- 2 days ago
Seth and Sean get ready for opening day by laying out what excites them as well as what worries them about this Astros team.
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00:00So Astros get the season started today at 315, Hunter Brown on the mound.
00:05Things to worry about, things to get super excited about.
00:07Let's start with the fear out of the hope and fear matrix here.
00:11What is your biggest worry or maybe something that happened in the offseason
00:16that has you, you know, feeling like the Astros may need to prove something to you?
00:20I think, for me, it's weird.
00:24I saw a clip of Frambois the other day,
00:25and it's the strangest thing where losing Frambois was a big deal,
00:30and yet we were so out on him emotionally at the end of the year
00:34that it felt like we'd already been divorced.
00:36I'm going to be honest with you.
00:38I have not thought about Frambois Valdez one time in spring training this year.
00:43So honestly, when I sat down to think about this,
00:46of, okay, what are my biggest things I need to worry about?
00:49It's the fact that, look, Frambois,
00:52regardless of what he was like the last two months of the season,
00:55the sum total of it all was still a good effort on the season by Frambois,
00:59and the amount of innings that he eats
01:01and how he makes it easier for you in a lot of different ways
01:05when he's at peak Frambois.
01:07It's probably that.
01:09It's me remembering, oh, yeah,
01:12the pitching staff is the way it is now,
01:14partly because Frambois Valdez is not there.
01:17Emotionally, maybe he hasn't been here since June of last year or what have you.
01:21But the loss of Frambois and just the pitching staff in general,
01:24the unknowns that we're kind of hinging the hopes of the season on,
01:30that's my biggest concern.
01:31That's a lot of innings to fill.
01:34Forget about how you feel about the way he pitched in the last couple months of the year.
01:38Forget about how you feel for a second about the truculence,
01:42I'll call it, of Frambois Valdez,
01:43whether it was clubhouse stuff,
01:45pegging Cesar Salazar in the chest with a pitch,
01:48not backing up bases,
01:50saying weird things in press conferences.
01:52That guy you could pencil in for 200 innings a year,
01:55and that is obviously a very valuable commodity
01:59because the Detroit Tigers are paying a king's ransom for it, for sure.
02:03Well, and if you think about just the guys that you do have right now
02:07and how durable.
02:09The guys in this rotation right now,
02:11I mean, Christian Javier,
02:13it's always been a question of just how many innings can he really handle year to year.
02:18Lance McCullers, is he going to even be off of crutches long enough to take up substantial innings?
02:25Emai can only pitch, needs an extra day of rest to start off the season,
02:29and he's never pitched in Major League Baseball.
02:31Burroughs, very limited experience in Major League Baseball.
02:35That dynamic of, okay, who's actually going to pitch all these games,
02:39it's a big difference.
02:40Well, the thing about Javier and McCullers is that even when they're going well,
02:45they don't eat up a lot of innings because they, you know,
02:49control can be an issue sometimes.
02:50They have high pitch counts, the two of them,
02:52even when the stats, the rest of the stats look good.
02:55It's a struggle for them to stay under 100 pitches over five innings sometimes.
03:01So there's that.
03:03What about on the offensive side of things?
03:05What are we worried about?
03:05What are we most worried about on the offensive side of things?
03:07Most worried, I guess, just the combined underperformance,
03:13because it's a given that you've got to, you know,
03:15the young guys, Cam Smith, however that plays out, it plays out,
03:21but it's a known quantity.
03:23I guess just the lingering Jose Altuve age, Christian Walker age slash underperformance,
03:33Yiner Diaz, and what exactly is he as a hitter?
03:39All of those things are the sum total of the veteran players and or just Yiner
03:46and not knowing quite what he's going to be in his career offensively.
03:49Yeah, I guess I would add to that.
03:51I would add to that that the weird roster construction right now with, you know,
04:01skill-wise and talent-wise and production-wise, a regular infielder,
04:04when you've already got four regular infielders,
04:08what's our trust level in Joe Espada to be able to put that puzzle piece together the right way?
04:16Each, you know, for 162 games, you know, push the right buttons.
04:20Espada is in a spot right now, man, where he's going to have a,
04:24like the day-to-day decision-making.
04:26This is not a lineup.
04:27You can just kind of, like, here's the nine guys that are going to be playing in 140 of these
04:31games,
04:31and we've got to tweak it on Saturday and Sunday.
04:33On day games after night games, we've got to swap out the catcher.
04:37There is a lot of decision-making that's going to be going on with Joe Espada.
