- 2 days ago
Seth and Sean discuss concerns and expectations for Teng starting for the Astros this evening and how pundits are saying the Texans did in the draft.
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00:00Your excitement level for Kai Wei-Tang starting tonight.
00:03One to five. Scale of one to five.
00:06Excitement level to see Kai Wei-Tang start tonight.
00:08What is life these days?
00:10It's an 11 and 18 baseball team.
00:13I'd say a five because at some point,
00:15at some point, if you think about the return of Hunter Brown,
00:18if you think of the return of the unstoppable Tatsuya Emi,
00:26there's a chance. There's an avenue somehow, somewhere.
00:30There with Eric Getty. Okay, let's see. Let's dream for a second.
00:32Let's cobble this together. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:34Hunter Brown.
00:35Yeah, yeah. He's an ace.
00:36Emi having fully recovered from his jet lag,
00:38despite having been in the country for, what, at least three months now.
00:41I would have had more respect if they put jet lag down as the injury
00:45instead of right arm fatigue.
00:47He's just adjusted.
00:49Long jet lag. He's suffering from long jet lag.
00:51Okay, so Emi. Emi. Yep.
00:54Emi. You got Eric Getty. You got Hunter Brown.
00:56It's three.
00:58I can't put Lance into this conversation.
01:00God, no.
01:01But we'll say maybe Kai Wei Tang.
01:04Kai Wei Tang is our latest, greatest.
01:06Respect. Put some respect on Peter Lambert's name.
01:09He had a good start last time out.
01:12Six innings.
01:13I'm just trying to build the four at this point.
01:16Yeah.
01:17So, between Lambert, let's say between Lambert and Kai Wei Tang.
01:20Yeah.
01:20Maybe.
01:20And honestly, part of it at this point, with the bats as good as they're capable of being,
01:28four starters who can just consistently go six innings or so.
01:32Yeah.
01:32And just take some of the pressure off of that bullpen.
01:37And then we'll see what we have.
01:38We can reassess after we stabilize a little bit.
01:41It's the back end of the bullpen that's a killer right now.
01:44Because you thought for a couple of games there, you had something in De Los Santos.
01:47And it's not been as good after the first couple times.
01:50Brian Abreu is still not usable.
01:52Josh Hader's coming back who knows when.
01:55Abreu.
01:56Everything's so weird right now.
01:58Well, and I was watching Chandler and Tyler Stafford on their podcast, the Crush City podcast.
02:05They do an excellent job of covering the team.
02:07And they were making great points about Abreu.
02:10They're like, he's basically, he's making your bullpen dysfunctional right now just by
02:16sitting there doing nothing.
02:18Like, you can't.
02:19They used him in a game.
02:20They used him in one of the Yankee games, but they were down by eight runs or whatever
02:23it was.
02:24You know, they were getting killed.
02:24So, clearly, Espada doesn't want to put him in a game where they have a lead.
02:29And this just ends, Seth.
02:30They're going to need to have leads in some of these games if they're going to get back
02:33in this AL West race.
02:35Well, yeah.
02:35Have a lead.
02:36And then if they can consistently run the ball, you know, and convert first downs.
02:40Yes.
02:41Just to do something.
02:42So, we need the bullpen to be the equivalent of a good, just a credible rushing offense
02:49that can get first downs in the fourth quarter.
02:53And let's add to that Josh Hader, then, since we're moving to the back.
02:56It would just be incredible if that guy would show up at some point.
02:59Well, and who knows?
02:59If you get him back, maybe Abreu feels more comfortable with knowing full well he's not
03:03getting in in the ninth inning.
03:04He knows what his role is, man.
03:06Josh Hader's got the nine.
03:07I got the eight.
03:08Because it seems like it's, and I know that there was, I know there's been, you know,
03:12his fastballs down two miles an hour, whatever the case may be.
03:15Maybe something mechanical.
03:16I think it's mostly between the ears with Brian Abreu.
03:18He's said it himself.
03:20It's between the ears right now.
03:22He's, you know, he's overthinking things.
03:23So, we'll see.
03:25I'm looking forward to, you know, if you look for an 11-18 baseball team, I look forward
03:29to two things.
