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Seth and Sean discuss what the Astros' 5 man pitching rotation might look like as the season gets started later this week, and talk about Brian McTaggart's piece detailing an incident in which Carlos Correa and his son nearly drowned in Lake Minnetonka.
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00:00The Astros, they're back. They're back in Houston. They face their AAA team tonight,
00:05the Sugarland Space Cowboys. Astro fans and Space Cowboy fans will get their first look
00:11at Tatsuya Imai in an Astros uniform at Dyken Park. So we'll see how many innings he pitches.
00:17It looks like with the two off days they have in the first two weeks is giving the Astros
00:24some leeway here. And this had been kind of alluded to during spring training, but it's
00:28confirmed now that they'll be going with a five-man rotation to start the season. So
00:32no need to do a six-man rotation right now. And we know the order of the first two are
00:38going to be Hunter Brown, number one, Mike Burrows, number two. We know Christian Javier and Tatsuya
00:44Imai are going to be probably three and four in some order. Or actually, no, I think Imai
00:49is going to be four because he would line up right before the off days that they get. The
00:53six-man rotation is in large part an Imai thing because in Japan, they only pitch one
00:58day a week. He only started 24 games last year. So to keep him on a normal, you know,
01:05what his body is used to, that's the necessity. When you really start to play two or two and
01:10a half straight weeks of games, you're going to need a six guy.
01:13And that's one of the things that'll be interesting during the season is if at some point, you know,
01:18they work him into that part of a normal five-man rotation. And like, if so, how quickly can he
01:25do
01:25it and how does he adjust? He's already had to adjust to the size of the baseball, the steepness
01:29of the mound, like all these things that are different about American baseball than playing
01:34in the NPL. And he's done really, really well at it so far. So I would imagine he seems like,
01:42A, a fun guy, but B, all about just, you know, trying to, he's very, what's the word? Enthusiastic
01:50would be the word I'd look for. So like the enthusiasm for probably trying to just get into
01:55the American mode of baseball. I'm guessing that at some point this season, we see him into
01:59a normal five-day rest. Yep. So Anthony Castro Vinci, I'm going to pronounce it. He's a writer for
02:08MLB.com and he did a power rankings of the top 10 pitching staffs in baseball and the top 10
02:15lineups
02:16in baseball. Seth, these were, these were lists that were fun to click on a couple of years ago.
02:21Cause you're like, Ooh, where are the Astros in the top 10 for years, for a decade, you knew they
02:26were going to be in the top 10 in both of these things. Um, they are in the top 10
02:31in neither of
02:33these things. Yeah. Not a top 10 pitching staff, not just the rotation. This is the staff top to
02:38bottom. So from starters through relievers to the closer, um, not only in pitching, not top 10,
02:46they weren't even one of the four or five teams named in the honorable mentions either.
02:50Essentially what he's saying is that this pitching staff, which by the way,
02:54has been by ERA, the best pitching staff in spring training. I know it's spring training,
02:58but they've had a good spring training. He's saying not even top half in the sport right now.
