Astros owner Jim Crane says that the club’s payroll could increase by about $20MM next year, as Evan Drellich of the Houston Chronicle reports. Increased payroll availability does not mean that the team will use that cash, Crane cautioned, though he sounded willing to spend if it makes baseball sense.
“I think somewhere around [$20MM],” said Crane. “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 up.”
Houston started 2014 with about $50MM in payroll on the books, meaning that the team could move into the $70MM range next year. The club has less than $18MM guaranteed heading into the offseason, but will need to pay arbitration raises to several players, including Dexter Fowler, Jason Castro, and Chris Carter.
Crane added that the club’s television rights fee situation will have a major role in setting future spending. “A couple of years ago we only got paid half of our rights fees,” he explained. “This year we didn’t get paid anything and this year hopefully we go back and get something paid for our coverage and it’ll have a big impact on what we’ll be able to spend on the team.” Specifically, Crane indicated that a nine-figure budget could be in the cards depending upon how the TV situation shakes out.
In terms of where that money might be allocated, Crane said that GM Jeff Luhnow would look to “add some more cornerstones.” As the team continues to work to add talent to its developing young core, Crane indicated that it might be expected to sign two or three major league free agents this year.
What’s up with their TV contract?
From my understanding… 40% of Houston had access to the channel. The rest of us were left in the dark. The radio feed changed stations to a station that hardly anyone 20 miles out of the city could tune to.
CSN Houston went bankrupt and has failed to pay their TV rights.
It’s in bankruptcy court. Judge is coming close to deciding whether to allow a sale of the RSN.
David Barron of the Houston Chronicle has been all over it, if you want to catch up.
They also found their Adam Dunn (- the walks/OBP) prototype in Chris Carter. I still find it remarkable that a guy with such poor plate discipline can hit 37 homers. Either way I think they would be wise to shop him around and see if anyone would like to overpay for homeruns.
Dunn minus the walks and OBP sounds more like Trumbo than Dunn
Youre right, haha I was looking for a better comparison. I almost put Granderson actually but hes had seasons with decent OBP. Trumbo works though.
trumbo is slightly worse than carter
Not sure how. Trumbo’s 2013 was pretty much the same as Carter’s 2014.
He isn’t Trumbo though. Not sure I would say he has no plate discipline. He just strikes out so much. He takes a ton of walks though, Trumbo takes no walks.
Now their payroll will be $25M!
Anyone still with the rosy projections somewhere between years 2015-2017 for this team? JD Martinez, Cosart, Bo Porter, turn down for what? I’ll give ya Altuve & Keuchel & Springer but Singleton & draft picks are looking sketchy.
And people thought Singleton was nuts for taking that extension. It was only bad for him if he became an all star right away.
He still is nuts.
Maybe spend it signing your draftees, Crane.
Astros have three big mashers who can’t hit for average to save their lives, strikeout at an alarmingly high rate but who also draw walks and drive in runs. The middle of their lineup can either be a giant hole or a devastating inning. Pretty interesting!