03:30Jordan Alvarez and whatever the flavor of the day is.
03:32And the flavor of the day is Kai Weiteng starting a game.
03:36And I think this will be one of those decisions, too, that, you know, Joe Espada, it's hard
03:42to judge Joe Espada right now because of all the injuries, the pitching so bad.
03:46Do we blame Joe Espada because they're walking guys at an unbelievable rate right now?
03:50I don't know.
03:50Dana Brown doesn't.
03:51He said in his interview he did with the media the other day that Joe Espada's fine.
03:56Like, this isn't Joe's fault.
03:57But these are decisions that Joe's making, like, to rob from the bullpen, because Kai
04:02Weiteng's been your best reliever, to rob from the bullpen to fortify the starting rotation.
04:07Neither of those things have been good in totality.
04:10But it's just, it's an interesting decision.
04:12You probably won't get five innings out of him tonight.
04:15You're probably, you know, he's still not fully stretched to be a starter.
04:18He's replacing Ryan Weiss, which was funny because this would be Ryan Weiss's turn in the
04:23rotation.
04:23He's been bad, the couple of opportunities they've given him, so they're trying something
04:27different.
04:27But it was funny in the article that I was reading, I think it was Kawahara I was reading
04:30yesterday.
04:31It was like, yeah, Tang probably won't go the normal allotment of a starter, which is
04:34understandable.
04:36He's not up to that pitch count yet.
04:38So they'll probably bring in Ryan Weiss after that.
04:41Like, okay, we're going to get our Weiss one way or the other.
04:44I just, I know.
04:44I mean, well, at this point, too, moving a reliever to being a starter just means that, oh, he's
04:49going to go in two innings earlier than he typically does.
04:52That, you know, if you're a reliever on this team and Emai's pitching, you might as well
04:59be, start warming up, right?
05:01You might as well warm up alongside Emai or any of these starting pitchers at this point.
05:05Dude, that would be hilarious.
05:07Just alternating pitches on the mound there.
05:09They're already warming up Emai's replacement while he's getting ready for the first inning.
05:12You know, and you kind of watch, you know, you watch with one eye that right now just
05:16all the developments in Boston with Alex Cora and everybody else getting fired.
05:20And it's, in Boston, boy, talk about a miserable city right now because they got the whole thing
05:26going on with Vrabel.
05:27And then the, and then Alex Cora gets fired.
05:30And basically I checked in on Boston because I was checking in on Vrabel.
05:34Yeah.
05:34It's almost as if firing, firing Alex Cora to Red Sox fans is basically like Vrabel buying
05:43that, that, that, that sweatshirt as a makeup, as a present for his wife.
05:47You saw that.
05:48Yeah.
05:49Which was the way it was framed.
05:52There's a picture of him buying a hoodie or like some kind of athleisure gear.
05:56And the way that, the way it was framed was he's buying a present for his wife to make
06:01up for like, who knows?
06:01They might've been buying it for his mom or something.
06:03The aggregators were declaring it as fact that he was, as if they walked up to him and
06:07asked him.
06:08It was in the airport in, it was in the airport in Salt Lake City, which I guess is where
06:12he
06:13went for the weekend.
06:14Yeah.
06:15They, I think they, I was reading an article about this.
06:17Maybe he's gone LDS.
06:18Maybe that's the way he's going to get out of this.
06:21He's like, I gotta, I gotta get as wholesome and strict as possible.
06:25Well, or, you know, he had multiple wives.
06:27Or he's going, oh, like he's going sect, like one of those mountain sects.
06:32Yeah.
06:32Or, you know, he's like, hey, Rossini, now I'm with this religion that'll let me have
06:36two wives.
06:37To be clear.
06:38Yeah.
06:39It doesn't.
06:40But yes, I get what you're saying.
06:41Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
06:42I don't want to piss off the LDS people, Sean.
06:44Do you think they're up 6.08?
06:46It's at least one is.
06:47Even up since 4 a.m.
06:48Yeah, probably.
06:49Yeah.
06:50Probably.
06:51So, yeah, I saw that same thing.
06:53We'll hit Rabel later in the show for sure.
