Astros OK if they stand pat?? i dont think so, Jim Molony does!

hey, brospeh, i'm right there with ya. i don't believe mcclane is the center of evil, but i also don't think he's above reproach. i also don't want him or the organization resting on its laurels or trying to feed us a line of bull**** and asking us not to complain about the taste it leaves behind. molony's piece is as transparent as it is inaccurate.

i would prefer they come right out and say, "you know what? we'd love to add a bat. i thought i had a bat - jeff bagwell. but i don't. and i still have to pay him $19M, so my hands are somewhat tied. but i brought back clemens, dealt for huff and i was hoping for a better ROI from some of these other players... hopefully, they can right the ship." that, i could get behind and understand. i will not buy into - "we have the third highest payroll, so back off."

 

who is saying this??

 

I agree for the most part, and I wish he'd stop talking about the payroll. I can assume that the payroll mentioning had to do with all the talks of him being tight with money, and that's bogus. I do believe that he does not want to spend any more money on this year and let the players decide this thing, and I actually agree with it. If we replace every player that struggled, we're going to end up with an overpaid AAA roster. At the same time, could you imagine the backlash if he came out and said; "nope, this is it. I'm not spending more money this year because that's beyond what I've agreed to. I think this team has what it takes to win, and this is all I can afford to pay for this year in a business sense."

 

Things to count on:

1. The sky is blue.
   
   
2. The sun will rise in the morning and set in the evening.
   
   
3. People will find some way to complain about the Astros.
   

 

the big man himself in the team's thinly veiled attempt to try and cut us off at the pass before the team lets the deadline come and go; aka jim moloney's piece from astros.com:

 

i'm not reading it with the same tone you're reading it with..clearly.

 

Purp has said as much, several times. Also said that Ensberg may end up being the "trading deadline acquisition" for the offense. I don't really have a problem with that, outside of the unlikely Tejada deal (and I'm not sure I believe any of the published reports on the players involved).

As far as them mentioning payroll - we've been told for years & years by the fans & pundits that the Stros will never, ever, ever win until they "spend money", and that "spending money" is some sort of foolproof guarantee, or somesuch. Well, lookee here, they're spending money, and they ain't winning. There's prolly a lesson in there somewhere, but the chorus has moved on to "spend more" or "spend it like I think you should". Tiresome.

Is their management perfect? Of course not. But I find it pretty hard to b**** about the Astros organizational model.

 

As a former major league whiner from the Beltran administration...let me just say that you are all right.

Incessant whining from you ingrates (did i just say that?) can be annoying. We do spend money and we make what seem to be good trades/signings (i.e Huff and Wilson) at the time they are made. I don't think we have the most "committed to winning" owner as compared to him worrying about the bottom line...BUT, he is FAR from the bottom of the barrell. He has put a competitive product out there for many years now...some by chance and some by adding guys like RJ and Beltran. He's like Sinatra...he does it his way...and if it works, so be it.

However, I can tell you as someone who lived in Met-Yankee country for 20 plus years that even the 200 million dollar Yankee fans whine. They whine that they don't add any good player on the market because they CAN afford it. same crap...different city. Its not just Astros fans....its everyone.

That being said, I have a question (not rhetorical...i really dont know the answer)....where were we in regards to a wild card spot at this tme last year?

 

Florida Marlins is the best example here, I guess.

 

Look, I am a huge fan. I have watched just about every game for the past 10 years...but there are many justifiable complaints about this team. I don't have a beef with Drayton. I just think we need an offensive boost, because clearly our offense is dogsh*t this season and is not improving.

 

Same tired bulls**t...some people are never satisfied. So the payroll is 106 million, you can afford to spend 5 million more. And here's probably my favorite. Its not really 106 million because Bagwell's contract is 19 million so its really 85+

Fact: the payroll is a 100+ million dollars, the third highest in the leauge. You can spin it any way you want but at the end of the day it's still is 100+ Why should they spend more when the players they've spent on haven't delivered.

