that formula will work any more. Look, the Rangers followed that script for several decades before they were able to have their recent success. Now, I'm not saying that it will take 10 to 20 years before the Astros are good once more but do not be surprised if in 3-5 years time, they have plateaued like the Indians, Mariners or Royals. To me the AL West is most like the AL East in that you have two teams - Angels & Rangers - willing to spend $$$ to go after players on other teams and under Crane, that doesn't appear to be likely for some time if any. One of the big problems with the Rangers under Tom Hicks was that he lost the financial capacity to compete so he tried to do things on the cheap which was a disaster. This is not something I have seen happening to them in the NL. Over the years, the Astros have been able to grow and keep their star players like Biggio & Bagwell. Once they move to the AL, I expect this all to change because the teams there poach players more. I watched this happen to the Rangers a lot over the years - whenever they developed a nice player it inevitably came up that they could not afford to keep said player because the Yankees or Boston were interested and had the bucks to go get that player. This is one thing that will drive long time fans like MadMax and yourself to fits. As for Wade, I wasn't mocking you and I apologize if I gave that impression. I was making an observation based on what I have seen from watching Wade over the years. Wade is indeed "Mr. Fix-It" (a name Wade gave himself) as he comes in and gives an immediate boost in a defense (look at what happened to SD & Dallas) but his record indicates that over time (for whatever reason) things tend to fall apart for him. I simply find that to be somewhat puzzling because Wade is not an overrated blowhard like the Ryans who can talk a far better game than they deliver. He is a truly nice guy but his record is checkered in this respect. Now with their division currently in disarray, the Texans look to be in good shape for the next few years while Jax & Indy attempt to rebuild. But as the Texans have discovered, they will find that to be far easier said than done.
Good post. And if this was the NL we'd be in total agreement. However, in the AL, teams with loads of money like the Yankees can somehow circumvent the need for having a good farm system by using $$$ to compensate. In fact, that is the primary reason I hate this move to the AL West because I feel that over the long term it places the Astros into a league where they face a huge disadvantage. That wasn't the case in the NL where a team like the Giants or the Cardinals can build up to the point that they can break through and go all the way to the World Series. The Astros did just that themselves. But in looking at the Astros, they are most like the Royals or Indians to me and I am afraid that they may very well wind up in the same situation that KC & Cleve now find themselves. And that would really, really suck. An aside on the A-Rod fiasco by Tom Hicks. Hicks signed A-Rod more as a PR stunt than for sound baseball reasons. A-Rod came to a team where there was a pronounced disparity between the way A-Rod was treated and the way others on the team were treated. Here you had a played whom Hicks was treating like a part owner. That plus the obscene salary ($25M per year) led to a rift between A-Rod, the team and the fans. In the end, the Rangers were forced to unload A-Rod on the Yankees who held them over the fire. They ended up paying a goodly amount of his salary so he could play in NY. It was a stupid move from the get-go and marked the beginning of the end for Hicks' owning the Rangers.
I didn't realize until now that the AL big money teams aren't able to poach talent from NL teams. Gonna suck to leave that umbrella of protection behind. It's not like Biggio, Bagwell, etc. wanted to stay because of the organization and their chances of winning (as opposed to, say, the freaking Rangers). We also never lost out on our free agents to other teams that I can remember. It was so awesome for Kile, RJ, Kent, and Beltran to finish out their careers in Houston. Oh, and L-O-L with the comparison of AL West and AL East. Do *wins* matter, or just teams wanting to spend money? Just sayin'. I hate the move to the AL as much as anybody (probably too much), but the doom and gloom bit is a little OTT IMO.
I'm not sure what makes you pessimistic about Crane's spending. He's made it very clear that he's willing to when the time is right, and Houston as a market proved capable of supporting an upper-tier payroll just a few years ago. He's not spending now because there's no point to it. The Astros aren't anywhere near contention, so any player signed now would likely be on the downslope by the time they are. But when the farm system develops to a point where the Astros have a competent foundation, Crane will spend and spend big. As far as the Angels and Rangers, the Cubs and Cardinals had a higher combined payroll in 2011 and have for basically every season in this era. There's no significant difference. http://www.stevetheump.com/Payrolls.htm This has nothing to do with AL vs. NL and everything to do with shoddy management. For years, the Rangers had cheap ownership and general managers that didn't properly identify talent. Moreover, with an overall team that wasn't near contention, it sometimes made sense to dump those stars for prospects. The Astros, until the last 6 or so years, had competent management with a long-range plan, and that's why they were able to keep their stars. PS: The two biggest recent free agent signings for NYY and BOS were CC Sabathia and Adrian Gonzalez - what league did they come from?
