Game Thread: MLB's Contingency Plan To Keep Attendance Down Has Astros Hosting Rangers In St. Pete. August 29-31

[saddles]

Look for some great attendance numbers in this series.

 

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Inbox: What's on deck for Ronald Guzman?

 

[True Rangers Fan]

Apparently the Rangers turned down the request to switch the location of the series in September with Houston. Houston GM Reid Ryan spoke out publicly against the decision. More to come.

 

[jta4437]

Don't see why they wouldn't just flip them, or host the game and then donate the profits to disaster relief in Houston

 

[True Rangers Fan]

Don't see why they wouldn't just flip them, or host the game and then donate the profits to disaster relief in Houston

If they flipped them, the Rangers would play 4 consecutive series on the road in September, and they didn't want to do that.

 

[Kelleyman]

Took a month off and then some. Hope all you guys are well. Tough times for Houston, son is down there ok though. Making a big deal out of this seems a bit out of perspective. Any hate re this is in my opinion out of line

 

[Kelleyman]

Going to be interesting listening to this. Sure JD will take the high road on air

 

[Nightcrawler]

It would've screwed the Rangers fans too.

I mean the fans who have already bought tickets for the late September series.

The Astros fans weren't going to see their team this week anyway because of the weather. It would've been a great deal for them and not so much for the Rangers.

The Astros pretty much have the west locked up and the Rangers are fighting for their playoff lives so it made no sense to make things even harder on this team just to appease the Astros who are already secure in their playoff positioning.

 

[True Rangers Fan]

In a shocking development, Astros fans are outraged.

 

[saddles]

The Astros are giving up three home games anyway and they may have to do the same on the weekend. Even if the Rangers didn't want to give up their home dates later on it would still make sense to play these three here instead of in Florida where no one will want to go. The Astros would have made more money in gate receipts here and they would have stayed closer to Houston.

 

[Kelleyman]

The Astros are giving up three home games anyway and they may have to do the same on the weekend. Even if the Rangers didn't want to give up their home dates later on it would still make sense to play these three here instead of in Florida where no one will want to go. The Astros would have made more money in gate receipts here and they would have stayed closer to Houston.

Maybe the thought was they would have a more of a home field advantage in Tampa. Make the Rangers travel gives them an edge. Who knows. Been more sympathy here but sure Astros want home field in playoffs

 

[True Rangers Fan]

The Astros are giving up three home games anyway and they may have to do the same on the weekend. Even if the Rangers didn't want to give up their home dates later on it would still make sense to play these three here instead of in Florida where no one will want to go. The Astros would have made more money in gate receipts here and they would have stayed closer to Houston.

It's a better narrative for social media idiots to think that the Rangers are just being dicks.

 

[True Rangers Fan]

So, after thinking on this, it seems that the Astros are of the mindset that the ONLY right move here is that the Rangers also give up 3 home games, be it now or in September. But we're the dicks.

 

[saddles]

Jamey Newberg shared a Joe Sheehan newsletter email that puts this thing in perspective. I will give some excerpts in the next few posts.

This isn’t all that rare an occurrence; every few years, a series ends up being relocated due to one incident or another.



Back in 2015, civil unrest in Baltimore caused the Orioles and Rays to play a series scheduled for Camden Yards at Tropicana Field. The Orioles were the “home” team -- batted last and everything -- but the games were played at The Trop and were not “exchanged” for later home dates. Back in 2008, the Astros played a late-season series with the Cubs at Miller Park, due to Hurricane Ike’s effects on Houston. The year before that, the Indians and Angels dodged a snowstorm in Cleveland by playing up in Milwaukee as well.

 

[saddles]

This particular bit of rescheduling seems obvious. While the ballpark in Houston is unscathed, the city itself is underwater. Traveling in and around it is challenging at best, and the city has no business assigning public-safety officers to a ballgame this week. Given the Orioles/Rays series as a recent example of a team sacrificing home games, and other examples of teams moving weather-challenged series to neutral sites with domes, playing these games in St. Pete shouldn’t have raised eyebrows.



