Paging Mr. Cuban: Take a trip down I-45, the Astros would like to speak with you
by Evan Hochschild on Dec 21, 2009 10:51 AM CST
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23 comments
So Richard Justice has a new idea, and frankly, I sort of like it. What if instead of another nameless businessman as pro sports team owner, Drayton McLane sold the Astros to a businessman with a name above all else- Mark Cuban?
Cuban certainly improved the Dallas Mavericks in recent years- turning the Mavs into a respectable lot after years of being a terrible organization with a fanbase that was pretty much non existent. I can vividly remember watching Rockets vs. Mavericks games in 1993, 1994 and wondering what it would be like to be a fan of a team that was as bad as the Mashburn-Jackson-Kidd Mavericks. Flash forward 15 years and the Astros are almost as bad, almost as hopeless.
The difference in the two clubs is that the Mavericks had to wait until 2000 to start their relationship with the Pittsburgh native turned billionaire. Our Astros, should McLane decide to pursue a sale earnestly, could find themselves across the table from Cuban in a negotiations session sooner rather than later.
Does Cubes have any intentions as far as becoming an owner on some level of a MLB team? Well, he flirted with the idea of buying the Chicago Cubs, but that never materialized as the Cubs have found new ownership. There is the potential hurdle of getting the stodgier, more set in their ways MLB and their respective club owners to sign off on a renegade of sorts becoming one of their peers.
If money talks like I think it does, this shouldn't be an issue. Bud Selig has turned MLB as much into a profit making vehicle as a professional sports league- whether it be moving back start times for World Series games to get prime TV time for advertisers and networks, to overseeing the evolution of free agent contracts, Selig understands the importance of the financial viability as much as any league commissioner.
On the micro level, the city of Houston could benefit greatly from Mark Cuban owning the Astros. While it's not as if the Rockets, Texans and Astros are laughingstocks, none of these franchises are visible nationally. Take that trip up I-45 and you find yourself in Dallas with at least two of the three professional sports teams (the Stars don't count with me. If you like hockey, I'm sorry, but your league is on life support) are well known nationally- the Cowboys and Mavericks. Even the Rangers, one of the more forgettable MLB teams, are making national headlines- albeit for less than desirable reasons. The striking thing about this, is that outside the Mavs, none of the Dallas teams have accomplished all that much in the past decade and a half.
The Cowboys have a history of losing in December that dates back nearly 15 years. Imagine the Yankees not winning their division or even winning a playoff series since 1996. Now imagine them still getting the lion's share of attention on ESPN. That's the Dallas Cowboys. They've been able to stay in the national consciousness because they have a history of winning, but also because they have an owner, Jerry Jones, that has pushed boundaries and made headlines. Bottom line: they're interesting.
Back to the Cuban front, the Mavericks have a lone Finals appearance to show for their near decade of great play. Their owner though, has given them every opportunity to win, has changed a losing culture and like Jerry Jones has perfected the art of turning controversy into revenue and attention. Unlike Jones though, Cuban has turned that notoriety into consistent winning.
Yes, I realize the chances of a) Mark Cuban being interested in buying the Astros b) the MLB establishment giving the OK on the sale, and c) a Mavericks-like success story occurring is slim. But hey, it's December 21st. A guy can dream, and so can a city. So Mark, come on down to Houston. We're not that much different than Dallas. We don't have a riverwalk (I hear you have problems with those), and the MLB/NBA seasons don't overlap all that much. Just think about it. Rest assured, Astros fans are.
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as you've alluded to...
the prevailing view seems to be that the mlb owners will never approve Cuban. In interviews, Cuban hasn’t dispelled the notion that he is too radical for many of the owners, but it doesn’t seem to keep him from continuing to show interest in owning a baseball team. Some bloggers like to refer to the baseball owners and their tradition-bound GMs as “lodge members.” I think Cuban doesn’t fit in as a racoon hat wearing lodge member. Perhaps if he made a very generous offer to McLane and McLane (as a card carrying member of the lodge) vouched for his character, he might get in.
by clack on Dec 21, 2009 11:02 AM CST reply actions 0 recs
I agree with the points mostly of a sports type person buying the astros instead of just some big buisnessman…but cuban? I don’t have any other names or options to present, but i can say that i absolutely hate cuban. I know most of ya’ll are probably rockets fans, but i personally am a spurs fan as i’m from about an hour and a half from san an and 2 and a half from houston. I’m personally just not a fan of cuban and would be disgusted if he was the owner
by Subber10 on Dec 21, 2009 11:03 AM CST reply actions 0 recs
being a Rockets fan makes me hate Cuban
but man he’d be GREAT for us when compared to Drayton. sadly this whole thing is irrelevant because of the aforementioned necessary “ok” just wouldn’t happen.
by robolundgren on Dec 21, 2009 6:55 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
I like the idea of Cuban
Generally.
