Bob McNair's Texans are worth 2.8 BILLION. Bob Levey/Getty Images
Forbes Magazine Thursday released its annual valuation of NFL franchises. According to Forbes Bob McNair now holds a property worth four times what he paid for it. McNair’s expansion fee was $700 million dollars; Forbes says the Texans are now worth $2.8 billion. The Cowboys are No. 1 at an even FIVE billion. The Texans come in at number nine. That’s great for generations of McNairs, but if the Texans don’t beat the Giants Sunday the rest of this season will be worth closer to a plugged nickel.
16 games on the week three NFL schedule, Texans-Giants is the only one matching teams that stumbled out of the chute to 0-2 starts. Most years, there is a team that begins 0-2 which winds up in the playoffs. The Texans did it in 2015. An 0-3 start? Call the coroner. The 1998 Bills were the last team to recover from 0-3 to wind up in the postseason. So for late September the stakes are high Sunday. It seems a fair fight. The Texans and Giants both have credible defenses, and atrocious offensive lines that drag down the offenses.
At least the Texans have hope at quarterback with Deshaun Watson. The Giants have 37 year old Eli Manning. Eli has had a fine career highlighted by two runs to Super Bowl victories, but since the second Super win over New England the Giants have made the playoffs once in the last five years. Manning is among many reasons why. Eli is extremely immobile, and while he has that weak o-line he also has what would be the number one tandem picked in a draft of same team running back/wide receiver combos in rookie RB Saquon Barkley and WR Odell Beckham Jr. Some might prefer the speed kills pairing in Kansas City of Kareem Hunt and Tyreek Hill.
Coaching woes
The evidence mounts that for all his command of a room, Bill O’Brien lacks the goods of big time head coaches. Losing to a Blaine Gabbert quarterbacked Tennessee team was feeble if not a disgrace. Parts of it absolutely were a disgrace. The Texans repeatedly looked poorly coached, unaware, and/or undisciplined.
O’Brien is on his third special teams coach in four years, over which time their special teams have routinely stunk. Gifting the Titans first touchdown by not even covering one of their outside punt coverage guys? You could have justified firings on the spot. O’Brien’s explanation was lame.
After his “it’s not my job” snorting away questioning of his timeout non-usage at New England, I wonder if O’Brien considers knowing the rules part of his job. It’s a terrible rule, but O’Brien didn’t know the penalty when Gabbert caught his own pass and threw the ball again from behind the line of scrimmage.
On the Astros
While the Texans wallow in franchise mediocrity the Astros close in on back-to-back 100 win seasons for the first time in franchise history, and a crack at getting back to and winning another World Series. The odds are against them winning it all again, but that’s true of any single team. The Astros have as a good a shot as anybody.
I can’t see A.J. Hinch doing it, but if Carlos Correa doesn’t show something at the plate the final week of the regular season there is a case to be made for sitting him against the Indians. In 34 games since returning from the disabled list Correa has been the worst everyday offensive player in the big leagues (OPS a stunningly woeful .480), and it’s not as if he has been trending up of late. Hinch dropped him from the cleanup spot to fifth in the batting order, then to sixth. Correa has three doubles and one homer in 121 at bats. The Indians will start three nasty righthanded pitchers in Corey Kluber, Trevor Bauer, and Carlos Carrasco. In his career Correa is a combined seven for 39 against them (.179).
The guess is Hinch would hope Correa finds it out of nowhere and produces. It could happen. Sports! And while Correa is a class act, he has an ego as does everybody. The Astros probably wouldn’t want to tempt any possible hard feelings going forward. Correa’s defense has looked fine so the “he’s still hurting” argument seems shaky, but if Correa isn’t physically right and his play is hurting the team he should sit. Unless his back is really messed up and will be an issue going forward, Correa should get back on a star track next season.
Buzzer Beaters
1. Sure didn’t take long for Patrick Mahomes to zip past Watson as the most exciting QB out of the 2017 Draft. Of course, Mahomes has much better offensive teammates and coaching. 2. If UT wants to matter this season, beating TCU is a must. 3. Best college football fight songs: Bronze-Notre Dame Victory March Silver-Yea Alabama Gold-Hail to the Victors (Michigan)
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After finishing up with the Guardians the Astros have a rather important series for early May with the Seattle Mariners heading to town for the weekend. While it’s still too early to be an absolute must-win series for the Astros, losing the series to drop seven or eight games off the division lead would make successfully defending their American League West title that much more unlikely.
