Forbes reported this week that the Houston Astros, last in payroll and last in the standings, are nonetheless the most profitable team in baseball. The anouncement was followed by rending of garments and gnashing of teeth.
Stop it. Right now.
This formula is exactly the reason I severed my decades-long love affair with the Kansas City Royals and took up with the Washington Nationals when they relocated from Montreal. KC's owner, David Glass, was employing the race-to-the-bottom philosophy of his previous organization, Walmart, to keep costs low and profits high, fans be damned.
As many have observed, the 'Stros are paying just one player more than a million dollars -- veteran Eric Bedard at $1.5 mil. They have traded or released the other four players set to earn more than $1 million. Their entire payroll of $21 million is less than the Yankees spend on any one of nine players. And yet they are raking in $99 million this year.
Houston is also on pace to lose 108 games -- the worst record in a decade.
If that were Houston's modus operandi, it would be despicable -- a disaster for Texans and an affront to the game itself. But people have the chicken and egg confused. The Astros' payroll is rock bottom because the team reeks, not the other way around.
When Jim Crane bought the team, he realized that its fruitless pursuit of .500 in the waning days of the Killer-B's had sapped the farm system and saddled the team with a Swiss cheese roster. GM Jeff Luhnow, hired to de-construct and then re-construct the team, has the franchise right on schedule. By jettisoning middling talent at post-arbitration costs he has stocked the system with young talent and left spare change for free agent signings when the time is right.
The result is a team full of young players who are under either total team control or the first year or two of arbitration. Those sufficiently talented to remain on the roster will cash in eventually and those who aren't had an opportunity to play in The Show.
Will this formula work? Ask the Pirates. After nearly two decades of futility, the current administration employed the exact same plan. They too had the highest profits and the lowest payroll a few years ago. How ya like me now?
The Astros have an edge on the Pirates: the Houston market. Their massive TV deal and large market size give ownership more breathing room than they had in Pittsburgh. With the commitment, the plan and the revenue, the only question now is whether Houston baseball ops can develop the players. I'm betting on them to be a force in three or four years.
In the meantime, they have the profits.
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