00:00The Astros are widely viewed by experts around baseball, Seth, as not a playoff team this year.
00:07I was looking at MLB.com.
00:09They have 57 experts that they polled for awards and stat leaders and, hey, what's your prediction
00:17for who's going to make the postseason, et cetera.
00:20The Astros are not predicted by that gaggle of journalists or whoever they are, reporters,
00:26former players.
00:27There's 57 of them.
00:28They are not viewed as a playoff team right now in the American League by those folks.
00:32And I think, by and large, around baseball, they're viewed as sort of a coin flip right
00:37now to make the postseason.
00:38This is very, very new territory for us.
00:40It is weird because, look, World Series odds are, you know, that's skewed a little bit
00:46by how the public feels about things.
00:49But they're 11th right now, favorite to win the World Series.
00:53Okay.
00:53At 25 to 1.
00:54Okay.
00:54Yeah.
00:55Yeah, I mean, that feels about right.
00:56I think a lot of stuff needs to go right for them to even be hovering around the top 10
01:01teams in baseball right now.
01:02You know, the thing about that, too, though, is sometimes with World Series odds, it's okay.
01:05What's the best case scenario for a team and what's their ceiling?
01:09And you look at the back of the baseball card, Sean.
01:11It's a term that I coined myself.
01:14Right.
01:15Like Brady coining the term likability.
01:18Yeah.
01:18You look at the backs of baseball cards on this team and, okay, yeah, we see where their
01:22ceiling is potentially.
01:24Yeah.
01:24And for me, the thing that makes me more bullish with my homer bias than other people might
01:31be is that I do still believe in the Astros' ability to get the most out of pitchers.
01:36Yep.
01:36And I think there's a lot to like about the upside of some of these guys.
01:40You know, Burroughs and Emai are the biggest wild cards there.
01:44Where I understand and get, you know, people outside of Houston not getting all that excited
01:51about those guys, I still do believe very much in their ability to get the most out of
01:55guys and develop guys like that.
01:57So that's what I'm feeling bullish about.
01:59Yeah.
01:59And if the lineups, if the everyday lineup stays healthy, then they've obviously got
02:04some guys that can mash in that lineup when they're playing to their potential.
02:07I mean, Jeremy Pena, Jose Altuve, Jordan Alvarez, Carlos Correa, Isak Paredes on days where
02:14he's in the lineup.
02:15You will see how that whole thing works out.
02:16If Christian Walker can be better with men on base, and I know he led them in RBIs last
02:21year, but he was horrible striking out with runners in scoring position.
02:25Yiner Diaz is a very underrated piece of that lineup.
02:28You know, he's, that's a catcher who hits, you know, 290, who has power, you know, hits
02:3415, 20, 25 home run type power.
02:37The outfield is the big question mark.
02:39You know, is Jake Myers going to be a plus in the everyday lineup offensively like he was
02:43for big chunks of last year?
02:45Can he stay healthy?
02:46Cam Smith, as I said this yesterday, is a huge X factor because he's the one guy that's
02:50got a really high ceiling that I don't think the prognostications are factoring him in to
02:56hit that ceiling.
02:57But if he does, I think that's, you're talking about maybe an 85 win team becoming an 88 or
03:0289 win team.
03:03He goes in, you know, throughout the course of the season, he wins some games for you with
03:07his bat.
03:07So, um, so I, I'm, I'm trying to stay optimistic about this team.
03:12The injuries have been just such a damper the last couple of years.
03:14So you hope that they're able to stay healthy.
03:16And I'm super intrigued as you, you know, as you mentioned the starting pitching, I'm,
03:20I'm more excited for Friday and Monday or Friday and Sunday in this series than I am today
03:29because of the debuts of Burroughs and EMI for this team.
03:33I'm more intrigued by those two days than I am today.
03:36We know what Hunter Brown is and we hope he goes out and gets a win.
03:39Um, and, uh, in a couple of weeks when they go to their six man rotation, that's probably
03:42when we'll see Eric Getty.
03:44Yes, that's right.
03:45He's in sugar land right now.
03:46If you're looking around for him today at the ballpark, he's in sugar land.
03:49Um, I am super intrigued to see how the Astros handle the new automated balls and strike
03:57system when it comes to challenging balls and strikes.
04:01And for those, just a real quick primer, um, hitters, catchers, pitchers, those are the
04:08three entities that are allowed to challenge balls and strikes.
04:12You have to do it immediately.
04:13You have to touch your helmet to challenge it immediately.
04:16You can't get any input from the bench and, and it's pretty quick.
04:20You know, I'm sure most of you seen it executed by now because you've either gone to a minor
04:25league game or you've, you know, watched some of these spring training games.
04:28Um, but it's quick, you know, you, you, uh, you find out within about seven or eight seconds,
04:34whether it's getting overturned or not.
04:36And, uh, and we are in year two of the Astros supposedly reemphasizing judgment at the plate.
04:43Uh, so this is a second, fantastic second year in a row.
04:46We've heard about a, a reemphasis on getting back to those ways of the Astros basically being
04:52better than the umpire and figuring out balls and strikes.
04:56They didn't do such a hot job of it last year.
04:58No, uh, we'll, we'll see tonight exactly how it goes.
05:01Okay.
