00:00So here's Joe Espada on MLB TV earlier this week at the winter meetings.
00:07Give some clarity, I guess, on where he's thinking Jose Altuve might spend most of his time defensively this year.
00:14You know what, I like the fact that he is open to help him, to do whatever it takes to help the team.
00:19But I think second base is his prime position. I think we're going to see him play there more this season.
00:24Giving us some starts in left field, that's something that I will sit down and talk to him about that.
00:29But right now, I need to keep our guys healthy. I think a lot of these players can play multiple positions.
00:34Paredes can play some second, third, and first base. It allows me to keep Correa and Walker healthy.
00:40The DH spot, I'm also going to use that spot to keep those guys off their feet some.
00:44So I've got some really good players that once they're healthy, it's a really good team.
00:48It's going to be a really tough team to beat.
00:50If Jose Altuve is going to go back to being primarily a second baseman,
00:54they've basically got five everyday players for four spots right now.
00:58Because Jordan, it sounds like, is going to DH a whole lot more this year than maybe he did last year.
01:04It doesn't sound like he's going to spend nearly as much time in left field.
01:07It sounds like the way that Dana Brown put it, he's not going to be out there at all.
01:10Yeah.
01:11So there's that.
01:13So you've got five guys for four spots right now.
01:16Carlos Correa is not going anywhere.
01:18Jose Altuve is not going anywhere.
01:20Jeremy Pena ends up going somewhere.
01:24That means you are in a rebuild mode.
01:26That you're trading someone like that with two years of team control left, presumably to get prospects in.
01:32But I'm going to say Jeremy Pena is a lot.
01:34Correa, Altuve, Pena are all going to be here.
01:36That leaves one spot for Christian Walker and Isak Paredes.
01:38Because I don't think for a minute that with the holes they have in the pitching staff right now, they're going to go into this season with Isak Paredes as some sort of Mauricio Dubon utility guy.
01:50Dude, Jeremy Pena is the elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about.
01:55Because, I mean, it's one thing when you have to let great players walk out the door because you're still in a World Series window.
02:04Kyle Tucker emotionally wasn't as devastating, I don't think, for most Astros fans.
02:10And you can kind of see the writing on the wall.
02:12But with Jeremy Pena, I mean, that's the kind of guy that, if you had to guess right now, better chance than not that they traded him away at the end of next season?
02:24The end of next season.
02:25Boy, that's interesting.
02:25One year of control remaining?
02:27I think a lot of it depends on what this season looks like.
02:30You know, if this season, if you find some solutions in the pitching staff that all of a sudden have you back in that 95-win realm,
02:36then if you're, if they, look, if they get back to the ALCS, okay?
02:42I mean, they missed it for a year.
02:44If they get back to the, or two years, if they get back to the ALCS, or even if they make the playoffs and they're a competitive playoff team,
02:51then I think you do what you did with Framber and Bregman and Correa and everybody else,
02:56and you, and you ride it out with, with Pena.
03:00I know they didn't do that with Kyle Tucker.
03:01I think they knew Kyle Tucker's contract demands were just so far gone from what they were going to be willing to pay.
03:08And they found a willing trade partner, too.
03:10I think that probably, I don't, I think there was a chance Kyle Tucker would have been back with the team
03:14if they couldn't have found a package like they got with Cam Smith and with Paredes.
03:19That's a good point.
03:19Yeah, the actual trade package was something that, the way Dana Brown put it, too,
03:24is the years of control they have over those guys, which they've already surpassed.
03:30The combined, the combined war of Paredes and, and Cam Smith alone, I think is higher than Kyle Tucker's war this year.
03:39It was, yeah, it was, it was.
03:40So, it's a really interesting question about Pena, and I think it, I would say, ask me again next October.
03:48You know, if they don't, if they, I'll say this, if, if they have the same season this coming season
03:54that they had last season, where they, you know, they're a, they're a descending borderline playoff team,
04:00you know, they're, they're.
04:01Almost made the expanded playoffs.
04:03Yeah, yeah, they're, they're, they're, they're clearly not a have anymore, but they're not a have not.
04:08They're kind of in between.
04:09I don't think they immediately hang up the phone if people are calling about Jeremy Pena, you know,
04:14whereas I think if you, you know, if you'd called during this season at the trade deadline about him,
04:18they would have, they would have laughed you off the phone.
04:21Yeah.
04:21But we don't know.
04:23I mean, this is, this is the first time in a long time where this team has operated,
04:28where you can make an argument that maybe they should be looking at trading some of their assets
04:33to replenish their farm system.
04:36You know, it's, it's, it hasn't been this way for multiple years in a row in a long time for this team.
04:41So, um, the big rumor is Paredes, uh, potentially going to the Red Sox.
04:47The Red Sox are interested in Isak Paredes.
04:51Um, I, on the surface, I would not like to move on from Isak Paredes.
04:56Uh, he's going to be a $9 million guy this year, thereabouts.
04:58And I think the injury at the end of the year, notwithstanding, I love the fact that he, uh,
05:04decided to forego surgery to get back on the field.
05:06I think it says a lot about his baseball character.
05:09He was an all-star this year when he was healthy.
05:11Um, I just don't know where you put him.
05:14Uh, cause it's either Christian Walker, Isak Paredes, and you were just talking to during
05:19the break, Seth, like they, they ain't finding any people, they're, they're not finding any
05:23takers on Christian Walker's contract, right?
05:25Right.