But let’s be honest: Cuban would just be a younger Drayton. If we thought Andy Petitte and Drayton were bad, what happens when Cuban pulls the Steve Nash version of a baseball trade (Does Wandy get let go)? What about Cuban’s just botched drafts? Do we really want another GM bringing in the Jason Kidds of the baseball world at the expense of youth and ability?
Admittedly, that’s a little harsh. I could also see Cuban going the route of sabermetrics overload and just handing the baton off to a fleet of laptop toting guys when their heads in the spreadsheets, too. But, I just can’t see Cuban staying hands-off-ish enough to be a good upgrade.
Oh, he’d spend, but I just don’t know that we’d be happy with what he spent the money on.
The Crawfishboxes
A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.
by Stephen Higdon on Dec 21, 2009 11:03 AM CST reply actions 1 recs
And by Steven Nash version of a baseball trade
I clearly mean free agent negotiation.
The Crawfishboxes
A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.
by Stephen Higdon on Dec 21, 2009 11:08 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
By the way, that photo of Cuban reminds me...
of Bobby Valentine wearing a disguise in the dugout. Do you recall that ESPN game of the week? Valentine was ejected by the umpire, and came back to the dugout wearing a mustache and sunglasses disguise. I thought it was hilarious, but MLB didn’t.
by clack on Dec 21, 2009 11:17 AM CST reply actions 0 recs
The Crawfish Boxes, Astros blogging at its finest.
by Evan Hochschild on Dec 21, 2009 11:22 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Your mention of the Lodge membership
reminds me of this old photo of Drayton and Steinbrenner:
by ol Pete on Dec 21, 2009 11:43 AM CST up reply actions 2 recs
lol!
never even heard of that, absolutely priceless
by robolundgren on Dec 21, 2009 6:56 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
No, no, a thousand times no.
Mark Cuban is a whiny, petulant child of a team owner. You’re tired of Drayton meddling in baseball affairs? You don’t like his ridiculous statements?
Drayton is what Cuban will be in thirty years.
by Only_A_Lad on Dec 21, 2009 5:11 PM CST reply actions 0 recs
Cuban
Is at least an outside of the box thinker. You’re a hoops guy. Listen to any Bill Simmons podcast and whenever Cuban comes up, everyone involved talks about how he is always ahead of the curve.
When MIT had that huge statistics/analytics convention earlier in the year, the one Morey attended, Cuban was there too. Could you ever see Drayton at a place like that? No. Cuban is petulant, but he is noteworthy, interesting and passionate.
For the record, I don’t mind Drayton’s ridiculous statements. What do we want him to say, “Well, we’re just gonna flat out suck this season. Russ Ortiz? Mike Hampton? Who are we trying to kid. Let’s fold up camp and save ourselves the effort.”
The Crawfish Boxes, Astros blogging at its finest.
by Evan Hochschild on Dec 21, 2009 5:20 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
yeah, I agree with you, HLP.
I like the fact that Cuban will try new things…that’s why the racoon hats don’t like him. I don’t have doubt that any baseball team he owns will be more statistics saavy than most teams. I vaguely recall that he has hinted as much when he was chasing the Cubs. He will try some things which are bad ideas, too, but that comes with the territory. He will mettle in the operations side too much, but maybe the more saber oriented front office would restrain from making too many mistakes. Personally, I’m not wild about Cuban because of his whining during Rockets-Mavs playoff series. But I do respect his independence.
by clack on Dec 21, 2009 5:43 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Yeah, he's an "outside the box" thinker
He was the mastermind behind the Jason Kidd – Devin Harris trade. I mean, at the time that looked stupid. Here’s a 24 year-old guard, lightning-quick, and a fantastically efficient scorer. Who does he replace him with? A point guard a decade older, who by now is largely reduced to being a spot-up shooter from behind the arc, and whose best defensive days are behind him. Kidd’s still a good player, but he’s not worth an up-and-coming star and two first round picks. The goal (particularly in a salary cap system, but it applies to all sports) is to get younger and cheaper, not older and slower.