Since their own stumble out of the gate to a 6-10 record the Mariners have been racking up series wins, including one this week over the Atlanta Braves. The M’s offense is largely Mmm Mmm Bad, but their pitching is sensational. In 18 games after the 6-10 start, the Mariners gave up five runs in a game once. In the other 17 games they only gave up four runs once. Over the 18 games their starting pitchers gave up 18 earned runs total with a 1.44 earned run average. That’s absurd. Coming into the season Seattle’s starting rotation was clearly better on paper than those of the Astros and Texas Rangers, and it has crystal clearly played out as such into the second month of the schedule.
While it’s natural to focus on and fret over one’s own team's woes when they are plentiful as they have been for the Astros, a reminder that not all grass is greener elsewhere. Alex Bregman has been awful so far. So has young Mariners’ superstar Julio Rodriguez. A meager four extra base hits over his first 30 games were all Julio produced down at the ballyard. That the Mariners are well ahead of the Astros with J-Rod significantly underperforming is good news for Seattle.
Caratini comes through!
So it turns out the Astros are allowed to have a Puerto Rican-born catcher who can hit a little bit. Victor Caratini’s pedigree is not that of a quality offensive player, but he has swung the bat well thus far in his limited playing time and provided the most exciting moment of the Astros’ season with his two-out two-run 10th inning game winning home run Tuesday night. I grant that one could certainly say “Hey! Ronel Blanco finishing off his no-hitter has been the most exciting moment.” I opt for the suddenness of Caratini’s blow turning near defeat into instant victory for a team that has been lousy overall to this point. Frittering away a game the Astros had led 8-3 would have been another blow. Instead, to the Victor belong the spoils.
Pudge Rodriguez is the greatest native Puerto Rican catcher, but he was no longer a good hitter when with the Astros for the majority of the 2009 season. Then there’s Martin Maldonado.
Maldonado’s hitting stats with the Astros look Mike Piazza-ian compared to what Jose Abreu was doing this season. Finally, mercifully for all, Abreu is off the roster as he accepts a stint at rookie-level ball in Florida to see if he can perform baseball-CPR on his swing and career. Until or unless he proves otherwise, Abreu is washed up and at some point the Astros will have to accept it and swallow whatever is left on his contract that runs through next season. For now Abreu makes over $120,000 per game to not be on the roster. At his level of performance, that’s a better deal than paying him that money to be on the roster.
Abreu’s seven hits in 71 at bats for an .099 batting average with a .269 OPS is a humiliating stat line. In 2018 George Springer went to sleep the night of June 13 batting .293 after going hitless in his last four at bats in a 13-5 Astros’ win over Oakland. At the time no one could have ever envisioned that Springer had started a deep, deep funk which would have him endure a nightmarish six for 78 stretch at the plate (.077 batting average). Springer then hit .293 the rest of the season.
Abreu’s exile opened the door for Joey Loperfido to begin his Major League career. Very cool for Loperfido to smack a two-run single in his first game. He also struck out twice. Loperfido will amass whiffs by the bushel, he had 37 strikeouts in 101 at bats at AAA Sugar Land. Still, if he can hit .225 with some walks mixed in (he drew 16 with the Space Cowboys) and deliver some of his obvious power (13 homers in 25 games for the ex-Skeeters) that’s an upgrade over Abreu/Jon Singleton, as well as over Jake Meyers and the awful showing Chas McCormick has posted so far. Frankly, it seems unwise that the Astros only had Loperfido play seven games at first base in the minors this year. If McCormick doesn’t pick it up soon and with Meyers displaying limited offensive upside, the next guy worth a call-up is outfielder Pedro Leon. In January 2021 the Astros gave Leon four million dollars to sign out of Cuba and called him a “rapid mover to the Major Leagues.” Well…
Over his first three minor league seasons Leon flashed tools but definitely underwhelmed. He has been substantially better so far this year. He turns 26 May 28. Just maybe the Astros offense could be the cause of fewer Ls with Loperfido at first and Leon in center field.
Catch our weekly Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast. Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and I discuss varied Astros topics. The first post for the week generally goes up Monday afternoon (second part released Tuesday) via YouTube: stone cold stros - YouTube with the complete audio available via Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.