Enter Reid Ryan. Ryan, the Astros president, posted a version of events that threw the Rangers under the bus. “We went to the Rangers and said hey let’s switch series. ... They rejected that and didn’t want to do that. The Rangers wanted us to play the next 3 days at their place, but they did not want to trade series with us.”



That’s all factually correct, but it leaves out a fairly important point: changing home dates on one day’s notice, and changing home dates on four weeks’ notice, are not equivalent burdens.



Let’s work the problem. Start with this: all of what follows is in the framework of baseball and the concerns of these teams. I am well aware that there is a bigger picture, but presumably Reid Ryan was as well when he threw his tantrum. Let’s concede that these three games were going to be played, and they were absolutely not going to be played in Houston this week. That left three options.

 

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Swap Home Series



This is one of those solutions that seems fair on the surface, but falls apart when you look at it just a little more closely. The Astros are scheduled to go to Arlington for three games September 25-27, during the season’s final week. Ryan, and presumably other members of the Astros’ braintrust, wanted to switch the two series, play at Arlington this week and have the Rangers come to Houston next month.



The biggest problem with that is it takes the burden of the rescheduling and lays it entirely at the feet of Rangers ticket holders. Forget the logistics; the Rangers were prepared to host three baseball games this week, just as the staff at The Trop will. Their fans, however, would have had their September tickets turned into August ones on a day’s notice. Some may have been able to attend in any case, but no doubt many not only would not have, they also would not have been able to move their tickets on the secondary market. (As a practical matter, it would have fallen to the Rangers to refund or exchange the tickets of fans unable to make the earlier game dates.)



This move would have benefited those with tickets to this week’s contests -- now rescheduled with plenty of notice -- and the Astros themselves, who would not lose three home dates. In the discussion, there’s some elision between “Houston” and “the Astros.” The vast majority of Astros fans are unaffected and would be unaffected by wherever the game was to be played: they’ll be watching on television or following on the radio.



This would not have been an equal swap. It would have merely shifted the burdens and the costs from the Astros to the Rangers, from Astros ticket holders to Rangers ticket holders.

 

[saddles]

Play At Arlington



Once a series swap wasn’t in play, this was the most obvious solution. Per multiple reports, the Rangers were willing to host the games in the manner the Rays hosted the Orioles -- treating the visitors as the home team -- while giving the Astros all the revenue. This would have certainly generated more money for the Astros than moving the series to Florida will, and by Thursday could well have become an event that Texans could rally around, raising money for hurricane victims as the state’s two teams squared off in a pennant race.



The Astros were unwilling to do this. Ryan cited “the integrity of the schedule,” which is a nice turn of phrase that apparently also includes “asking the Rangers to extend a long road trip by three games down the stretch” under its umbrella. It’s not as if these games are critical to the Astros, who have a 13-game lead in the AL West and entered the night with a six-game lead over the Red Sox for the #1 seed in the American League. They would even keep the single most important part of home-field advantage, batting last. Despite all of these concessions, the Astros -- who had to know they would be losing the three home games under any circumstance -- demurred.

 

[saddles]

Play At Tropicana Field



It’s hard to see choosing Tropicana Field over Globe Life Stadium as anything other than spiteful. On short notice, more money would have been made in Arlington than will be made in St. Pete. I guess there’s always the possibility of curious looky-loos drawn to a spectacle, but this market doesn’t show up for its own successful team, I doubt it’s going to knock down the doors for two visitors passing through.



This was the worst of all possible options, maximizing inconvenience for everyone while minimizing revenue and passing up an opportunity to galvanize the state. It’s a shame the Astros felt the need to end up here. I understand being frustrated over not getting the series swap you wanted, but with that off the table, choose the next-best option. Don’t run off to Florida and cite “the integrity of the schedule.”