Astros Owner Jim Crane Thinking About Moving the Club’s AAA Affiliate to the Woodlands Area.
Back on April 26, 2012, in an article I wrote about the new Sugar Land Skeeters, my mind moved quickly to the bigger possibility down the road that one day the Astros might be ready to entertain the idea of operating a AAA franchise in Sugar Land and a AA club in the general Woodlands area – or vice versa, by implication. The big plan would be to have the MLB Astros’ two highest minor league clubs located in the Metro area for the sake of killing two birds with one stone: (1) to make it easier and cheaper to option players back and forth between the MLB club and its two largest minor league affiliates; and (2) to give Houston fans and talent scouts a good shot look most of the time at upcoming talent.
Here’s a link to that 2012 column and what I actually wrote back then:
https://thepecanparkeagle.wordpress.com/2012/04/26/skeeters-buzzing-think-big-why-not/
It’s funny how ideas grow, isn’t it? Today there is an article out on the Internet that suggests that Mr. Jim Crane is also now thinking that it might be a good thing to relocate Houston’s AAA farm club to a new site just north of the Woodlands area.
That would be a good start, Mr. Crane. Then we could let the Rangers take over Corpus Christi, which Nolan Ryan’s family owns, anyway, and work something out with the Sugar Land people to take over a new Texas League AA franchise spot.
The Woodlands (AAA) and Sugar Land (AA) would control two discrete population markets in the Metro Houston area, yet, both would be easily available to fans of these mostly future Astros. Add to it the fact that affiliation with the Astros would make the Sugar Land Skeeters and whatever they shall end up calling the Woodlands area team a lot more interesting to the average fan.
Words on paper. Sometimes they are the stuff that dreams are made of.
The Pecan Park Eagle 
March 8, 2013 at 4:09 am |
Hmmmm …
Intriguing.
March 8, 2013 at 2:08 pm |
Not a good idea. The Astros have to reclaim their outer market, not abandon it. Furthermore, a Triple A market has to be much larger than a Houston suburb to survive. Round Rock and Corpus were perfect for helping capture the outer market. New Orleans was actually OK during the day…(consider how many Astro fans still reside in Louisiana). Elevating San Antonio to AAA and moving there would make the most sense with AA staying in Corpus Christi. The fact that the Ryan-Sanders group owns Corpus Christi is far less important that being in a propersly sized city for AA within range for fans to make trips to Houston to see the Astros.
Having a minor league affiliate within the confines of the Houston metro area might be OK, but on a level lower than AAA where the market size does matter. Oh yes, who is going to pay for construction of a 10-15,000 seat baseball stadium north of the Woodlands? That is what AAA would require. And, if there were enough people to actually draw 5000+ per game and a similar AA team was running in Sugar Land that would definitely cause a drain in Astro attendance.
The Houston market is “deceptively” large. Because of ethnic and economic make up the 4-million people in Harris County are not the same as a similarly sized county is many other areas of the country. There seems to be a higher number of non sports fans (or football only fans) in existence in that 4-million than would be
found in Chicago, Philadelphia or other locales.
It appears the Astros whole organization has turned into a “great experiment.”
March 8, 2013 at 3:06 pm |
The Astros market must be “deceptively” large. Even their own new TV market fails to recognize the existence of any fans beyond the 40% on cable who are willing to put up with Comcast, just to get the games, but TV is still the major cultivator of the “at large” fan base, not the physical sites of the AAA and AA franchises. – I’ll stick with the view that the two highest minor league clubs operating in this rather strung-out, but high in population density Metro Houston region would augment and promote the Astros among those who now fail to attend games downtown, rather than saturate baseball in the hinterlands and diminish attendance at MMP, that is, if the Astros get back to winning baseball at the MLB level. – As for great experiments, well, so what? Maybe it’s now about time for a “great experiment.” We haven’t exactly been stocking up on World Series trophies along the more traditional roads to baseball success.
March 8, 2013 at 6:01 pm |
It’s a curious thing that Crane wants to buy up and own all of the Astros’ minor league teams…perhaps so he can limit their payrolls, too. I’ve seen nothing from the guy so far that indicates he cares one whit about Astro fans in Houston. Proposing to put a AAA minor league affiliate in The Woodlands is completely uninformed for many of the reasons Greg Lucas pointed out above.
I’m also growing tired of the Houston Chronicle’s lack of objectivity in their coverage of Crane and the team. Seems they’ve become a bunch of cheerleaders, probably so as not to alienate one of their biggest advertisers.
Dreyton left the club in bad shape and Crane’s moves may pan out…or they could leave our city without a ball club when Crane opts to cut his losses and sells the team to an outside interest. Maybe that’s why he wants a team in The Woodlands…to soften that future blow.
March 11, 2013 at 8:20 pm |
I’m having a very hard time trusting this ownership group. I pray they win me over, but it hasn’t happened yet. If at my first game this April, that giant wall of crap in left field is gone and the train is doing its thing, that will be a step in the right direction.