Ryan Munthe

Not his company, the company he works for, yes

The Astros had a GM who had no clue about Houston or the franchise buy them in Drayton, who proceeded to coast off of the McMullen years. Drayton let the eighth wonder of the world fall to shambles, ruined their style with the disaster jerseys of the 90s and 00s, built a goofy ballpark (that I still love) in a bad part of town based off of some random history with a train station that had no connection to what the Astros represented. After Dierker left, he hired two cronies, one of whom fired the best manager the Astros ever had in Phil Garner, and opened up his wallet to players like Bill Hall at obscene salaries. He overcharged tickets, ran off season ticket holders, told off sponsors, let Ed Wade dismantle the team and put the Astros near bankruptcy, meanwhile letting his new gimmick ballpark fall apart. Oh, and don't forget he dropped CSN Houston on Crane's lap, as well as letting Selig extort Crane.Crane was trying to fix the debacle of management that came before him, and Luhnow to rebuild the roster. Unfortunately, as seen by Bud Norris and Wandy Rodriguez, Luhnow was impersonal and clueless and working with people. To make the team profitable again, Crane sold the ballpark to anyone (left field ads) and the Ryans quickly came in and found a happy medium. They renovated the park, let people bring coolers in, got the Astros in the right colors, and reached out to people that had left because of inept management before. I think the Ryans bring that to the table with the Astros, as someone who grew up with season tickets to the team and my father was a major sponsor for years.

K. Stick to analyzing the Rangers, because you clearly don't know anything about the Astros implosion in every facet after Dierker left. But ok.

I was an undergrad, about to grad with a master's, and I work I academic advising. If you need content, let me know.

Who cares? Stephenville is 120 miles away from Denton. It's D2. They cater to a different student. Why are you so intrigued by what's going on at a random D2 school an hour+ away? Why not Mary Hardin Baylor?

He ruined the Astros. It's an absolute freaking debacle. Brewers should've moved back. We're an NL team.

Not true at all. Astros were not spending cash, were selling out the ballpark to the highest bidder (ads), were dragging their feet on the whole CSN debacle, were raising prices astronomically for the worst product in baseball, did some much needed updates to an aging ballpark, signing players only if they had enough numbers to satisfy Luhnow's sabermetrics approach, fired Bo Porter...the list goes on. When Nolan came, Crane started spending money, fixed the monstrosity of billboards in left field, fixed CSN, fixed ticket prices, decked out the ballpark in updates, signed some players who fit the role and people who can be leaders on the team. In addition, Bo Porter, clearly over his head, got fired because he fit Luhnow's scheme but Luhnow's biggest flaw is that he knows little about baseball other than numbers. And I think Luhnow is a genius, but he doesn't understand the things that surround the numbers of baseball. Nolan and his son Reid do. These changes are just a few that occurred as soon as the Ryans came to town. I'm not as up on the Rangers as I am the Astros, but what I do know is that once Nolan arrived, the fans came and the team improved. The same little things that the Astros have done to fix their dysfunctional operations now were done to the Rangers upon Nolan's arrival. And now that he's gone, it's starting to revert. Am I saying that Nolan is a magic-worker? No. But what I am saying is that when Nolan sits down with the owner of the Astros and the Rangers with suggestions in meetings, it seems like the owners listen because these things above happen. And maybe it's coincidence, but I tend to think it isn't. Nolan understands baseball and brings baseball to the business side of it. It's the same reason why the Broncos hired Elway.

You're underestimating Ryan. He's turned the dysfunctional baseball stat geek FO in Houston into a smart baseball-savvy front office and convinced Crane to open his pocket books. He has listened to the fans and helped his son fix the issues people have had with the ballpark, uniforms and basic operations. The problems with the Astros before Ryan and his son came along were a lot more than bad baseball, going back to Drayton in the mid 2000s, the franchise was the worst ran organization in baseball. Ryan knows baseball and knows what works, as well as what doesn't. Since he's come to Houston, outside of the Aiken debacle, all that dysfunction has disappeared and the FO is listening to the fans. Exactly what the Rangers don't do after Ryan left. Maybe it's coincidence, but what Ryan brings is simple, he knows what the players and the fans WANT, and through whatever means, gets these things done. Even if our performance isn't playoff worthy this year, the Astros are on an upswing and will contend for a WC spot year even if they strike out 2,000 times. Jon Daniels, instead, is dismantling the team piece by piece and pissing off the fans. I've never seen a fanbase turn on a team as quickly as the Rangers fans did, I went to a game five minutes before the game began, got a gnome for the first 5,000 fans, and sat five rows from the fence. It was like an Astros game. That's a problem, and it shows that the current FO is tone deaf. People left the Astros for the same exact reason, being tone deaf, and years later they are STILL trying to repair the damage. Rangers need to stop the bleeding, whether that's winning, or listening to the fans, and do it soon. (BTW, I like the Rangers, I'm just seeing similarities to the Astros downhill slide and wouldn't wish 10 years of the worst baseball ever on anybody.)

What has all your complaining gotten you, though?

This forum would be a much better place if he was left to yelling at himself.

Just a warning guys, don't park in the athletic center lot, I saw the parking fairies ticketing non-stop on my way out yesterday during open practice. Apogee is free or the mud lot across Bonnie Brae.

.500 at ACC. So ACC and CUSA are the same? I'm defending it because it seemed like a slam dunk at the time that didn't work out. Revisionist history on this forum is exhausting. Saying that the hire was bad when a majority of people on here thought it was our step to big time and going back and saying "Oh he was about to get fired, we wasted money on him" is hilarious. Petersen needed to part ways, no doubt. It turned out to be a bad hire. But it didn't seem that way originally. That's my point. I watched most of the games this year. Trust me, I agree, it was time for new blood. But let's not be revisionist.

I seem to remember Wake Forest forums going mad because they got their coach poached by UNT. But, of course, revisionist history tells us that Wake was about to fire Peterson. Sure. OK. Found a basketball article in which Wake's basketball beat reporter flipped out over it, too. Seems to me we stepped up and paid a good salary for a proven piece that didn't work out, for better or worse.

It's just shameful.

It's all armchair ADs. Why do you even do this to yourself anymore, posting on here? It's just a losing battle.

lol

I think CUSA gets two bids if ODU loses and La Tech wins. I would find it very hard to see ODU get left out.

Pretty different situation.

Does UTSA play in an arena with seats?

ODU has an RPI of 41, I'd say they have a sizable chance of a 10 seed since usually the 10 seed is somewhere around the 30-40 RPI range. If they win out, they will stay in that range. La Tech is in the 50 range. They are also probably pretty close. CUSA will probably be a one-bid league this year, but it has a sizable group of major players.

We have UTEP, Louisiana Tech, UAB, Old Dominion, Charlotte, WKU and MTSU as basketball powers. That's 5 consistently well regarded mid-major players. Before conference play started to knock off some of our elite, we were picked to have 2 at-larges. The Sun Belt had WKU and MTSU. Maybe us. Maybe. In football, the actual performance may be a push but in basketball SBC is a considerable step down. If ODU or La Tech wins the tourney, they may be a 8-12 seed. ODU could be even higher based off of RPI.

The parking lot is bad but the streets are alright.

It'll melt, I was just driving from the UNT area to the Square for donuts and a lot of the hills and side streets were bad. Eagle is especially bad by the cemetery and the 33N building. It should be better later, it's already starting to break.