- 4 days ago
Seth and Sean dive into some Astros-centric angles from David Schoenfield's way too early All-Star predictions, then circle back to the leaked NFLPA survey that NFL owners tried to suppress.
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00:00So we had a Tatsuya Imai debut yesterday, one scoreless inning, 10 pitches, one shinbone bruised
00:08by a comebacker to the mound. Yeah, yeah. Well, do we even know that it was actually bruised? I
00:12know, I know the visual suggested it's definitely going to be bruised, but who knows? Remember
00:16that story about Cal Ripken Sr. that he was coaching first base once and took a line drive
00:23to the face, showed up the next day and there was zero discoloration? Like that just, it was,
00:29which who knows how much of that is true, but it kind of lends to the story of the Ripken
00:33family. Right, right. Yeah. Big surprise that that guy's kid. Ridiculously. Yeah. Impervious
00:39to injury. 2000 straight games. Big shock comes from good stock, man. So yeah. So we had
00:46Imai's debut yesterday. We have McCullers is pitching today. So I think all eyes will be
00:51on that. And Imai, for those of you who know, 10 pitches, three outs, just a really good
00:57performance out there for just one inning. Yeah. And they said he was only, they was,
01:02they only plan on him going one inning. So we'll see if he ups the pitch count in the next
01:06outing. But so far so good. Yep. Pitching with a larger American baseball. I didn't know that
01:11that was the case until you put it in the rundown. I had no idea.
01:140.1 to 0.15 inches larger in circumference or diameter. I get in diameter than the, uh,
01:21than the Japanese baseball. So it's not like it's a beach ball or anything to him, but, uh,
01:25no, but it's still gotta, uh, I mean, for people that are so finely tuned and with your grip
01:29being so precise and everything, is the football bigger at the NFL level than it is at the college
01:34level. I think it's a little, I think it's a little bit more, um, bullet shaped. Yeah.
01:41It's not as, it's not as fat. Gotcha. I believe. Yeah. I'm sure the text page. That's how I would,
01:47I always felt with just grabbing it, like just throwing it myself with my ham hands. That's how
01:51it always felt to me. I've got people sending in names of law firms. I can go get my endorsement
01:56with now. I'm writing all of these down. It's called prospecting. Um, if you don't know what
02:01we're talking about, use the rewind feature, by the way, that whole thing, that's another thing
02:04that annoys me that people call the football, the Duke, that was never a thing on. I'm putting
02:10that was never a list of things that annoy me. Hang on. Never. That was never, ever a thing.
02:16Just like nobody called Peyton Manning, the sheriff until, until freaking Gruden decided
02:22to call him the sheriff. I haven't even heard of Gruden calling him the sheriff. You didn't know
02:25that? No. Oh, it was one of the most annoying things in all of not just football, but life
02:30Sean. Yeah, no, I'm annoyed by it. I call him the sheriff. And then people would be like, you
02:34know, they call him the sheriff. No, they don't. They don't. Gruden calls him the sheriff. But they
02:39spoke it into existence. People started calling him the sheriff. That hadn't come across my, my
02:44purview here. And now it is. And you dumped it on my lawn. And now I have to hate that
02:48too.
02:48I just added the Duke to my list of things that annoy me. So, so NCAA balls are slightly,
02:54footballs are slightly smaller, rounder, and feature white stripes for better visibility. The white stripes I
03:00know about. Yeah. Yeah. The white stripes, but yeah, they're the NFL ball. Okay. This is where
03:05it's annoying. This is the synopsis NFL balls. It says slightly smaller, but then it says, whereas
03:09NFL balls are larger, more pointed and lacks right. They are, they're just, uh, they're, they're,
03:15they're lengthened out a little bit more aerodynamic. David Schoenfield of ESPN has two Astros making
03:24the all-star team in his way too early AL and NL all-stars. Um, one of these has me,
03:31um, very
03:32hopeful. He's got Jordan Alvarez as the DH in the American league. I'm sure David Schoenfield is not
03:38a hand doctor or an oblique doctor or an ankle doctor or a doctor or patellar tendon doctor,
03:44a doctor of any of the number of injuries. We don't even know if he's a PhD. Right. You know,
03:48we just know he's bro. Do you even have a doctor? We just, we spoon fed 3000 words to a
03:53bunch of
03:53people on ESPN, but he says this about Jordan Alvarez. So the two that he has making it spoiler
03:58alert are Jordan Alvarez as the starting DH and Hunter Brown as part of the rotation for the AL all
04:06-star
04:06team, a hand injury and severe ankle sprain limited Alvarez to 48 games in 2025. Don't forget.