06:55So, yeah, Astro's back at it tonight.
06:57We love East Coast.
06:58We love East Coast series.
06:59I only bring it up in the 6 o'clock segment because all of you that are up right now
07:02probably
07:03can appreciate a good 5.35 start time.
07:06Which means it starts at 6.35 in Baltimore.
07:10I wouldn't mind some 6.30 starts here in Houston.
07:13Yeah, that'd be nice.
07:14Yeah, a little half hour earlier.
07:15That's exactly what this city needs.
07:16We're not going to show up either way until the third inning.
07:20That's true.
07:46That's true.
07:46I love that.
07:48I mean, we're practically walking out of the building and walking right to somewhere to
07:51go watch a baseball game.
07:52That's beautiful.
07:53On a Thursday afternoon?
07:55Love that.
07:56Where do they go after this?
07:57Huh?
07:58Where do they go after this?
07:59Boston.
07:59Okay.
08:00Yeah, Boston to go face the headless horseman that is the Boston Red Sox.
08:04We should have Ted on next week or later this week.
08:07This week, yeah.
08:07It starts up front.
08:08Yeah, you want to have Ted on?
08:09We can talk a little for Abel with him too.
08:10All right.
08:11I'll get in touch with told Teddy J.
08:12By the way, Joe Espada, second on the odds board as long as we're talking about Alex Cora.
08:17Next manager to get fired, second on the odds board, Joe Espada.
08:21Three to one.
08:21Who's number one?
08:23Carlos Mendoza of the Mets.
08:25The Mets and the Phillies are worse than the Astros right now, record-wise.
08:28So their managers, and those are teams that spend more money than the Astros.
08:32Their managers are in real trouble.
08:34I just, so when I try to do my little exercise where I put myself in the shoes of a
08:38Bostonian,
08:39and, you know, just I try to be as, I try to be as angry and racist as possible as
08:43I'm
08:43doing this.
08:44Sure.
08:44You know, real, go super Boston mode.
08:47Yep.
08:49I do think that we would probably have the same response as a lot of Boston fans when
08:54they fired Alex Cora, which is, all right, is this, if you fired a second,
08:58Espada, are all of a sudden the pitchers going to be healthy?
09:01Right, right.
09:01Are all of a sudden, just, are the pitchers going to be good, and how much do we put on
09:06Espada specifically?
09:08Yeah, and when they whacked everybody, they whacked like six other guys, too.
09:11So it was a complete shift, and the players were mad up there, like demonstrably angry.
09:16The Red Sox players like Alex Cora, yeah.
09:19Yeah, they were mad.
09:20The players were.
09:21So I don't know, unless they're trying to get everybody to rally against one common enemy,
09:25which is the GM, and that's going to drive, you know, the chip on their shoulder.
09:29When we were 2-14 back in 2005?
09:34Five, yep.
09:35Thanks, Sean.
09:36You're welcome.
09:36I need you to be my biographer.
09:38You know the fact.
09:39I would love that.
09:39You can be my biographer and fact checker.
09:41Back in 2005, there was a point where a couple players wanted to go talk to Mr. McNair about
09:48something, just to voice our approval of somebody that we thought was going to get fired, and
09:53my contention was, why the hell should he listen to us?
09:57Okay?
09:58This is, guys, I don't think you understand how much we suck right now, and I did not go
10:05see Mr. McNair about this one specific thing.
10:07Did they?
10:08Because of the deep shame I felt over the situation.
10:10I think you made the right choice.
10:12Did they go see Mr. McNair about that?
10:13They did.
10:14They did.
10:15No, and Mr. McNair was always super cool about stuff like that.
10:18Oh, yeah.
10:18I disagreed with these guys.
10:20It was a couple of friends of mine.
10:20It wasn't a big deal.
10:21Yeah.
10:21But, like, I kind of disagreed about the message that they wanted to give to Mr. McNair.
10:25Because I told them, I was like, guys, do you really think, like, we've all been putting
10:30our best efforts on paper here?
10:32We don't.
10:33We're a crappy football team, and it's not just the coach's fault here.
10:37No, no, no.
10:39I mean, I was playing incredibly well.