I’ll give him credit for owning one of the relatively few teams (and yet almost all of them make the playoffs every year… how odd) that really looks at basketball stats. In that sense, he’s way ahead of his times.
But let’s not forget that there was a time when Drayton was relatively advanced, too. He employed good people, some of whom were at least versed in the most basic of stats (Tal Smith), and he spent money in new and interesting ways (Venezuela). The point is not that Cuban is somehow archaic – far from it.
It’s that Cuban, ultimately, is not a statistician, nor does he have a particularly good eye for talent, and yet he involves himself intimately in the Mavs’ basketball affairs. That’s been working so far, mostly because he bought a team with a fantastic all-star power forward about to burst onto the scene, as well as one of the best point guards of the last twenty years (sound familiar?). He inherited Nowitzki and Nash. And even when he totally messed up the Nash situation, there were others there to take up the slack. But when the Mavs didn’t get perfect success, he messed around with coaches and personnel. Now, that appears to be working this season, and Dallas is probably going to win the division, but it establishes a pattern.
And that pattern is a pretty simple one: Mark Cuban can’t and won’t let the people he pays to analyze basketball data and make basketball decisions run the show. Drayton does the same damn thing, and eventually Cuban’s luck is going to run out just as Drayton’s did. “Eventually” isn’t that far off, either, because – just as with Drayton – his success is intimately tied with Nowitzki’s career, so in five or six years, when Dirk’s jumpshot isn’t falling quite as often and he’s just not as quick as he used to be, and when Kidd is a distant memory, I think we’ll be seeing the same sort of thing as what is going on now with the Astros. Maybe it won’t be as bad, simply because Cuban’s meddling is at least based upon better data, but the result will be roughly the same.
No, I don’t want someone like Cuban to own the Astros. I’d prefer someone like Les Alexander to do so – a guy who recognizes that advanced statistical analysis is a great tool with which one can create a winning baseball team, who is willing to pay the money it takes to create that winning team, and who is also willing to let his baseball people do their job. The Red Sox have that sort of owner (well, a group of owners). That’s the sort of thing I hope for.
by Only_A_Lad on Dec 21, 2009 5:53 PM CST up reply actions 1 recs
Cuban would be terrible at running a team. But he's not abysmal.
He did push for that Kidd trade, and it was completely retarded at the time, especially in Avery’s stagnant offensive system with limited ball movement (basically, it was one-on-one and two-on-two…and occasionally kicking out to perimeter guys who couldn’t actually shoot).
But that Kidd trade isn’t that bad now. Kidd is exactly what the Mavs need right now in their current system: a guy who leads the break and gets the ball in the right spots to Dirk, Jason Terry, Josh Howard and Shawn Marion, and finds baskets for role players. He’s developed that spot-up three to the point now where it’s extremely reliable. He might be slow as hell, but not many players have his defensive savvy, and now he doesn’t really need to be guarding anyone when considering how the Mavs have gotten better defensively. Harris is a stud, but even he has an injury tag around him and he wouldn’t have gotten the opportunity in Dallas to do what he’s doing in New Jersey. He’s not as good of a fit in Carlisle’s current “up-tempo” offense; he would’ve been a lot more effective with Avery (on the verge of a breakout before he got hurt and then got traded). Those two first-rounders (especially the 2010 one) weren’t smart, but the way things look now, they’re going to end up in the 20s, and that doesn’t cost you too much (and the Mavs have a fair track record of drafting what they can from those spots: Beaubois looks impressive, and Calathes, Foster and Nivins may be useful bit players down the road).
The Nash situation? His logic can be justified. He was already offering 4/40 to a guy who was 30, couldn’t play a lick of D (had just been absolutely shredded by Mike Bibby in the 04 playoffs) and was rather injury-prone. Nash was just the perfect fit for the SSOL system D’Antoni ran, and that’s not Cuban’s fault: he offered a pretty good price, but Phoenix just offered a lot more. He wouldn’t have put up those numbers playing behind Dirk and the scorers they had (14/8 with Dirk, Jamison, Finley, Walker in 03-04). The stupid part? Paying 6/72 for Erick Dampier.
