The Angels had interest in A.J. Burnett of the Phillies, FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal writes, confirming a report by Peter Gammons (all Twitter links). The Angels, though, wanted Burnett to waive his player option for next season, perhaps to get them under the luxury tax threshold. It wouldn’t be surprising if Burnett hadn’t wanted to do that, given that he prefers playing near the East Coast, and that his option guarantees him $10MM or more in 2015. The Angels, then, will continue to hunt for a starting pitcher to replace the injured Garrett Richards. Here’s more from the West divisions.
- Rockies shortstop Troy Tulowitzki would rather retire than change positions, Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post writes. “No. It’s just who I am, it’s what I do, it’s what I have dreamed of as a kid,” Tulowitzki says. “So I guess when you have a dream and you accomplish it and someone tries to take it away from you … it wouldn’t be worth it for me to try and move somewhere else.” Tulowitzki is just 29 and is still a plus defensive shortstop when healthy, but he continues to have issues with injuries, and it’s not difficult to see how he might need to change positions before the end of his contract, which runs through 2020. Saunders notes that Tulowitzki is currently on crutches after surgery to fix a torn labrum in his hip.
- The Astros’ “extreme Moneyball” approach is still controversial throughout the game, Joshua Green of Bloomberg BusinessWeek writes in a profile of the Astros since Jeff Luhnow’s hiring in 2011. The Astros’ poor results the past few years, and their relentless questioning of conventional wisdom (leading to, for example, their aggressive approach to shifting and to their tandem minor league rotations), have predictably been divisive. Luhnow gives Green a look at the Astros’ “Ground Control” database (notes from which were leaked in June), which uses an algorithm to tell the team’s management when players ought to be promoted.
Burnett already rejected a trade to the Angels prior to the start of the 2012 season. They were about to trade Bobby Abreu to the Yankees for him, which would’ve really helped LAA’s pitching depth, given their second half struggles. But Burnett turned it down. So why go for it again? Should focus their energy on more attainable arms. Cheap arms to give them just 5 or 6 with their deep bullpen.
Maybe he will just suck it up for two months to try and get a ring
Kyle Kendrick seems like a good fit, by those standards (never you mind that he’d probably get rocked in the first inning of most games).
My main issue with the Astros is that they made 55 million dollars last year. That’s fairly unconscionable when you are deliberately fielding a horrible team. At least sign a few veterans and give your team an outside chance of competing.
The Astros are more than a few veterans away from competing. At this point I think they should trot out prospects until they have enough stars to build around with veterans.
Great, then until they can compete they should half their ticket prices. Because it’s not fair to their fans to watch a bad team and pay through the nose, while the owners are pocketing the largest profit in baseball.
I disagree. If they don’t want to watch the games then they don’t have to go. And if the ticket prices are so high that nobody goes, they’ll have to lower their ticket prices. Supply and demand.
$55M means nothing. All businesses have the right to make a profit. If their ROI is abnormally high compared to other MLB teams, then MLB can look into it further. But if that’s not the case, I think it’s fine if they make $500M every year.
All businesses do have the right to make a profit, but if a business is deliberately putting out a shoddy product and continuing to rake in the money anyway, it’s clearly time for the attorney general to look into it (I kid). The Astros made far and away the most money in baseball last year by putting out a product that they knew was inferior. The Red Sox made less than half of that and they won the World Series. They could easily field a better team if they wanted to without compromising their ability to succeed in the long run. Local cable stations are refusing to pay to air their games because they don’t think they’d make their money back. How is that putting out a solid product that their fans can enjoy? They have a duty to do so. Not doing so and pocketing the difference is not good business.
If you look at the economics over a multi year period, and that $55M goes toward extending players to keep them in Houston, then that would in the end benefit the fan base. But, it’s my opinion that the average fans purchase power is nowhere as significant as the corporate money. If any base could make this claim it would be the Cubs base. They clearly tanked for draft position… they could though given that Wrigley fills up anyway. I’m with you… but Houston wasn’t getting to .500 with second tier free agents. Pittsburgh tried that.