10:41But still, not everybody else.
10:42You don't want to show everybody else up.
10:44Yeah, I got it.
10:46So, hey, speaking of the Texans, all of the draft report cards are in.
10:51We'll dig into those a little bit later.
10:53We hit some of them yesterday.
10:54But that chart that comes out every year that I love, because you know, Seth, I love grading,
10:59ranking, judging, all of those things.
11:02That chart that has all, like, 30 report cards and it spits out a GPA for each team is out.
11:09And I think the Texans are in the bottom quartile.
11:14They're 25th out of 32.
11:15Nick Casario got a 2.63 GPA.
11:19Bottom quartile.
11:20Bottom quartile.
11:21He's in the upper quartile of the bottom quartile.
11:23Are we allowed to use that hotkey still now that Ursae's not with us anymore?
11:26Yeah.
11:27Okay.
11:27He's not going to.
11:27He's not.
11:28He's going to stay dead.
11:29Yeah, yeah.
11:30It's not like all of a sudden, like, oh, maybe he'll pull through or something.
11:33I'm not worried about him.
11:33We'll play the hotkey.
11:36In the upper quartile of winners, we're in the top quartile of that upper quartile.
11:40Okay, so in the bottom quartile of drafters, according to the report card people, Nick Casario
11:45is in the upper quartile of the bottom quartile.
11:47It's fun, because right now all of the talk, all the rage on the most annoying corners of
11:52Twitter as we do post-draft analysis has been about how teams drafted versus the consensus
11:59boards, the opinion, the conglomeration of all the different mock drafts and everything.
12:03And right now, as the flavor of the month this year is very much, man, don't go outside
12:11of the wisdom of the crowd.
12:12If you start reaching too much, then you're a stupid, horrible drafter.
12:15And the Texans did go, they, what do you want to call it, a reach, or they went away
12:20from public consensus, whatever.
12:22They did that, so they're going to get graded down.
12:24And it's funny, because just back when people were more into drafting for need, I think
12:29a lot of people would have looked at this draft and said, wow, look at this, they addressed
12:32this need, they addressed that need.
12:35But I, so I don't, I don't get too worked up about it, other than that, I see a whole
12:40lot of people doing statistical analysis, because they have charts and graphs and everything
12:44who don't really understand what they're talking about.
12:47And that annoys me a little bit, but other than that.
12:49Yeah, they, they, and I think too, there's correlation with a lot of things.
12:53You pointed this out yesterday.
12:55Oh, wow.
12:55Look, all the teams that had multiple first round picks got awesome grades from everybody.
12:59Right, right.
13:00There were six teams that had multiple first round picks.
13:03Jets, Giants, Browns, Chiefs, Dolphins, Cowboys.
13:06What do they all have in common?
13:07They were bad teams last year.
13:10Of those six, five of them were in the top seven of the cumulative report card.
13:16It's a great way to get a good draft grade.
13:17It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, yeah.
13:19If you can have a couple of first round picks, and if all you do is just go by the
13:22consensus
13:23board and just draft somebody, even if he doesn't fit your team, just draft somebody
13:27right in that spot, you will get, you will get A pluses.
13:30One, three, four, five, and seven were those, you know, some permutation of those six teams.
13:35The only one that was the outlier was the Dolphins at 18, and they're the one team that
13:38everybody's like, what the hell are they doing this offseason?
13:41Like, nobody knows what they're doing.
13:42So there's that.
13:43Okay, so we have the 2.63 crowd, given Nick Casario's GPA, and then we've got Steve Weiss
13:49of the NFL Network, who gave his top five most improved teams yesterday, and he said this.
13:55The Houston Texans.
13:56What?
13:56The Houston Texans?
13:58Number four, by the way.
13:58Did any team make a big splash?
14:00Yes, they absolutely did.
14:02They got the guard, Keelan Rutledge, out of Georgia Tech.
14:06Two-time first-team All-ACC.
14:08He's probably going to start at center.
14:09But this was the play that got to the floor.
14:12Caden McDonald, the massive defensive tackle out of Ohio State to keep those great linebackers
14:17clean.
14:18They needed this.