04:40If they are true to what they're talking about, Seth,
04:42which is finding a way to get Isak Perretti's in that lineup on a regular basis.
04:46Yeah.
04:47You know, it's just...
04:47And I probably shouldn't have, like, Yiner's in a different category than Altuve, obviously.
04:52I guess with Yiner, my question is just I feel like there's more to him offensively
04:58to the point where I still believe that he could end up being that rare guy
05:04that's really, like, by catcher standards, a really good hitter.
05:08But as his workload went up, you saw the production go down.
05:12So I'm kind of just wondering whether he just bounces, like, with a full year of experience,
05:18if he can just take another step forward.
05:20But I guess I wouldn't put that in the worry bucket necessarily.
05:23Yeah, he got it going.
05:24Like, as the year went on last year, he steadily got better and better and better.
05:27Oh, yeah, yeah.
05:28Things are...
05:28No, yeah, he ended up with respectable numbers.
05:31Yeah.
05:32And that's where...
05:33So I shouldn't have put him in the worry bucket.
05:35Yeah.
05:35Okay, I think you and I are most excited about the...
05:38At the top of the list, at least the same thing.
05:41I am excited for Sunday and Tatsuya Imai and seeing what he's all about.
05:45The whole thing, the whole package of Tatsuya Imai.
05:48I like that he's, you know, he feels like he grew up in California.
05:55Right.
05:56The bleached hair, a little bit more of an American physique than the physique we've seen
06:02of a lot of Japanese pitchers.
06:05He's an extroverted personality.
06:07And I think that...
06:09I think there's a really good chance that he becomes, I would say, a cult hero, but that's
06:14not probably quite right.
06:15Just because he's one year with an option.
06:20Yeah.
06:20But like a lovable hero.
06:23Oh, man.
06:23Yeah.
06:23You just dropped a little bit of like angst on me there.
06:27Like, oh, that's right.
06:28Yeah.
06:28Whenever I think of Imai, I think three years, 63 million.
06:31But I forgot that the Astros now play in the old player opt-out pool for the first time.
06:37So I hope it's not just a one and done with Imai.
06:39Well, let's see.
06:40Let's see how it goes.
06:40He hasn't pitched a game yet.
06:42What else?
06:43What else are we excited about for the Astros here?
06:46The return of Loprefito.
06:48Oh, yeah.
06:49Yeah.
06:49I think just Loprefito.
06:51Did I send Ben the audio of Loprefito?
06:54I think you did.
06:54Yeah.
06:54I think you did.
06:55This was Loprefito during spring training talking about, you'll recall, he was very emotional
07:00when he found out that he was leaving the Astros a couple of years ago.
07:06And he talked about, this year in spring training, he talked about why he was so emotional.
07:11I mean, I was definitely surprised, I think, about, you know, that night and how emotional
07:15I got.
07:15And I don't know.
07:16It caught me by surprise.
07:17And I don't think I had really been exposed to the business side of the game at that point.
07:22I took a ton of pride in being, you know, a homegrown player and getting to play, you
07:28know, all through the minors with this team and get to debut and play in the major leagues
07:32with that team.
07:32And I still take a lot of pride in being a homegrown Astro.
07:36So I felt like it was easier, you know, the second time around.
07:40And, you know, you've seen a little bit of the business side.
07:42You see how things can change.
07:44And when they said that I was going back to Houston, I was relieved just because I know,
07:49you know, one, the clubhouse that I was going back to, and two, you know, just kind of felt
07:55that sense of pride.
07:56And, you know, I was going back to where everything started.
07:57So I was excited and, yeah, looking forward to be back.
08:03He was, the way I look at him, Seth, it's like he went and studied abroad for a couple
08:07of years.
08:08Yeah.
08:08He's an exchange student that went over to, went out of the country, Canada, and then
08:15came back.
08:17He studied abroad.
08:19That's what he did.
08:20I hope he's not, he doesn't do that annoying thing where he tries to affect the accent of
08:24wherever he studied abroad.
08:26He comes back with a Canadian accent.
08:28He's like, yeah, it was a good game, eh?
08:29Yeah.
08:30Yeah.
08:32I'm excited to have Loprofito back.
08:33We'll see, man.
08:34The Angels are a bunch of hosers, eh?
08:37Hosers.
08:38Yeah.
08:38Strange brew back in the day, baby.
08:41I don't know.
08:41Are we going to get, we probably won't.
08:43We've only got 45 minutes left in the show.
08:45I was just wondering to myself, are we going to get the opening day lineup revealed during
08:50our show today?
08:51Probably not, I would guess.
08:52No.