03:03Are you taking offense at this? I was surprised by the way you called him a character in the show
03:07prep. I was surprised that you were taking offense. I would, I would have assumed that
03:11they wouldn't be in the top 10. I was no, no, no. I'm surprised fair. I'm surprised. They're not
03:16even an honorable mention. Yeah. He names five more teams. He names the Rangers, the Royals,
03:22the Braves, the Reds and the Padres. And I'm not here to tell you that I've watched every Padre
03:27and Reds game from the last 162 games. Yeah. But I mean, I'm, I'm a little surprised that a
03:33pitching staff that's got, that had a bullpen that was pretty good last year for the most part
03:38has Hunter Brown at the top of the rotation. They signed Tatsuya Imai. And like, I'm not sitting
03:43here saying they're the Dodgers or anything like that, but to say that they're, they're not in the
03:47upper half surprises me a little bit. I know. So, I mean, if you look at a lot of the
03:52other major
03:52league rotations, though, if you're doing a preseason ranking, okay, there's a lot of rotations
03:56that have five guys that have a bunch of major league experience. I mean, you're looking at
04:01Mike Burrows and Imai with their, their minimal, I mean, Imai's got zero and, you know, so Mike Burrows,
04:09you don't have a track record to look at. And then Lance McCullers, if he is your fifth starter,
04:14he does have a track record to look at. And it's not great. Not to mention Christian Javier, who we
04:19still
04:19don't even know if he's really cut out to be a full-time starter. That's fair. Major league
04:23baseball. Everything you're saying. There's one guy that you feel awesome about and it's Hunter
04:27Brown. And maybe I'm getting too swept up in spring training stats again and how good Burrows looks
04:31and how good Imai looks. And maybe I'm falling victim to that. I'm just, look, there's a lot of
04:36bad teams in baseball. Right. Yeah. There's a lot of bad teams, but I think if you're looking at it
04:40objectively and you're just, you're taking, you're looking at all 30 teams and you look at like,
04:46really, what can you, what can you really bank on to know that the Astros, what the Astros rotation
04:52is going to look like for their five guys have huge question marks. They do. And I think the,
04:57well, the other thing too, and now I'm, now I'm jumping onto your side of the argument here.
05:00This is what I would have brought up would be what's Josh hate. Josh haters, your closer
05:04and you don't even know if he's healthy. He's not healthy. He's on the injured list. So there's
05:08that I, again, like I'm not sitting here saying they're the 2019 Astros or anything. I'm just,
05:12it's a little jarring, I guess. Okay. So maybe that's what it is. It's a little jarring with
05:17the last decade that we've lived in. We've lived in this penthouse for the last decade. It's a
05:21little bit jarring to see the Astros not even considered by one of the baseball, I'll call him
05:26an expert. Um, he writes for MLB.com to say that they're not even in the top half of pitching
05:31staffs. Yeah. And I just, I looked at, I Googled for a couple of different lists and it was kind
05:35of
05:35similar somewhere in the middle of the pack on all of that. Um, but I, it's, I think they might
05:41be
05:41one of the most intriguing pitching staffs because of combination of the upside of those
05:45guys other than McCullers. I don't know if you call it upside at this point in his career.
05:49You at least know where his ceiling is somewhere out there in space and time. There's a ceiling
05:54for Lance McCullers. Um, but the, I think the upside and the intrigue and the fact that those
05:59younger guys are paired with that pitching development staff. That's been so good for so
06:06many guys like Hunter Brown himself. That's the part that's, um, you know, like, uh, you know,
06:11you can, you can hopefully a month or two from now, say in your face to this Castigliano.
06:18Well, you better be able to, if they, if they don't, if they don't have a pitching staff that's
06:23in the upper half in the sport, it's going to be a long summer, man. It's going to be a
06:27long
06:28summer. If their pitching staff is 17th in ERA or however you're measuring,
06:32you're, um, pitching staffs, you're less offended by the fact that the lineup isn't in the top.
06:38Well, because they, they actually made the honorable mention. They, you know, they, they
06:42were, he, he, he mentions the lineup. They didn't make the top 10. Um, you know, but they,
06:48you know, they made, uh, the, the, they were the very first team mentioned in the honorable
06:52mention. So I choose to believe they were 11th. They're 11th. Yeah. Um, and all he says is if
06:56Jordan Alvarez stays healthy, the Astros can ascend into the top 10. I wasn't expecting them to be
07:01in the top 10, just because that's where we've seen the exodus the last few years,
07:06you know, was Kyle Tucker leaving Alex Bregman leaving. Um, you know, the, the outfield is not
07:12great right now. As far as we know, you know, it's the outfield was a lot of unknowns in the
07:16outfield. The one known in the outfield is a guy who's just historically not a very good
07:20offensive player. And Jake Myers, he was better last year. So I took, I, I don't take offense to
07:26any of it. I'm just, it's, it's sobering. Yeah. I guess that's where I'm at with it. I like
07:31you hate being sober. You get offended by that. I do. That's that's the part of them. I'm most
07:36upset about is that this guy is making me sober. You know what you're like? You're like a Christopher
07:42in the intervention that you just got pulled into a room and this, this character, this baseball
07:48writer is like, Oh, we've got, I've got a letter that I want to read. Castro Vinci is sitting there.