05:01We know that Jose Altuve, not allowed to challenge.
05:04No, no, no.
05:05So I, along those lines, I've got my list.
05:07Cause I was thinking about this.
05:08I'm like, okay, you're not allowed to get input from the bench.
05:11You got to do it quickly.
05:12So there's going to be hitters.
05:14I think Seth, I'm guessing there's going to be hitters that have just universal trust.
05:18Cause they have a good eye.
05:19I'm guessing there's some that are just a no.
05:22And I'm guessing there's at least one or two that are a hell no, you can't, we can't
05:26have you challenging Altuve would be a hell no for me, but I feel like almost out of deference
05:31and respect to his tenure with the team that they're probably going to be like, okay, if
05:35you feel like you need to challenge it, challenge it, Jose.
05:38And it's a tricky one with Jose too, because he's got such an odd strike zone.
05:41You know, he's tiny.
05:42And so it's so, you know, like, so what are the computers say?
05:46Here's my list.
05:47I think the, I think the, the unequivocal yeses for this are Jordan Alvarez, Carlos Correa
05:55and Isak Paredes.
05:57I think those are the three that get, okay.
06:00If you, if you do where Joe Espada tells them before the game, use your best judgment.
06:04I think the, the, the soft nose are Christian Walker.
06:10And when I think of this, I was thinking guys just swinging things out of the strike zone all
06:13the time.
06:13Well, that's a, yeah, yeah.
06:15Christian Walker, Jeremy Pena, Yiner Diaz, and any of the outfielders, those are a soft
06:22no.
06:22Hell no for me would be Altuve.
06:26You know, if his swings are any indication, he thinks pitches two feet outside the zone.
06:30That's the thing though with Altuve, he knows he's like, he can, he can make those hits.
06:35So he knows, this is what I would worry about with him.
06:38He knows he can make those hits.
06:39He knows he's swinging at something that's outside the strike zone a lot of the time, but
06:43it does.
06:44It makes me wonder though.
06:45Yeah.
06:46Like, so what is his actual knowledge of where the, the, the outside of the strike zone really
06:50is?
06:51Cause his, his personal psychological strike zone or his hit zone is a lot different than,
06:56you know, just where the plate ends.
06:57Can I give you a big picture reason?
06:59I wouldn't let Jose Altuve challenge his judgment on the base path.
07:02Right.
07:02No, that's exactly what everybody is thinking.
07:04Yeah.
07:04I don't want to, I don't want to be in a game where he, he loses a couple of challenges
07:08and also forgets to tag up fewer decisions.
07:11Jose Altuve needs to make the better off the Astros are right.
07:15Um, my other hell no would be Jake Myers.
07:18Cause I feel like he might be the first player to challenge a ball and turn it into a strike.
07:24Like if he, oh yeah, he actually, or just, he's just, you know, he's like naively honest.
07:29He's like, you know what?
07:30You know, like the pitcher throws a ball to make it, you know, three and oh, you know what?
07:34I think I should have gotten called for a strike on that one.
07:37It surely should really be two and one, uh, right now.
07:40Not three and oh, Jake Myers, first player to challenge a ball as a hitter.
07:44That's my prediction.
07:45It'll be interesting to see the catcher stats on this, you know, like, cause catchers are
07:49going to catchers are going to be the guys that make the most challenges.
07:52Uh, they're, I mean, they're there for every at bat, obviously most pitchers defer to the
07:56catcher.
07:57Um, you've heard a lot of pitchers basically say that they want the catcher to make the decision.
08:02They got a much better idea of it.
08:04Um, so yeah, we'll, we'll start to get a feel for this after a few weeks of which, which
08:08catchers actually know what they're doing and they can keep challenging.
08:11For those who don't know, you get, you basically get two mulligans, but as long as you're getting
08:14it right, you can keep challenging all game long until you get two wrong and then you're
08:19done.
08:20You're out of, you're out of challenges.
08:21So I think the strategy with it is really interesting.
08:24You know, do you see guys, uh, you know, when are guys more inclined to challenge, say we
08:30saw this in this in spring training, I forget who the hitter was.
08:33It was up at the plate.
08:34It was one of the kind of minor league guys.
08:35It was up at the plate and he probably, it was a three, two pitch that with the bases
08:41loaded.
08:42And I think it got called a strike or maybe it's like a three, one pitch, I think.
08:45And it got called a strike to make it three, two.
08:47And callous brought up the point.
08:48Like he probably should have just gone ahead and challenged that because it was borderline.
08:53And if he, if he gets, if it gets overturned, you score a run right there, you know, walks
08:57home or run.
08:58This is, uh, what nobody listening right this moment wants to hear Sean.
09:03And I apologize that I have to be the one to say this, but as Yankees fans are well aware,
09:09Aaron judge gets more bad strike calls than any other major league hitter.
09:14Yeah.
09:14His, uh, odd dimensions, uh, kind of make it difficult for umpires.
09:19Yep.
09:19So Aaron judge is, this is going to help him out.
09:24Uh, this is going to help him out a lot.
09:26Great.
09:26Unfortunately.
09:27Yeah.
09:27He needs to have, he only needs the help in the post season.
09:30He doesn't need the help in the regular season.
09:32He needs to have, he needs to have, he needs to have, he needs the help in the post season.
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