On July 18th of last year, the 'Stros we're 6.5 games out. By July 26th, they were only 2. And by August first they had a one game lead. Right now they are 6 games back; off the pace of last year but still very much in contention, especially considering a winning streak of 4-6 games can cut that deficit in half. It also should be noted that by mid-September of last year, the team had fallen to 1.5 back again. There's a lot of baseball left. And this team IS NOT THIS BAD.

 

i believe the astros have sued...is that right????

 

Yep. No news since the announcement: http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/...t_id=1405113&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb

 

i'm not in any camp, really, unless there's a "what's best for the team" tent being set-up somewhere. drayton is free to spend however much he wants - $107M or $7M - it makes me no difference; i'll still be a fan and still go to the games. i've never whined about him and i've enjoyed his product very much. if he sells the team tomorrow, i'll have nothing but praise for him as an owner; i think he's far and away the best owner this city has ever had.

however, again, there IS a difference between spending $106M on the team, and spending $87M on the team and then trying to pawn it off as $106M. yes, as i've said in probably 4 posts now, $106M is $106M no matter how you choose to slice it.

but it's disingenuous to sell this as the "third highest payroll" in baseball when it is simply not the third highest payroll in baseball on the field where the team made sacrifices and cut corners to accomodate bagwell's salary. they didn't go out and sign expensive players; they swallowed an injured player's salary. and again, i'm OK with that. i'm not complaining that they did it; i'm complaining that they're inappropriately spinning it as a means to justify their course.

 

I agree, especially the part about Drayton trying to sell it. But in a PR standpoint and him as an owner, he has to sell it appropriately or there will be a backlash. The one thing that bothered me a little on your post is that our players were young players, and instead of going out and sign an expensive free agents, we've spent millions more keeping ours. Roger for half a year for a higher salary, Pettitte and Bagwell's end-loading contracts add to the payroll. I believe that the team's budget reached it's maximum before FA started, but the truth is there really weren't that many nice FAs to begin with that the Astros could've needed. Most of the FAs this year turned out to be pitchers (Burnett, Beckett getting traded, B.J. Ryan, Millwood's contract, and so on....) I think the Astros played within their budget. No offense, but for you to say that Bagwell's contract didn't really count towards the "team's" budget this year is to say that Bagwell was really worth what we paid him years before. What I mean is... assuming you sign someone for 5 million one year, 10 the next, 15 the third and 20 the fourth and the player gets injured the 4th year, people can't say the 20 didn't count, but the 5 is exactly what it was the first year when players like Bagwell were obviously "underpaid" early on in his career. It all evens out, in my opinion. Giving Bagwell this gauranteed contract is the risk we took because Drayton paid the big money.

 

So you think the Cubs are a smarter organization than the Astros, because they won a World Series a century ago? Awesome.

Nice way to avoid the question, but I'll ask it again: what *current* owners spend money better than the Astros?

 

Do you have any idea what the question being asked was that caused McLane to respond that? Do you think that would be useful to know before deciding what his intent was?

 

The best part of it is that if we hadn't signed Bagwell, Pettitte or Clemens at various points due to the high contract prices, everyone would have b****ed that McLane was cheap. Now that he did, and didn't foresee that they might suck 3 or 7 years into a contract (or didn't have a choice but to give them the long deal), people b**** that he doesn't spend money wisely. Wouldn't it be great if we could predict everyone's injuries years in advance?

 

A slight tangent, but I find it pretty weird that both the Astros and the White Sox could both be absent from this year's playoffs.

We're obviously in deep trouble as demonstrated before and the White Sox just got swept by the Twins who are tied with them for the Wild Card with the Yankees right behind them. The Sox pitching is a shell of its former self as Buehrle has just fallen apart, Vazquez is underachieving as usual, and even Contreras has lost 3 in a row.

I'm curious when the last time that happened was...