04:12Don't forget him when drafting your fantasy team from 2022 to 2024, only Aaron judge had a higher OPS
04:19plus. He's still still only 28 years old on opening day. He should return to his status as one of
04:25the
04:25top hitters in the game, which might be top three alongside judge and Otani. That is how good he is
04:31when he's healthy, man. He is a, he's a top five hitter. I mean, yeah, at various points, we've,
04:37you know, when he's been better than judge for large stretches of the season. Yeah. Um, yeah,
04:42we, everybody knows exactly what he's capable of when he's at his peak. Yep. And it's just, um,
04:49I, with, with the injuries in Jordan, sometimes I'll see people almost make it like a black and white
04:56issue. And they'll say, you know, people would come, you know, people worry about Jordan's
05:01injuries when in fact he's played such and such number of games. It's okay for it to be somewhere
05:05in between, you know, like it's, it's rare for him to play more than 145 or so, uh, games in
05:14a
05:14season. I don't think he's ever, I think 147 is as high. Um, so, but he's got plenty of seasons
05:20in
05:20which he's, you know, he's got three seasons. Let's see. He's got three seasons in which he had 135 or
05:25more games, but then he had a 114 game season. And then last year, a 48 games. Yeah. So it's,
05:31it's okay to say that, no, you shouldn't expect them to go out there and be injured and miss
05:37large swaths of time, but he's dealt with his share of injuries. The people who are optimistic
05:41about the Astros getting back to the post season and maybe even winning the division again are
05:45basically saying what you were just pointing out, Seth, is that, Hey man, he played 48 games last
05:50year. Are you telling me if you're not Alvarez plays 130 games instead of 48 games last year,
05:55that the Astros don't win a couple more games along the way? Yeah. Yeah. And, and obviously
06:00you go, okay, well they're not going to forever Valdez. We can play that whole game. As far as
06:04this all-star team goes, Jeremy Pena, who finished in the top 10 in the MVP voting last year for
06:10the
06:10American league, doesn't make the team at all. Not even as a reserve. Uh, the starter is Bobby Witt
06:16jr. And then the backup shortstops, Gunnar Henderson, Baltimore, Zach Netto of the, uh, of the
06:22angels. And Schoenfield says this, the most difficult position on this team is shortstop,
06:28which is stacked. I had to leave off Jeremy Pena. Wow. Corey Seager and Jacob Wilson,
06:34who was the starter last year in the all-star game, Jacob Wilson of the A's, um, all got left
06:40off because boy, the AL West man is stacked. Pena Seager, Jacob Wilson and Netto all in the AL West
06:50playing shortstop. Like it's hard to even, if they, you did an all-star team of just the division,
06:54it's hard to make it at shorts. Well, with, with Pena, I think especially he's still relatively
06:59young in his career. And last year was the first year where it looked like everything got tied
07:03together. And there's, I think people, uh, people are reluctant to just say, okay, yep.
07:10Slam dunk. There you go. Even though the two previous years were let down somewhat at the
07:15plate, he was just kind of an average player. Um, that okay. Is last year certifiable, especially
07:22given that he only played 125 games that there's a little bit, I think a lot of people are very
07:27intrigued by Jeremy Pena, but they just don't want to give him the certificate of authenticity yet.
07:32No, you're right. And I'm not worried. The 125 games doesn't, doesn't worry me too much. Although
07:37missing that last week of the season with the oblique is a little disturbing because most of
07:41the games he misses, he got beamed in the ribs by that guy from the Cubs. You know, that's just
07:46kind of a fluky thing. Yeah. Um, yeah. Whenever, whenever guys are injured specifically because
07:51they got hit by a baseball, you try to give it the benefit of the doubt. That's right. That's right.
07:55I know what a coward I am when I'm, when I'm in the batting cages, even looking at, looking at
08:0175.
08:01Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They got 98 coming in right up under the chin. Um, here's the depressing
08:07part, Seth. I'm not depressed that the Astros only got two all-stars in this exercise. I mean,
08:13it's a preseason exercise. Here's the depressing part. Cause this may come true. Starting third
08:18baseman for the national league, Alex Bregman, whatever. Never liked them. Yeah. Starting outfield
08:26for the national league, Juan Soto, Ronald Acuna Jr. And I'll Tucker, Los Angeles Dodgers,
08:34Tucker and Bregman, both forecasted by this one writer, uh, as starters for the all-star team.
08:40I'm still annoyed by that list of, uh, irreplaceable players that teams lost this year. And that three
08:47former Astros were on that list. Yeah. One of them from her, one of them Bregman, one of them,
08:54Kyle Tucker. Yep. I was annoyed that three former Astros are deemed irreplaceable because it's true.
