Houston Astros: Jim Crane: Playoffs, Not .500 Ball

The off season is underway for the Houston Astros and the team is fresh off a nearly 20-win improvement from the previous season.

This season, the Astros finished 70-92 versus a 51-111 record fro 2013 which was a franchise record for futility.

It seems as if the team’s stride to move in the other direction toward improvement is imminent.

I, as many other Astros fans, have waited for this turning point for quite some time.

Now we have some proof that big things are hopefully about to happen.

Earlier this month, the Houston Chronicle’s Evan Drellich reported that it’s quite possible that Astros’ owner Jim Crane would increase the team’s payroll by $20 million for next season.

Crane wanting to spend money? What?

I honestly had to reread the quote to make sure that I understood it correctly.

Yep, he said it.

He mentioned it shortly after participating in the Astros Foundation’s — the team’s charity — 2nd annual golf tourney Oct. 7.

Here’s what he said:

"“I think somewhere around that,” he said. “We’re not going to spend it to spend it. We’re going to try to spend it effectively and you know if we need to stretch a little, we’ll stretch a little. If there’s not a good reason to do that, we won’t do that. But you know we’ll continue to move it up.”"

Okay, so he’s willing but being cautious with spending. That’s what we’d expect.

But then here was the kicker.

"“We certainly want to try to make the playoffs. You never know with some of the teams that are making it this year. Looked like 88 wins got in. You always want to get in the postseason if we can.”"

I nearly fell out of my chair when reading that.

Why? Up until this season, I had come to believe that Crane was becoming the fictional Rachel Phelps of MLB owners, spending as little as possible just to keep the franchise functionally operational and not adding much talent to dilute the product. Who knows? I was thinking he’d move the team elsewhere out of the Bayou City.

I know that sound bytes are not sworn testimony but I seem to believe the guy, that he’s genuinely interested in winning and making money as well.

If those two work hand-in-hand, he gets what he wants and Astros’ fans get what they want — a competitive, quality product out on the field.

This is all contingent of the resolution of all of the CSN Houston mess — a joint venture of the Astros, Houston Rockets and Comcast.

The network has been operating under bankruptcy protection for about a year now and is hemorrhaging close to $9 million a month.

The Astros were to receive rights fees from the network which was supposed to fund spending increases in payroll.

Crane said that the team received half of the agreed fees in 2013 and not one dime in 2014 because of the network’s floundering status.

With AT&T/DirecTV coming to rescue to buy the network, a new television carriage rights deal will be brokered pending bankruptcy court approval.

I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t be approved. It’s just a matter of settling who gets what.