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#1 |
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Join Date: Nov 2003
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Houston Astros 2013-14 Off-season thread
That just happened.
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#2 |
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Wait... the Astros get to have an off-season too? Awesome! Something to distract us from the Texans.
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#3 |
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#4 |
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Ryan Jackson was claimed off waivers from St. Louis. He might be a better shortstop than Marwin Gonzalez.
Crane says he is going to spend money this off-season, and raise the payroll to $50M. Who would Houston be able to attract among the free agents? It would seem that the best target would be someone trying to build value on a one-year deal. Houston certainly can offer playing time in the outfield, DH, starting rotation, or bullpen. |
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#5 |
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It is hard to believe that we could have gotten a worse owner than MacLane, but in my opinion we did.
Jim Crane Sues Drayton McLane, Comcast And NBC: MLB Rumors - MLBTradeRumors.com Who buys a company and then sues the former owner for over-stating the value? There has never been an acquisition in the history of business where the seller did not pump up the business plan to inflate the value. That's why buyers perform due diligence. |
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#6 |
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Heard this yesterday. Crazy. But Cran is still promising to spend money this off-season. We shall see I guess.
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#7 | ||
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Quote:
Quote:
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Jonathan Haidt: Moral reasoning is really just a servant masquerading as a high priest. |
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#8 |
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#9 |
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![]() I was thinking about that also, but apparently the team thinks there is room to " take massive losses out of the Houston Astros player payroll"!!! But yeah, if they still do not spend any money on players down the road, they now have some excuses. There is something rotten in that whole TV deal though. CSN Houston went bankrupt after a year of operation. Jim Crane might indeed have falsely believed in the value of the TV contract.
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Jonathan Haidt: Moral reasoning is really just a servant masquerading as a high priest. |
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#10 |
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Any chance of the Astros returning to Fox Sports Southwest? I was so pissed when I found out I wouldn't be getting any of their games last year.
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#11 |
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#12 |
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#13 |
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Same here. I saw 3 games last year live, all in person. Very sad when you live 2 hours from your team and can't get their games on TV. I tried watching on MLB TV after the game, but it wasn't the same
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#14 | |
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Astros spent quite an effort to get out of the contract with Fox, thinking that it can get much more money with its own network. They got CSN Houston and supposedly that network will pay Astros $80m a year. That's the dream scenario sold to Crane, and that's why Crane spent all that money to buy part of CSN Houston. It turns out carriers don't care for CSN Houston. Many carriers didn't want to carry it even for no fee. So the network went bankrupt, and Crane is suing people. If there are true value in showing Astros games, I am sure the company would be re-constructed, find ways to get on the carriers, and Crane/Astros can still get some decent income from it if not as good as it originally planned. If it's Fox taking it back, the valuation is probably not too high. Crane already piled up debts to buy the team. With the TV revenue greatly diminished, surely the payroll would stay low for quite awhile.
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#15 |
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#16 | |
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What has been revealed so far showed that the business plan of CSN Houston was to charge all carriers inflated fees while giving Comcast a favored price. That's a key point in Crane's lawsuit against Comcast and McLane. All these carriers are in a good position to simply wait for all the Comcast dirty laundries to come out. Crane or whoever taking over CSN Houston operation will then have to deal with all these carriers on more reasonable terms. I think Crane is suing for the dozens of millions he believed he lost through this CSN Houston conspiracy for this year. Next year the network will be reconstructed.
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#17 |
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Is there any chance of MLB TV removing the blackouts in areas without comcast next year?
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#18 | |
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No question that the carriage fees that Crane and CSN Houston demanded were ridiculous. Crane had plenty of opportunity to do his due diligence. If he did not believe that the network was viable at those prices, he should not have purchased his majority interest in it. The main reason that peeople cannot see the Astros is Crane's stubborn refusal to accept reality and charge a realistic fee. The other partners in the network (Rockets, Comcast) want to lower the fees, but Crane has refused to go along. It takes a unanimous vote to accomplish anything, so the deadlock continues until the bankruptcy judge rules. |
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#19 | |
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It's harder to face reality when you were the one hyping up the fantasy so much.
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#20 |
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