At 13-22, the Astros currently have the worst record in the National League. Baseball Prospectus continues to give them a 0.0% chance at the playoffs. The Astros have scored 4.2 runs per game, which ranks seventh in the league. However, their bullpen has the NL's worst ERA at 5.40. The starting pitching has been subpar as well at 4.81, though that ranking is largely due to J.A. Happ (5.75) and the recently-designated Nelson Figueroa (8.28 as a starter). On to today's notes…
- Only "a little fine-tuning" remains to complete the sale of the Astros to Jim Crane, reports Bob Allen of ABC 13 out of Houston. Allen expects the sale price to be around $680MM.
- I covered the Astros' 2012 contract issues last week; it will be interesting to see how the new ownership approaches the offseason. If Hunter Pence reaches 100 RBIs for the first time in his career, will he set a new third-time arbitration record for position players going year by year? Will the Astros be willing to pay him eight figures?
- Astros fans can look forward to the June 6th draft, in which the team picks 11th overall. Three Baseball America experts did a mock draft as if they were in charge of the teams, and Conor Glassey took Oklahoma high school righty Dylan Bundy for Houston after considering George Springer and Taylor Jungmann. Prior to the season, prospect gurus such as Keith Law, Kevin Goldstein, and BA all ranked the Astros' farm system 26th or worse among the 30 teams.
- MLBTR has all kinds of Astros-centric pages to check out: Facebook, Twitter, RSS, and forums.
Wow…0.0% in May. Gotta love confidence.
I think those are bogus. Like the Cardinals are at 65.8% to win the division. The Reds, sitting 1 game back 35 games into the season are at 18.3%. I don’t buy that, I would say right now, both teams have about an equal shot at the division. There is no way there is that big of a difference.
Agree completely.
Agree. Houston’s % should be negative, not zero.
Anybody know if there is anything else included in that sales price?.. Seems really steep. Forbes last valued the team at $474M following the 2010 season.
We call it “blue sky” money in the car business — namely, if a business is worth X, the money that you pay the owner over X to buy the business is just profit for that selling owner.
A regional cable network deal with Comcast that begins in 2013.