14:19And then they get the tight end Marlon Klein, more of a receiving tight end out of Michigan.
14:23Do not sleep on one of the best teams in the AFC.
14:26Okay, so Weiss is, and I think Weiss has always been kind of a fan of this era of the
14:30Texans,
14:30if I'm not mistaken.
14:32So he had his top five most improved teams.
14:34The Texans were fourth.
14:35The three teams ahead of them were all bad teams last year that had two first-round picks.
14:41The Browns, the Jets, the Giants, then the Houston Texans, then for what it's worth, the
14:46Eagles after that.
14:47All 32 teams probably feel inside their building that they're all improved after the draft.
14:52I don't think any team, I don't think any front office drafts seven or eight guys and
14:56said, well, we're worse than we were before the draft.
14:58Yeah, there's probably a lot of teams, though.
15:00I mean, in any given year, there's some of the guys that you really liked that perhaps
15:05you really hope fell to you or what have you that you don't get.
15:09But yeah, I mean, you're bringing in more fresh meat and hopefully some of them.
15:14You're bringing in new.
15:15So all 32 teams feel like they're better than they were on Wednesday night last week.
15:19Do you, and I haven't looked at the other 31 teams to see what they've done to be able
15:23to say that Weish is right or wrong, or if I agree or disagree with him, but four feels
15:28awfully high.
15:29Well, I think that's the trick, too, is when you're looking back at the draft, there's kind
15:33of the, man, if you go too far outside of whatever consensus opinion is, then long term,
15:40you're probably going to end up getting the short end of the stick on that.
15:44You're not smarter than all the other GMs and former execs and all that stuff.
15:50But I do, so you can grade it by two different ways.
15:53Like, did you get good value or did you actually bring in guys that are going to help your team?
15:57So in the short term, did you actually address some needs or do you have more competition
16:02at certain spots?
16:03Yeah, I think they did.
16:04I think they've got more competition in more areas right now.
16:07Marlon Klein's going to obviously be the biggest thing that people are going to look at.
16:12And you either end up looking really smart or really stupid based on how all that works
16:16out.
16:16I feel better about the Marlon Klein pick after just listening to a lot of the people
16:24post-draft discuss just how with the tight ends and with this draft in general, probably
16:30because it was kind of a crappy draft, or at least it's perceived to be a crappy draft,
16:34that opinions were all over the place.
16:36The guys that, like Daniel Jeremiah and guys that talked to actual NFL executives said that
16:41it was just as wide a spectrum as they've ever seen when it comes to, man, this team
16:47really liked this group of guys where this team didn't even didn't like any of those
16:51guys, but loved these other guys.
16:52Yeah.
16:52And you don't need, if you're drafting him at 59, Marlon Klein, to necessitate, to create
16:58the urgency of drafting him, the other 31 teams don't need to agree with you.
17:02You just need one or two teams to agree with your assessment, and then you've got to go
17:05get him if you like him enough.
17:07You know, that's, it's, it's kind of simple.
17:092.60.
17:09I like this draft class.
17:11I expected this draft class to get graded, like downgraded because of the, the, the perceived
17:16reaches.
17:17I like the class.
17:18I like the, um, the, the biggest thing.
17:20Cause you know, I, I generally, I start, you told me once your father, what, what, what'd
17:25you say about your father?
17:26Every, he's never met somebody who's not his friend or as soon as you meet him, you're
17:31his friend.
17:32Yeah.
17:32Yeah.
17:33It's something along those.
17:34I don't remember how I'm the opposite when it comes to draft picks.
17:37Uh, I tend to just look at him as like, all right, you suck until you prove to me that
17:41you don't.
17:41The guy that I'm most, uh, the guy I'd be most surprised if he sucks is Caden McDonald.
17:47I, uh, I feel very good about him.
17:49I think I'll be very surprised if he's not, uh, uh, a bonafide NFL player.
17:54I always say when my dad, everybody starts with an A.
17:56And then everybody starts with an A.
17:59They start with an A.
18:00Yep.
18:00Yep.
18:00With me, they all start with Fs.
18:01Yeah.
18:02And, uh, yeah, but I'm keeping an eye on you F student.
18:06There's something about you.
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