I think Don Nelson gets most of the credit for building the Mavs’ success (drafting Dirk, trading for Nash). And Donnie generally been able to do his thing in recent years with limited interference. But it’s not stupid to say that Mark Cuban was the guy who provided the cash and the optimism that got the Mavericks back up from a squalid decade. Undoubtedly better than Ross Perot Jr. or if Tom Hicks owned the Mavs instead of the Rangers.
Basically, I don’t think Cuban’s going to meddle seriously with a baseball franchise (like Jerry Jones) if he owned one. Sure, he’s going to have a say in things, but I don’t think he’s going to have a major influence, especially since baseball decisions tend to be more difficult than basketball (with farm systems and draft signings and such). You probably need a strong-minded GM who does get his moves right though. I think he’ll provide a fairly solid payroll to work with, and you know he’s definitely going to hype things up and boost excitement, which may be what the Astros need. As long as he doesn’t fire Bobby Heck or anything…but if he bickers with Ed Wade, things could end badly.
And Cuban as a fan? I love his passion and the fact that he gives a shit, but yeah, he can be a dickhead. His booing campaign on Mike Finley was unspeakable. He gets a bit over-the-top with the referees thing (filing the complaint was stupid, nothing ever happens out of it and everybody cops it once in a while), but hey, remember Dwyane Wade and 2006?
After all that, I’d say Cuban isn’t a bad choice, but he’s maybe a little iffy, and you’d think there’s maybe a guy who’s more baseball-savvy than he is.
Remember to retire Fin's number, Mark.
by jonthefon on Dec 22, 2009 5:11 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
why in the world
would he have bypassed getting into the ownership opportunities of one of the best up and coming teams with tons of talent up and down the system,in the town where he lives, and instead get in with a team with no talent throughout the system and no future whatsoever? The Rangers may have been forgettable in the past 10 years, but the headlines they are getting now are far more desirable than the deathwatch this city has on this franchise….I mean you are saying that Nolan Ryan taking ownership is a non desirable headline? Come on man…….
by kmoneytime on Dec 21, 2009 10:45 PM CST reply actions 0 recs
The Astros have more value than the Rangers. An investor has to take a long term view, and the team’s current talent level has very little to do with a long term appraisal of value. Besides those things (talent) can be changed fairly rapidly in baseball with money.
I’m not saying that Cuban would or would not have interest in the Astros. However, he has shown a preference for high value franchises (Cubs). I also think that approval is less likely if he owns another major sports franchise in the same city.
by clack on Dec 22, 2009 8:25 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
How do the Astros have more value, short or long term than the Rangers?
Apart from maybe whatever Forbes values financially (but I have no idea about those figures), the Rangers, baseball-wise, have a young team coming off a 87-win season and a top farm system. The Astros have an old team who won 74 games, and a rather barren system. The Rangers would look more attractive to a potential owner, with the promise of future success, unless they get scared away by being in the same market as the Cowboys and the same suburb as Jerryworld. Tom Hicks made a profit on the Rangers, even though they’ve been generally poor since he bought the team…though obviously it doesn’t help him now.
Buying the Astros now would have to mean starting over and dealing players for prospects. They would have to deal with the Texans (who are pretty much on the verge of playoffs football, just need some luck) and the Rockets (savvy organisation as a whole), but there’s an opportunity there, but it would take time.
Remember to retire Fin's number, Mark.
by jonthefon on Dec 22, 2009 11:14 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
The value has more to do with markets and revenues than any near term construction of the team. For quite some time, the Astros have been a better revenue generating team, including last year. On more of an intangible point, the Astros have better branding than the Rangers. Perhaps that has more to do wtih stability and tradition. And they are in a better market. The fact that the Rangers will always compete with one of the most powerful franchises in sports history (Cowboys) will always distract from their value.
by clack on Dec 23, 2009 8:25 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
If a new owner added $15 milion to last year’s budget, the Astros would be in the thick of contention. That would maintain the team’s profile in the market. If I were a billionaire and owned the team, I would pursue that path. Most new owners would prefer that path so that it doesn’t look like they took over in order to sell off the team. In that sense, by cutting the budget, McLane makes it easier on a new owner to look like the good guy.
by clack on Dec 23, 2009 8:33 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
True.
But it still does look like this team needs an overhaul, too much money tied up in certain places and a lot of holes.
But the entire situation in Houston is pretty solid: the franchise has had a solid reputation of playing winning baseball, they’ve got a relatively new ballpark etc.
Remember to retire Fin's number, Mark.
by jonthefon on Dec 23, 2009 6:58 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
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