08:53It usually gets posted like four or five hours before the game.
08:56So I'm guessing we're not going to get that.
08:57But Loprofito might be the starter in left field today.
09:00Who knows?
09:00We'll see.
09:01But you're excited to have him back, huh?
09:03That's high up on the Seth Payne list.
09:05No, I am.
09:05Yeah.
09:06I don't know.
09:06He was very popular.
09:07I think there's a little bit of a look.
09:10Am I going to lie?
09:11Is there a little bit of maybe a Jake Marisnyk type of look?
09:14Uh, that's what I'm feeling.
09:15He's got a, he's got a, I got a suave look about him.
09:17Yeah.
09:18Yeah.
09:18I kind of got, I might have a man crush on him a little bit.
09:21The same way I did on Marisnyk.
09:22I'm like, yeah, that's a guy I wish I looked like.
09:24Right.
09:25It's not a, it's not a creepy attraction thing or anything.
09:28Everybody I'm, I'm much too old for him, but it's more of a, it's more of a, like,
09:33yeah, that's the, that's the guy I wish I had looked like in life.
09:37I am excited to have Carlos Correa on a full season here.
09:43You know, it's not a mid-season thing where he's coming in and, you know, he's, he's having
09:48to, you know, kind of pick up the group here mid-season as the Astros are struggling with
09:52all these injuries.
09:53And I'm very excited that he doesn't have to slide over to shortstop at all for the time
09:57being.
09:57It looks like Jeremy Payne, Jeremy Payne is not on the IL.
10:00He played the other night against Sugarland.
10:02He hit a bomb.
10:02He looked fine.
10:04I'd be shocked if he's not in the lineup today, batting lead off right there in his, in the
10:08one hole.
10:09But that Carlos Correa can, from the get-go, do what he was brought here to do, which is
10:16leadership and play third base.
10:19So that's cool.
10:19Pardon me.
10:20I did that.
10:21You know, there's a million different ways this Paredes thing could, could work out though.
10:25And I don't know if I would put that as something I'm concerned about, excited about, whatever
10:29it might be.
10:30I, there's potentially a blockbuster trade somewhere coming down the line, but I also,
10:36I, there's a part of me that just wants Paredes to almost make it impossible for them to
10:40trade him.
10:40How so?
10:41Like hit a home run every single, every single, uh, game to open the season.
10:47Yeah.
10:48Hit a home run every game, this series, uh, right over the Crawford boxes.
10:52It just somehow make it impossible.
10:55If you're, if you get to play in all four of those Christian Walker, shouldn't be some
10:58kind of sacred cow, even though he's making 20 million a year.
11:01Like if Christian Walker isn't hitting well, if he's not playing well and you got a better
11:04solution, you owe it to the team to have that better solution in there.
11:08Yeah.
11:09I love it.
11:09Like we're going to face a point.
11:11Okay.
11:11Paredes come out first two games, hit a home run, hit three home runs in the first two games.
11:16Then all of a sudden he's not even playing in the third game.
11:18You know, cause somebody else has the DH.
11:20It just, uh, it's that, that part of it.
11:23I want to be in one of those situations where I'm getting angry about somebody playing well.
11:27Yeah.
11:27And this, that's where the Espada thing gets really interesting.
11:30This is his job to have the pulse of this team and know the, it's the analytics team's
11:35job to know what the best matchups are.
11:36They probably have a computer that spits out the best lineup for them if they want to,
11:40based on what they have.
11:41Um, but Espada is the one pushing the buttons.
11:43It's going to come down on him.
11:45Um, it's an extreme version of just last year when they had the what's his face, they're
11:49playing second base and, uh, and you know, Dubon's not playing.
11:54Oh, oh, Brendan.
11:55What's his name?
11:55Roberts or whatever.
11:57Rodgers.
11:57Rodgers with the beard.
11:58Yeah.
11:59Yeah.
11:59And I'm like, where the hell's Dubon?
12:00Cause Dubon would have a good couple of games.
12:02Oh no, no, no, no.
12:03Can't displace Brendan Rogers.
12:05Gotta get a guy.
12:06Gotta have him on it.
12:06Gotta have him there.
12:07He's a gold.
12:08He's the chosen one.
12:09He was a gold Glover in the four years ago.
12:12Yeah.
12:13And I'm not so happy about the way that he just tossed Dubon to the side.
12:16You didn't like that.
12:16All right.
12:16Yeah.
12:17Just so casually.
12:17You don't have to worry about that.
12:18Like he's no big deal or anything.
12:20Yeah.
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