Keep an eye on the Houston Astros this off-season.
Owner Jim Crane plans to "double the payroll".
The Astros plan to become major players in the hot stove league.

Last year our payroll was ranked 29th in baseball (second worst) at only $69 million.
Only the Arizona Diamondbacks spent less money than the Astros last year.

I'm already hearing a lot of noise that the Astros are heavily engaged in a couple of big moves.
But I don't want to jinx anything. When it happens it happens. I'm going to stay calm until then.

Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow was on the MLB Network a little while ago.
He seemed really excited about what is coming. I'll leave it at that for now.
If I mention some of the big names they are pursuing I'm worried I will jinx it.

The strange thing is the Astros are already a pretty good team. We had a winning record last year.

Going into our final 10 games last year we were only 1 game behind the Orioles for the second AL wild-card spot. But we finished 3-7 down the stretch to miss the playoffs, and we didn't have our two best starting pitchers (Keuchel and McCullers) healthy the final few months of the season.

We also have to improve our 3-15 record against the Texas Rangers last year.
Although a lot of those games the Rangers had barely won by 1 or 2 runs (heartbreaking losses).
Had we simply gone .500 against them (9-9) we would have won the AL West.

So we definitely need to make some improvements just to win our own division.
But I wouldn't say the Astros are desperate to improve. They've got a good young team already.

But it's very hard to win when your payroll is so low. The fact they are willing to spend big money is a reason to feel excited.

Wb

wb

Hey man! Thank you. Congratulations to your Chicago Cubs for winning the 2016 World Series!
I'm hoping the Astros can win a World Series one day but that's proven to be impossible so far. LOL

why did you vote for trump? your state loves him.

Astros looking at trading for Miggy

Such a massive contract to trade, but the Astros are one of the few able to take it on.

I wonder how much money Det would have to eat to make it happen. That extension seemed so ill-timed.

This post was edited by Terps on Nov 9 2016 11:15pm

Madmart seems strangely coherent these days

This post was edited by Bluth on Nov 10 2016 12:21am

Ryan writes just fine. You're the one who doesn't use punctuation.