Daily Archives: February 18, 2008

An interesting headline choice

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reliant-astrodome%20Google%20Earth.jpgKevin Whited and Cory Crow continue to express amazement at the delusional nature of county officials and the Houston Chronicle over the proposed Astrodome hotel project that is now in its fourth year of being bandied about. The latest Chronicle effort to breath life into this boondoggle is this weekend article that carries the following headline:

“Dome plan could bring in millions”
“Report also says hotel would have 72 percent occupancy rate”

More realistically, the headline could have read as follows:

“Dome plan could cost County millions”
“Report says that hotel would have only 72 percent occupancy rate”

All depends on one’s point of view, eh?
Given my extensive blogging on this boondoggle, I won’t go into all the reasons why converting the Astrodome to a destination hotel is unlikely to happen without a large public subsidy. Suffice it to say that if private financing for Astrodome hotel could not be arranged over the past several years when the market for such financing was quite good, then it’s not going to happen in the foreseeable future now that credit and equity markets have pulled back from such speculative investments. So, if this deal is going to proceed, then get ready to provide a bountiful public subsidy for it.
However, one name mentioned in the Chron story reminded me of an instructive legal matter I handled back in the mid-1980’s. The matter involved an Astrodome-area hotel that had been promoted to investors and built immediately before the bottom fell out of the local commercial real estate market when the price of oil and gas tumbled to record lows at the end of 1985. I ended up representing the promoters, who had guaranteed a large portion of the construction financing on the hotel.
During the year or so that my clients owned the hotel, it never came close in any month to generating enough revenue to cover the operating expenses of the hotel, much less generating anything for my clients to use to pay debt service on the construction financing. Not surprisingly, the bank eventually foreclosed on the hotel. The promoters and investors lost their entire investment in the hotel.
Guess who the consultant was who prepared the glowing feasibility study that helped persuade my clients to promote and finance that boondoggle?
Yup. John Keeling.

BP’s PECOTA projection for the 2008 Stros

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Astros-Logo%20021807.jpgThe sabermetricians over at Baseball Prospectus have developed a statistical system for projecting baseball player performance called PECOTA, which is short for “Player Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm.” PECOTA player performance based on comparison with thousands of historical player-seasons and analyzes similarities with past player-seasons based not only on rate statistics, but also height, weight, age, and many other factors. It is a remarkably accurate predictor of player performance.
BP annually prepares PECOTA projections on each Major League and minor league ballplayer, so it is a simple process to aggregate those individual numbers and project how each MLB team will do. BP’s projection for each MLB Division in the 2008 season is here ($), although you will have to subscribe to BP to review the entire PECOTA projections.
Not surprisingly, BP projects the Stros to finish 74-88 (or one game better than last season), good for fourth in the NL Central behind the Cubs, Brewers and Reds. PECOTA projects the Stros’ hitting to continue to be league-average with no meaningful improvement in the abysmal pitching that the club endured last season.
Well, at least we’ll have the Craig Biggio number retirement ceremony to look forward to. ;^)
By the way, Baseball Prospectus 2008, BP’s annual book that is the best source of knowledge about baseball, is scheduled to be published in the next week or so. If you enjoy following baseball, then I highly recommend it.

Local college hoops update

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Houston%20Coogs%20hoops.jpgNormally, when a team shoots 4-12 from the field on two-point goals in a college basketball game, that’s a pretty good indication that they were thoroughly throttled by the other team.
Unless, that is, the team shoots 18-43 on three-point goals during the same game. Which is what the Houston Cougars did this past Saturday night in pummeling SMU by 22.
The Cougars are now 19-5 (8-2 in Conference USA) and, absent a bad streak at the end of the regular season, appear to be a good bet to make their first NCAA Tournament appearance since the 1991-92 season. The Coogs’ RPI has settled at 50 for the time being, which should be good enough to qualify for the NCAA tournament so long as the team maintains that RPI for the remainder of the season. Remarkably, it has now been almost a quarter century since the storied University of Houston basketball program last won an NCAA Tournament game.
Meanwhile, down on South Main, Chronicle columnist Jerome Solomon agrees with me regarding Rice basketball coach Willis Wilson. As noted in my earlier post, if Rice fires Wilson before he has had an opportunity to recruit players to — and have his teams compete in — a reasonably modern facility, then Rice will make the hypocrisy of former Rice football coach Todd Graham look benign in comparison. Besides, does the Rice Administration really want the Marching Owl Band to have an opportunity to comment on such an unfair firing?