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2023 Official Astros World Champs Offseason Thread


tx 3 putt

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These numbers show that the benefits of the pitch clock far outweigh the drawbacks. The players are still getting used to it yet the violations are already less than 1 per team per game. That number will continue to decline. One surprising thing is the number of calls against batters. I didn’t really consider that a major factor. My focus was primarily on the effect on the pitcher. 

 

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49 minutes ago, UTexasFight said:

I do not  like this Hunter Whitley mashup 

Blanco >>> brown or Whitley 

10 minutes ago, Mo Horn said:

MLB app not showing the game today, so I can't watch, but it looks like Blanco had another great outing. 


790 iheart radio app for spring training games 

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16 minutes ago, TonyTexas said:

These numbers show that the benefits of the pitch clock far outweigh the drawbacks. The players are still getting used to it yet the violations are already less than 1 per team per game.

The players will adjust, but it has effects beyond just violations, e.g:

Luis also said he threw a FB when he really wanted to throw a cutter in his outing yesterday because he the clock was running down. 

 

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On 2/26/2023 at 11:08 AM, Wulaw Horn said:

Cross posting from another site after the Machado deal and what it means to salaries heading into this new world where RSN's are going bankrupt...

 

I think the Padres (especially with the RSN's going BK) have just fundamentally misread the market.  If MLB has to distribute carriage through their site and streaming and baseball becomes a subscription model almost every team is going to take a huge economic hickey.   I cant imagine the price point on an Astros sub being more than $100.00 a year for an individual team.  How many people they think going to pay that on top of their other cable bills and subscription services?  40K?  50k? 100K?  There are a shitload of Astros fans I know that are pretty serious about being Astros fans that won't switch to Direct TV to get them.  Will they do a separate $100 a year bill?  Maybe?  But I sort of don't think so.  So, lets say you get 100k people to pay you $100.00 a year.  That's all of 10M  And that's before you even get into cost to produce the game.  Can they get a million people around Houston to pay them $100 a year or 10 a month or something?  I'm highly skeptical.  Even if they could you are talking what 100M in gross?   Take out all the production costs (which teams don't currently pay and what do you have left? I don't know. But I suspect those salaries and carmeras and tech's and engineers and guys working in the truck add up to a decent amount of money.  
 
Team distributing itself (essentially through MLB) would get to keep commercial costs.  Typically that runs on local TV somewhere around $5-10 per 1,000 viewers.  Call it 100k views during a normal game and that makes every 30 second commercial worth about $500.00 per spot on the low end and $1,000 per spot on the high end.  Figure on about 40 or 50 available spots during the game plus pre and post game and you are talking about something like $50,000 per game game at the upper level I'd think.  So- $10M or so in commercial costs?  My suspicion is that MLB wouldn't even cover production costs with the advertising, but lets say they did- that makes it something like needing 700,000 paid subscribers to make up for the $70M they are currently getting from AT&T sports net.  Good luck. I don't see that happening.  And the Astros are at the top of the success cycle. How manly people in Pittsburg want to fork out any money to watch on a sub service?  
 
Yeah- this seems like a seismic shock that is going to make every deal passed out this winter look crazy.  
 
At the end of the day these guys are probably smarter than me- or at least they know more and have already identified the greater fool that's going to pay them for linear distribution and the sub is all add on and they will be ok.  
 
But, in the world where people cord cut every content producer is going to get hammered (and there's going to be a lot less content) as everything becomes niche like.  

Where are my assumptions wrong?  Where do the numbers need to be tightened up on revenue in or cost out?  This is all very preliminary back of the envelope math and hell- I'm open to the idea I could be off by a factor of 2 or 3

Late in catching up here but I've read through the last page and wanted to add a few thoughts for you here. 

1) The Astros and MLB knew the regional networks were in trouble. They've been thinking about choices for more than a few weeks. You're overestimating the financial pain by a wide margin.

