Pam Gardner out

Brian McTaggart just tweeted that Pam Gardner - who had been the Astros' President of Baseball Operations has "voluntarily resigned" from her position, but will remain a Special Advisor to Jim Crane.

I had been curious about her role, seeing as how George Postolos had seemingly taken over those responsibilities. But now I guess we know.

Astros payroll plummeting, ticket prices remain the same

MSNBC's Darren Rovell says that the rumor is the cost of 2012 Astros season ticket packages are not being lowered.

How does that make you feel?

Deal to sell Astros is in place

Mark Berman (aka, "The Hardest Working Man in Showbusiness") has the report that Drayton has made the agreement to sell the Astros to Jim Crane.

Transfer of ownership could begin towards the middle of next week, but McLane says the MLB approval process could take four to six weeks. While they haven't announced a price, that part has apparently been agreed upon for quite some time.

Drayton is also lobbying for Pam Gardner, Tal Smith, and Ed Wade to keep their jobs...for a while:
"I have negotiated with Jim and he has definitely not told me what his plans for management...They have great people here, but one of the things a new owner can do, he can determine what leaders he wants, but I've encouraged Jim to finish the year with the group he has, but that's his decision."

In a post this morning, Justice advised Wade not to sign a long-term lease, and that the appointment of George Postolos as CEO pretty much eliminates the need for Gardner's job.

Justice:
But the Astros as we know them are in for dramatic changes. It’ll take time and millions of dollars to get them competitive on the field again, but the turnaround will begin the moment ownership of the team is transferred. And over the next year, a new franchise will take shape.

Justice questions Drayton's heart

Justice's new post has some scathing remarks for Run-DMc:

The Astros once were viewed as a really smart baseball operation. Now they're not even clowns. The Mets are clowns. The Dodgers are clowns. The Astros are so irrelevant no one even jokes about them...

...The good news is that Drayton and Pam have done such a terrible job running the franchise, that as attendance continues to spiral downward, the lines at the concession stands will be almost nonexistent. So eat, drink and watch a little hardball. At least the team in the other dugout might be pretty sporty.

Extreme Makeover: Home Plate Edition

This off-season the Astros are implementing their first renovation to Minute Maid Park since taking down that Enron sign.

Trying to keep up with the massive screen that shows us the taut skin of Jerry Jones to the north, they'll put in a 7,000 square foot HD video board in the outfield.

Drayton:
"We wanted to give fans the utmost experience...Fans have flat screen TVs and high-definition TVs at their homes, and now they'll have that at the ballpark. We need to constantly upgrade the ballpark especially in this era."

Pam Gardner:
"We've been researching this for the past 3-4 years. We knew we needed bigger, number one, because that's the trend, and we knew we needed HD."

A couple of things about this:

1. It took the Astros 3-4 years to decide on a tv. That says more than we can ever comment on. You give me $1000 and send me to Best Buy to get an HD tv, and I'll be watching Gladiator within the hour.

2. Sure, I buy the "It's been 10 years since we did anything to Minute Maid, so it was time to upgrade" rationale. We also can't discount that Drayton is basically staging his house, getting it all pretty to sell, with a cool new park and low payroll.

Thoughts?

All sorts of reasons for why attendance is down!

Bernardo Fallas notes that, through the first six games of the season, attendance at Minute Maid Park is down about 8% from last year. And here are the reasons given:

Drayton:
“The last two years, we’ve been — in my lifetime — in the worst recession any of us has ever seen. People were worried about the economy, so certainly people cut back.”

Pam Gardner:
"Our expectation entering the season was that we should be able to maintain or be very close to what we did last season. Of course, the team is a big bonus to that; if the team performs well, hopefully you can do better.”

Mo' Drayton:
“The team winning certainly adds a great deal to the attendance."

Let's see here, because weekends are where you're supposed to be able to pick up attendance numbers. Casual fans may not be willing to come out and sit through Brett Myers vs. Matt Cain on a Wednesday night. But the first weekend of the season brought the Phillies to town, where attendance was 27,288 / 35,138 / 28,619, for an average of 30,348. It should be noted that the Sunday game was the lowest Sunday attendance since a June 7, 2009 game against the Pirates (25,729). And a weekend series against the Phillies in 2009 brought an average of 32,258. It was Labor Day Weekend, but the Astros were still 14GB.

We have already discussed how the Astros are getting the screw-gee from the League Office this summer, playing on the road over Memorial Day, 4th of July, and Labor Day - so don't expect the Astros to outdraw 2009.

This "Round Rock Rangers" thing is starting to look more inevitable

Zach Levine's article today explains that the Astros are starting to look around for another Triple-A franchise, once Nolan Ryan aligns his teams.

Reid Ryan:
“All I can say is that we'll do what we do any time our contract's up. We evaluate the situation and what's best for our club and our fans. We've had great relationships with everyone working with (the Astros) and everyone who worked with them in the past.”

Ricky Bennett:
We'd love to be with them forever because of (the proximity to Houston). We're prepared to look at other alternatives in the event that we don't continue that relationship.”

Oklahoma City has often been named as the likeliest alternative, but one thing is for sure: it ain't going to be in Sugar Land.

There's an interesting report from the Chronicle saying that the city/suburb/village of Sugar Land has entered an exclusive 90-day negotiating window to bring a team in time for Opening Day 2012, playing in a stadium that would be of Triple-A size.

But there's a hitch. The Astros don't want anything to do with it. Sugar Land mayor James Thompson:
“They informed me that they did not want to be a part of it."

And since it's so close to Minute Maid Park, the Astros can also block other teams from putting an affiliate there. Opening Day Partners chairman Peter Kirk says the likeliest affiliation will be in the Atlantic League or the American Association. Both have their benefits, but Kirk says there's only one goal:

“We want to develop baseball fans. We want people to go see the Sugar Land team and then go see the Astros and vice versa.”

What Drayton and Pam Gardner don't want is a cheaper option for your baseball viewing pleasure.

I wonder if Towles was afraid of getting punched in the face

So this is what Clark means by providing some leadership (and I like it). Clark pulled Towles aside after Tuesday's game for not checking the runner at 3rd base before throwing to second. Let's let JJO set the scene for us:

Down 2-0 with a man on third, Yorman Bazardo threw a pitch in the dirt to Matt Holliday, prompting Pujols to take off to second. With Colby Rasmus primed to break home from third, Towles attempted to throw Pujols out at second.

Pujols then hesitated and extended a rundown between first and second base long enough to let Rasmus score before the Astros finally tagged Pujols out to end the inning.

Dave Clark:
“I explained to J.R. (Tuesday) night, and so did Eddie (Romero), in a situation like that when you first come up, when a catcher comes up to throw is to peek at third base. (Tuesday) night if he had peeked he would have realized the guy was off third base quite a bit. He could have probably gotten the out at third. That was taken care of as well. I was that young player before. And I made some mistakes, physical and mental. When I had a manager or coach come up to explain to me, I made sure it didn't happen again. Those are things that you never forget.”
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We also read that JJO seems to have taken exception to Pam Gardner laughed off "blatant false advertising" (JJO's incarnate words, not mine) for not taking more swift action to prevent Spanish-language radio stations from running ads that the Astros were playing the Rojos de Cincinnati, and not the Medias Rojas (de Boston).

Gardner initially joked that it was to get more fans in the seats (funny), but JJO got all huffy (not funny), getting an apology from Gardner. Maybe Gardner just figured that Spanish-speaking Astros fans were smart enough to realize that there was no possible way the Red Sox would be playing in Houston in the last two weeks of the regular season. Just a guess.