05:25Yeah.
05:25Light interest in Christian Walker.
05:27Yeah.
05:27Yeah.
05:28So it's, um, so yeah, it was Ken Rosenthal, the athletic, the Boston Red Sox have expressed
05:34interest in Astros infielder Isak Paredes.
05:37Paredes doesn't have a clear position with the Astros infield.
05:40That's one reason he could be a logical trade ship.
05:43And the, the Red Sox have some good pitching prospects that the Astros could bring.
05:47This is the, the Paredes, Paredes being part of a crowded infield where you've brought back,
05:52uh, a sentimental favorite in Carlos Correa, um, a drastically declining defensive player
05:59in Jose Altuve, and also a guy who's at the age where the offense, um, the offensive
06:03decline might stick a little bit, you know, like that, like you have to be objective as
06:09possible.
06:09And then Christian Walker that you've here on a healthy contract and theoretically like
06:14should be better this year than he was last year, as long as he can manage to not strain
06:19his oblique, but there's this log jam in there and, and you've got that really uncomfortable
06:25situation of a guy at second base who is a franchise legend and beloved, and yet also
06:32might become a little bit of an albatross over, over the course of the next few years.
06:37That was my fear. I mean, even when we were sitting here pointing out how the contract
06:40was structured, which I thought was, I thought it was smart and beneficial to the Astros that
06:45we're in the meaty part of the contract right now where he's making 30 million a year, but
06:50the last two years of the deal, he's only a $10 million player. There's a chance Jose Altuve
06:54is not even worth $10 million as a player in those last couple of years.
06:57And then you extend this to the Jordan Alvarez situation where you want him to be the DH as
07:04much as possible. So for your older, your older player in Jose Altuve, who's a minus for you
07:12defensively, like it's, it gets really, really uncomfortable.
07:16You know what it feels like, Seth? Back in the day, you ever do like on those, uh, you know,
07:21like a magazine, you got a maze in there, like those mag, those magazines that have different
07:25word games and stuff. And you do a maze and you, you know, you get to take out the pen and you
07:30start drawing and you go through the maze and you feel like you're making some progress. And then
07:33boom, you hit a stop and you're like, okay, where do we go now? It feels like the, that's what the
07:37Astros roster construction feels like. They, like they made these moves and some of them at the
07:42time felt like good moves, like the Correa move, I think still feels like a good move.
07:45Giving Yordan that contract, obviously, I think financially really good move. Hey,
07:50we love the Altuve extension at the time for the emotional part of it. Maybe, um, Jeremy
07:55Pena comes up and he's a, you know, he's a really good shortstop. You make the Kyle Tucker
08:00trade, you make all these moves and all of a sudden you realize our roster is not constructed
08:04very well. Yeah. And you've made all of them in pen, right? You've done it in pen and you're
08:10trying to retrace and go back and all of that. And it starts to be a jumbled mess and you
08:15don't know what the way out of it is. Right. Right. And meanwhile, the Dodgers are signing
08:20Edwin Diaz. Uh, like it's, Oh, that's one way out of it. Their maze. It's just a straight
08:25line tunnel. Can we spend a, can we spend $150 million more than everybody else? Yeah. Yeah.
08:31Is that, is that an option on this maze of yours, Sean? It's not, I don't see it anywhere
08:35on here. No, no, I don't. Sadly. I remember another childhood memory of mine, Sean, sitting
08:40in the car, we were waiting for my mom to come out of the house. I was sitting in the
08:43back of the car with my brother and I was doing one of those mazes and I just went ahead and
08:48I just, I just went through one of the lines. I said, screw it. And my brother told me that
08:52I could get arrested for that and that he was going to tell the police. And I was, I
08:59lived with that fear for, I'd say a good two weeks. Uh, like barely sleeping at night, just
09:05knowing that the popo were about to burst through my door and come for me. He had me convinced
09:09that I was going to get arrested for it. Brother, the stories of your brother when you guys were
09:14younger, man. Oh yeah. He was, uh, he was, uh, he was dying. Like he was, uh, he was like
09:20one of these criminals in the movies you see where you're like, Oh, he's like superhuman
09:23intelligence. Yeah. He would come up with just so many different ways to harass me. Yeah.
09:27It's like, he had me convinced this is ironic. You know, I say it, you guys said I went to
09:33like the, you know, when I was a young kid and we were in the advanced, I'd go to like
09:37the advanced classes for math and everything. Yeah. He had me convinced that those are actually
09:41for stupid kids that it was actually that they tell us that they tell us that it's a, it's
09:48up a grade level just to make us feel better about us actually being dumb. Okay. Okay. There's
09:53an inception thing going on with me right now. I'm like, okay, did you belong in those classes
09:59in the first place? Right, right. I was so dumb to even believe I didn't believe them. Well,
10:03I know, but because of the gaslighting was so effective, I would like get really angry and
10:07pissed at him and everything, but he would just keep at it and keep at it. And he'd be like, yeah,
10:11like that stuff that you're talking about that you learned in your G and T classes. I did that
10:16like in kindergarten. That's so evil. No, I know. But the, but, but the thing is,
10:22if ever I put up a good argument, he would just beat me, you know, like he would just,
10:27he would just punch me or whatever. Like you beat me down as soon as I started to point out the
10:32flaws in his logic or anything. So I just, uh, yeah, that's a big disincentive to arguing with
10:37him. It was a rough scene growing up, man. It was a really rough scene. That's crazy.
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