2) The comparison between DTV and Comcast to the streaming options is not apples to apples. An installed device for a home service is a significant impediment for any customer when it comes to switching. I've acquired/switched/moved/managed millions of customer relationships from 2001 forward in the home services space, in conjunction with the big player providers and as a provider as well. The switch rates for services with devices - video platforms like DTV or cable; high speed; ADT/security; landlines back in the day; etc., are tiny when you remove movers (uncontrollable churn) from the math. When a device isn't involved and the market involves choice (ie., no monopolies) - electricity; insurance; streaming; natural gas; etc. - the churn rates are through the fucking roof. 4x-10x as large. 

3) Why does that matter? Because people add and remove streaming at the spur of a moment and the impact is immediate and hassle free. Changing from Dish Network to DTV or Comcast, or simply getting the service installed, takes a legitimate commitment. Minutes to hours on the phone, waiting for someone to show up, dig around in your house and/or roof, fuck with your tv, etc. Not instant at all and a ridiculous pain in the ass. That friction keeps even true fans away, as you've witnessed. Offering streaming at scale with a large marketing push and reasonable pricing would have significantly higher take rates than you're assuming in this thread. 

  • Hook 'Em 6
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52 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

Blanco >>> brown or Whitley 


790 iheart radio app for spring training games 

Thanks. MLB app was broadcasting the radio feed so I could have listened. I'm at work and can stream a game without sound, but can't listen to a radio broadcast sometimes. Today was one of those days. 

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2 hours ago, closetojumping said:

Late in catching up here but I've read through the last page and wanted to add a few thoughts for you here. 

1) The Astros and MLB knew the regional networks were in trouble. They've been thinking about choices for more than a few weeks. You're overestimating the financial pain by a wide margin.

2) The comparison between DTV and Comcast to the streaming options is not apples to apples. An installed device for a home service is a significant impediment for any customer when it comes to switching. I've acquired/switched/moved/managed millions of customer relationships from 2001 forward in the home services space, in conjunction with the big player providers and as a provider as well. The switch rates for services with devices - video platforms like DTV or cable; high speed; ADT/security; landlines back in the day; etc., are tiny when you remove movers (uncontrollable churn) from the math. When a device isn't involved and the market involves choice (ie., no monopolies) - electricity; insurance; streaming; natural gas; etc. - the churn rates are through the fucking roof. 4x-10x as large. 

3) Why does that matter? Because people add and remove streaming at the spur of a moment and the impact is immediate and hassle free. Changing from Dish Network to DTV or Comcast, or simply getting the service installed, takes a legitimate commitment. Minutes to hours on the phone, waiting for someone to show up, dig around in your house and/or roof, fuck with your tv, etc. Not instant at all and a ridiculous pain in the ass. That friction keeps even true fans away, as you've witnessed. Offering streaming at scale with a large marketing push and reasonable pricing would have significantly higher take rates than you're assuming in this thread. 

Thanks for the input. Was trying To draw out someone with more knowledge than my back of the envelope maths. 

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7 minutes ago, Seasick Sailor said:

Anyone else having trouble with the presale link? Tickets were supposed to go on sale at 10:00am, but the buy tickets box is till grayed out on my end even after multiple refreshes.  

The site was just a couple of minutes behind. Should be good to go for everyone now. If anyone needs a code, this one should work: LOT8S6WMVZ

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17 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

 

the initial tweet was about players who have played on the dodgers over the past 5 years.  their lineup shows a ton of talent, since they keep trading for high dollar guys and letting them walk (sherzer, machado, trea turner, etc).  the dodgers lineup also featured several guys who are not quite in their prime, even if you used 2021-22, like bellinger, buehler, pujols, and so forth.

the punchline is the current astros lineup is not much different than the "last 5 years" lineup.

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47 minutes ago, Hank Chinaski said:

I love Pena, but let’s see him get his OBP north of .300 (really, .330) before comparing him to Correa. 

Pena seemed to make the necessary adjustments late in the season. His postseason OBP was .367

We'll see how many games Correa plays in a non-contract year.

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