07:53He's the guy running the intervention and all my family is in there. Yeah. And they're saying,
07:58Sean, you need to get baseball sober. You need to, my mom is sitting there, even though
08:02she's not with us anymore. Somehow miraculously, they recreated her through AI. Yeah. And then
08:07like Christopher, I turn and I call her a whore. I tell her to shut up. Yep. Yeah. I'm reliving
08:12this. Because you're just, because you're so, you won't shut up about Mike Burroughs spring
08:17training performance. That's right. And, uh, and Oh, the Astros, uh, their overall spring
08:22training, get ahold of yourself. Is that my most annoying thing right now that I love
08:26Mike Burroughs so much through 15 innings? No, no, no. I don't think, I don't think it's
08:29annoying. I think you're, I think you're, I, you are kind of waving around the spring
08:34training results as if it's a pennant or something. Like it's a, it's like, it's a metal
08:39pennant that you're going to put up in the outfield. Am I okay. Am I that over the top about
08:43it? Like that's what you did at the beginning of this segment. You said, this is the team
08:47that was the best pitching performance in spring training and somehow they're not a top
08:5110 pitching staff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, no, I did bring it up as evidence. You're
08:55right. I don't know. I was waving a metal banner or anything like that. I just, it's
08:58yeah, I, I tend to, I tend to view it as hopeful and I guess I'm taking that hope and
09:04somehow
09:04transferring it to where I'm, I'm upset with Castro Vinci. I don't know if I'm upset with him.
09:09I just, this is hard to look at if you're an Astros fan, man. And here's the hardest
09:12part. Sorry, Seth. Here's the hardest part. I don't know the way out. I don't know the
09:17way out. You know, if, if the way out is Dana Brown playing chess and hitting, hitting on
09:22Mike Burroughs and hitting on Tatsuya Imai, that's a tough world to live in. Typically
09:27the way you get out of this is the way the Astros got out of it back in 2014. You
09:33got a
09:33bunch of studs coming up from all the draft picks that you had. And the fact of the matter
09:37is the Astros minor league system is not viewed that way right now. The, uh, the
09:42Athletic had the lineup as the 15th best lineup. I hate them too.
09:49You got nice fonts in any of the points that they made about this. Tell me what's
09:53wrong. Let's see. Uh, Jordan Alvarez stirs the drink, uh, should be one of the best
09:58hitters in the game if he can stay healthy, but they do have some agent decline
10:03risks on the right side of the infield. Yes. Christian Walker. Yep. Jose Altuve. Yeah.
10:08Uh, third baseman, Carlos Craya. These are just the injury risks. Yeah. Yeah.
10:14Paredes, uh, a lot of good points, man. Paredes not only coming off an injury, but
10:18also, uh, they are trying to boot him out of Houston as, as, as fast as possible. Assuming
10:24Jeremy Pena comes back from his currently broken. Yeah. Who's the infielder? Who's not,
10:29doesn't have an injury, uh, concern or issue right now or age, age or injury. None of them.
10:34Paredes missed a bunch of games last year too. So yeah, the, all five of them have injury or
10:39age concerns for the most, the healthiest one is Altuve and he's, you know, he's 35 or whatever.
10:45Christian Walker turns 35 in five days. Great. Happy birthday, Christian.