09:00That bothers me. Yeah. But that, but I especially annoyed though, too, because they call Kyle Tucker
09:04irreplaceable, but then they, the Cubs did replace him with another irreplaceable player. So I don't know
09:11how the math works on that one. Obviously not the same position. Yeah. That's a different position
09:16thing. Yeah. It's like, okay, if he's so irreplaceable, how are you putting up one of
09:19these other guys who's irreplaceable on the team that you lost the irreplaceable player that bothered
09:25you? Journalistically, it bothered me as you know, with my doctor, my doctorate of journalism, right?
09:31Of course. Of course. Um, dude, I'm looking, I still had this tab open on my browser. We were
09:36talking about those report cards earlier in the show. Incognito. Huh? Is it an incognito tab? No,
09:42no, no, no, no. It's just, it's, it's, I just had it open still. Um, the, uh, the, it was
09:47the
09:48report cards for all the, uh, NFL teams that got, that got leaked. Oh yeah. Um, and the Steelers,
09:54uh, finished last in this actually, this is all the NFL PA doing their annual survey on the various
10:00aspects of their employers and they put it together in a report card. Texans finished seventh out of 32
10:06teams. That's pretty good. The Steelers finished last man. Here are the, here are the categories,
10:13Seth, where the Steelers got an F or lower. Oh goodness. After lower or lower. What's what's
10:20lower than F minus treatment of families F home game field F minus locker room F minus team travel
10:33F what a bunch of whiny little brats team ownership D minus. I'm going to tell you something
10:39here. This is where, this is where I blame this. Are the Steelers whiny babies. I put this on the
10:46Steelers personnel department. I feel like there were decades that could have gone by where the
10:52Steelers were, they were chock full of players that even if they weren't happy with the locker room,
10:57didn't want to be the guy who was complaining about the locker room. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like Greg
11:01Lloyd, Greg Lloyd would sooner die than say, Oh, this carpet's not plush enough. Oh, but, but how
11:10can I afford childcare if the team isn't providing it for it? That's another one that bothers me there
11:15too. The treatment of the family. Oh yeah. People will be like, we don't have a daycare during game
11:21day, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Are you telling me fly your damn mother in line for the
11:27weekend? All right. You make millions of dollars. You got an issue with childcare as your, as your
11:33employer is paying you millions of dollars. What are you grousing about? The one, the one little
11:39nugget that I saw about the Steelers. Cause they, there, there are places you can go find what some of
11:43the comments were. Yeah. They only have five bathroom stalls in their locker room. Get over it.
11:49Hold it in a little bit. All right. What the hell's wrong with you? I just wanted to float
11:53it to you. I just, I'm not, I don't have a, take a whiz in the sink. If you got
11:57stuff
11:58like you did back in the day in the old Texans locker room, I think that now I'd imagine when
12:04they say five, there's only five that's in the locker room. Yes. Yes. I don't know if they had
12:09more than five and I don't think it was ever really that much of an issue. If you got guys
12:13that are taking care of their diet, the way they should, right. It shouldn't be people constantly
12:17running into needing the toilet right away. It shouldn't be 10 guys having to take a dump
12:20all the time. Of course. But to wit, what did the Steelers cafeteria get ranked? Actually
12:25the nutritionist and dietitian got a B and the food and dining area got a B minus. Right.
12:30Now if their nutrition had gotten a D or something and they're serving, they're serving, you know,
12:35nothing but tacos made with poor hygiene or something, then the lack of, lack of toilets
12:40might be an issue. You need more stalls. Yep. Yep. I'm trying to think, okay, let me take
12:44and I'm going to do my memory palace here. I don't have a memory palace, but I'm just
12:48going to go through the locker room in my mind. Which is like one, two, every now and
12:52then you see Steve McKinney eating a Whataburger on the toilet. Uh, it'd be McDonald's now.
12:58Yeah. Yeah. It would be McDonald's now, but you would never admit to it. Right. That's,
13:02that's in print. Yeah. Steve told that story. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. Or somebody told
13:06the story. We know his allegiances now. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't think we had more than five
13:09and I don't ever remember it being a big deal. Whiny babies are larger now with the expanded
13:13practice squads. Okay. But still I would say whiny babies. Come on. Yeah. And it's the Steelers.
13:19Yeah. Even if the Steelers genuinely do have the worst facilities, I really do feel like the
13:24old Steelers types of players before they became not just the highest paid defense, but very
13:31much the most overpaid defense. Yeah. We saw that man. Those are the kinds of guys who whine
13:36about the, how nice the facility is.
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