I really don't see that. Cleveland/KC have NEVER been able to re-sign their own homegrown talent. They both play in smaller markets than Houston. While they both have upgraded stadiums, neither one appears to generate the revenue that Minute Maid Park has since it opened. The Astros have a much more lucrative TV deal as well. The Astros are on-par, financialy, with Detroit, the White Sox, Blue Jays, Seattle, Baltimore... even the Rangers. They don't need to spend money until they actually have a product worth spending on (like the Rangers have now), but in the long-run, the Astros don't face any of the built-in hurdles that small market teams such as Minnesota, Cleveland, KC, Tampa, and Oakland have to face. In fact, if you look at it, there are more deat-beat financial teams in the AL than the NL.... most of the small market NL teams, aside from Pittsburgh, have the ability to spend/compete when their teams get talent. Even the Marlins have now broken out of "penny pincher" status. The Astros will be just fine, long-term, the awful AL. People lamenting the move are doing it more because they are robbing their rich NL history, rather than a competitive disadvantage.
Teams cannot simply spend their way to a World Series title. You have to have some homegrown talent. The last 11 World Series yielded 9 different winners with the Red Sox and Cardinals winning twice. Yankees have only won once in that time span. 2012 Projected payrolls for the AL west is only about 15-20 million more than the NL Central, and if you eliminate the lowest spenders in each division (The A's and Pirates) it's pretty much even. I think the Astros are gonna be able to more than hold their own in the division, and they are making the right moves now to do that. And once they have the talent, if they can increase their payroll to remain competitive then they certainly can be contenders.
the 05 world series has come and gone....7 years now Okay I have been watching the Astros since 1989 and watch some talented players rock the Houston jersey. So who do I get excited about these days? Bud Norris is probably the pitcher whom I cheer for the most. I have enjoyed watching J.D. Martinez power and overall play so far. I hope Fernando Martinez makes it as the 25th man on the roster as someone how can provide a spark off the bench and have an occassional start. Jed Lowrie is an excellent SS pickup as he's a switch hitter whom possibly could hit .300 from both sides. Still with plenty of time to get better is 2nd baseman Jose Altuve and believe he should breakout this year. I hope this is Jason Castro's breakout year! I expect 12 homeruns and 60 rbis at least from him with Snyder backing him up. im guessing 81-81
I'll keep my answer simple. I'm very excited about the Astros. Reason, they are finally trying to build the team/orginization the right way. Build the farm system and trade most of the vets that have worth for young talent/picks. The Astros may not win for a while, but I think you'll see these young guys play very hard and may even surprise us some. Im excited about the future of the Astros.
I'm excited to watch J.D. Martinez. Dude could be an all-star caliber player. Fully expect him to give us Hunter Pence's old production. Can Bud Norris take another jump? Even at the trade deadline last year people were talking about him as a bullpen guy rather than a starter. After a full season with a sub-4 ERA and almost 200 innings, maybe people will start talking about him as a great #3 guy. Take another jump and he is a #2. For him the focus is getting deeper into games, pitching better against lefties (rhb had a .650 OPS against him compared to .811 for lhb), and lastly pitching better across the whole season (3.49 ERA in 1st half, 4.26 ERA in the 2nd).
If we had kept Myers in the rotation, our rotation would have been solid. We would have been missing that dominant ace, but 2-5 would have been nice.
I've never been more financially stable then I am right now. My biggest thing will be, because there are so many games there's a very good chance on any random day, if I have nothing to do, I'll know I can make a 45 minute drive and go watch some baseball. Randomly going to a sporting event (regardless of how bad the team is) is something that I am very much looking forward to.
I'm excited for the season for many of the same reasons most of you all are. I'm happy to see the franchise actually moving in the right direction for once rather than just foolishly treading water. I'm also just a sucker for all those things that writers wax poetic about. The fresh cut grass, the smell of hot dogs, matinee games, etc.