10:51I feel like I remember them at the beginning of the season last year, bringing up Christian
10:55Walker's birthday. Yeah. Hey, cause I remember thinking something like, huh? 34, huh?
11:00Hey, oblique injury. Cool. How about, yeah, right. How about,
11:04that story that Brian McTaggart had this weekend about Carlos Correa almost drowning in Lake
11:09Minnetonka? Oh, I didn't read it. What happened to him? Dude, it's wild. So he was in Lake Minnetonka
11:16last year, uh, before he got traded here, obviously it was Lake Minnetonka. I think,
11:21no, it was, it was definitely like his old gag. It was the play on young women. No, it was
11:24definitely
11:24Lake. It was definitely Lake Minnetonka. And, and I've, I think I've got the wrong link in the,
11:29in the rundown for it, but I'll, I'll give you the, the cliff notes. Um, he was in the lake
11:34with
11:34his three-year-old son, Kylo, and they had gotten off of the boat and somehow they, they,
11:40they got into a situation where he, Carlos was really struggling to stay above the water
11:44and his son is clinging to him on his back. Oh crap. And he was able to make it to
11:49a buoy,
11:50but then he slips off of the buoy and he's able to like, he's underwater and he's, he found a
11:56chain off of the buoy and he's underwater and his son is on his back and he's grabbing with his
12:00left
12:00hand with the chain and then holding onto his son with his other hand and finally able to grab and
12:04get both of their heads above water. And they were screaming and screaming and screaming. And
12:07finally, I think it was Carlos's father-in-law heard them and was able to go get them. But it,
12:12it was, I mean, McTaggart's description of it. And it's really Correa's description of it.
12:17Cause it's direct quotes is hair. It's the, it's one of the scariest things you can think of.
12:22He said his son was on his back screaming, are we going to be okay? Daddy, his son had a
12:27life
12:27jacket on. Yeah. And Carlos did not. So he's doing that situation. I guess with your son,
12:31your son's going to be scared and he's wearing a life jacket, but he's also clinging onto you.
12:35You got to probably shove your son away from you. Not that I'm faulting Carlos for not knowing what
12:39to do in a situation. When I sit here in my comfy dry clothes and everything, I guess like, yeah,
12:45if you, if you get in a situation like that, your kid's got a life jacket on, try to, you
12:48got to try
12:48and he's, and he's climbing on you. You got to try to push him off for a little push him
12:52off so he
12:52can float. You got to. It's not like, look, McTaggart has a strong current or something.
12:56That's going to take him down the river and over the falls or something. I wouldn't think so. It was
13:00just a, it was a really scary read, man. Like you, you know, you're a father, like I'm a father.
13:04Like you put yourself in, in the same situation when your kid's three years old clinging to you and
13:10you're, you know, and I don't know if I, like, I don't know if Carlos doesn't know how to swim.
13:13I'm not sure. You
13:14know, like, I don't know what, no, he's definitely swimming. Yeah. He was, he does. Carlos wasn't
13:18wearing a life jacket. Right. But he, but he almost drowned is what I'm saying. Like he's right. I
13:23mean, but it wasn't like one of those situations where if he had just put his feet down, then
13:26he'd have his feet on the, uh, his feet on the, uh, on the floor of the, well, I'm assuming
13:33he's in, I'm assuming he's in depth or something like that. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. He was
13:38swimming out with his son. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, but at some point he tuckered out and
13:42he was, he was, he was right. He tuckered out the way when you're saying, you don't
13:45know if he can swim or not. Like he was swimming when this all happened. Right. Okay. Well,
13:50swim well, at least I don't know. Like he's yeah. Like, I mean, he's drowning. He's there's
13:54something going on and he's in good shape, you know, like, is he, if your son has a life
13:58jacket, push him aside and tread water or something. He's he was on it. I mean, from the way it
14:03sounds,
14:03he was, he was on the verge of dying there if he didn't get a life jacket. So that's, that's
14:07all. That's why I wondered that.
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