As a baseball fan, I am always excited when spring training begins. We get to see the up and comers try to make a team, the free agents try to prove their worth and which teams appear ready to make a run and which teams are going to be potentially the worst teams in baseball. Enter the Astros.
First of all, you know it is bad when you are trying to create new ways to get people to come to the game because they are not coming in to watch baseball. This year, so far, the Astros have added new premium seating behind home plate, dynamic pricing that is supposed to work like a stock market for tickets, and they have increased their Tuesday specials to include Field Box tickets for $20. The funniest part of this whole thing is that while they say you can purchase these as well as regular tickets for a single game they have yet to add the regular single game pricing to their website as well as most of the single game pricing for the supposedly available premium seating options. Top that off with a rumor that they are considering slashing ticket priced in half this year and you have the start of an interesting yet completely unorganized mess.
Next, the team recently announced signing seven players to one-year deals. The players included are Jason Castro, Brett Wallace, Fernando Abad, Brian Bogusevic, Paul Clemens, Chris Jonson and Fernando Rodriguez. Anyone excited? Wallace saw time at first last season and was subsequently sent down to the minors to try and figure out how to hit. Chris Johnson had possibly the worst year of his career and because the Astros are that bad he may make the roster. Fernando Abad was truth in advertising, a bad pitcher at best. Brian Bogusevic Was the one that might actually belong on a major league roster but as a fourth outfielder, not a starter. The others are all minor league guys that with any other team would still be in the minors but lucky, or unlucky depending on how you look at it, for them they are in the Astros organization so here comes the major league minimum paycheck.
Finally, what’s the pitch to fans? The team lost a franchise record 106 games last year so what, this year we will only lose 100? Maybe it’s, we have nowhere to go but up? My favorite is the team is rebuilding, come watch the start of the future of your Houston Astros! Do any on these make you want to go and spend your hard earned money on a ticket to the Astros?
A new owner was definitely needed but will it work? Rebuilding a farm system can take years and if you are not going to add free agents to make it interesting then what is the plan for the next few years? Sadly, I think we have seen the plan, spend nothing, keep trying to build through the draft, and beg people to come out to the game. I wonder if this is what the Pirated thought they were going to do 20 years ago too. Really worked for them, right?