The problem with spending more money is Houston. Houston just does not fill up minute maid. They were good last year but attendance sucked. They have been 10th place or worse in attendance since 2010. Of course. Maybe they would do better if they WON. But, even our world series year we were in the middle of the pack in attendance. Crane wants asses in the seats to pay the bills and there is no indication that that will ever happen at Enron.
VV on a good team is not going to be the ace, but on a good team he can be a nice number 3. He would help as a number 2 until McCullers is ready, thats for sure, but once Mc is ready, a rotation of K, McCullers, VV, McHugh and Fiers would be impressive, but, we traded that talent for a set up reliever.
If you/Crane wants to use attendance as an excuse, here's an easy solution: Match our payroll to where our attendance is. We are 13th in attendance with the 22nd highest payroll. Maybe if we were #1 in attendance we could get a top 15 payroll!
It's, to an extent, nearly impossible. Our three best players (Altuve, Correa and Springer) make less than $5MM combined. If you throw in Keuchel, it's less than $12MM. The Astros aren't cheap (per se); they ARE cheap, if that makes sense; a young team essentially playing for peanuts. They would have to add ~$30MM in payroll just to get to the Royal's level - and that's after adding Rasmus' $15MM this winter. There will be a day, very soon, in which this team won't be cheap...
Could've done that very easily bidding for Price or other SPs that were on the market. They instead went with the cheap option in Fister.
Price would have fit in nicely with his 5.76 ERA, Greinke and his 6.16 ERA would have looked awesome as well.
MLB revenues are though the roof.... to the point that the gate is actually a smaller and smaller piece of the pie. Obviously you can't be at the bottom of the league in attendance... but the teams that spend all have lucrative local TV deals, lucrative spring training facility deals, and the requisite merchandising/advertising opportunities that make ends meet. Additionally, there's the historic example of when this team is good (which sometimes spending money is part of that), attendance typically surges. Just two home playoff games last year was enough to mostly wash away 3+ years of sucking in a historical fashion. If spending would guarantee that this would be a good team (which it doesn't)... that would actually be the best way to get asses in the seat... not vice versa.
Yeah, I know. I'm holding my tongue until we really need to pony up. This is almost like a honeymoon phase. I'm cool with our payroll where we are right now, but 3-5 years down the road, we need to be sitting around 140MM.
Nothing to say they won't... of course, that presumes they're trying to keep together a contending team. If they're putting up mixed-bag results such as this... any possible plan is on the table (including blowing it all up again... doubtful, but it would be the same logic of not spending just to spend).
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">AL West run differentials:<br><br>Mariners +20<br>Rangers +8<br>A's -4<br>Angels -8<br>Astros -31</p>— Greg Johns (@GregJohnsMLB) <a href="https://twitter.com/GregJohnsMLB/status/725383636048977920">April 27, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The Astros' run differential of -31 is worst in the American League. No AL team has allowed more runs (110).</p>— Jake Kaplan (@jakemkaplan) <a href="https://twitter.com/jakemkaplan/status/725365840409858049">April 27, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Disparity Dept: There already are six NL teams that have been out scored by 20 or more runs this year: only one, <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Astros?src=hash">#Astros</a>, in the AL.</p>— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) <a href="https://twitter.com/BNightengale/status/725359392091082753">April 27, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Astros backup catcher Erik Kratz pitched 1 inning yesterday... He's thrown more pitches 85 MPH+ than Jered Weaver.<br><br>Kratz - 9<br>Weaver - 7</p>— Daren Willman (@darenw) <a href="https://twitter.com/darenw/status/725340599868493824">April 27, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Just posting this for my own amusement. I guess I should have possibly included manager in my original post too.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Special ticket offer: Come to all 10 Mon-Thurs home games in May for only $49! <br>Details: <a href="https://t.co/2WSTfrgYdk">https://t.co/2WSTfrgYdk</a> <a href="https://t.co/xzJxjm4o93">pic.twitter.com/xzJxjm4o93</a></p>— Houston Astros (@astros) <a href="https://twitter.com/astros/status/725033114469294080">April 26, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> 13th in attendance at 29,975 per game
