00:00Astros take two out of three from the Rangers this weekend.
00:04Thank God, because their record in the division, just winning the series is big.
00:11It would have been nice if they swept them.
00:13I don't know that that was happening yesterday with what they were putting out there.
00:17But 1-2 against the A's, 1-7 against the Mariners, 2-2 against the Angels,
00:24who are the worst team in the division.
00:26And going 2-2 against the Angels is basically like going 1-3 against anybody else
00:32because they're so bad.
00:34But they needed, you know, they're going to keep their head above water, Seth,
00:38and kind of hang in this thing right now.
00:39I think Joe Espada needed this series more than anybody.
00:42I feel like if having on 1-3 against the Mariners,
00:46if the Rangers had come in and done you and swept you this weekend,
00:49we would be really close, I think, to talking about a new manager for the team.
00:53We'd be talking about a new manager, but I would feel really weird about it
00:56just because, you know, as we've said before,
00:59I don't know which manager historically that you could take out.
01:03Let's say Terry Francona in his prime or anybody else.
01:07Do you just slap in there and say, hey, by a quarter way through the season,
01:11you're going to have a lineup that's a boatload of AAA players,
01:16and half your best players are on the I.L.
01:20The pitching staff was, okay, we'll blame you for the pitching staff,
01:23but they've gotten it back in order.
01:26Like, who would have done a markedly better job than Joe Espada at this point?
01:30And I don't know if there's anybody that would,
01:34not to the point where they're a winning baseball team.
01:36No, no, no.
01:37No, and when I talk about it, I'm not campaigning for it.
01:40I'm just acknowledging the likelihood that it could happen
01:42because I don't think Jim Crane is somebody who is wired to start tearing something down
01:50or start moving pieces without having exhausted every single route
01:55to try to get this thing moving back in the right direction.
01:59And changing the voice at the top is one of the things you can do.
02:02Would it be successful?
02:03Would this team all of a sudden become good with a new manager?
02:06I don't know.
02:07I doubt it.
02:08But, you know, they fired Jimmy Williams back in 2004,
02:10and they brought in Phil Garner, and they ended up making it to the NLCS.
02:14You know, you never know.
02:14Something like that.
02:16That was obviously a team that had much better pitching.
02:18It was a different team.
02:19I get it.
02:19But there's just not that many things available to the Astros
02:23to try to spark something, including trades.
02:25Like, there's not – they can't trade off their big league roster right now
02:29because they have too many guys that are injured.
02:31Thank God they didn't trade Paredes before the season,
02:33or they'd be in a real pickle on the infield right now.
02:35Yeah, yeah.
02:36Yeah, and they don't – you're kind of – you need your pipeline right now
02:43to come play Major League Baseball games for you.
02:45That's part of the problem.
02:47So if there's any of the older prospects, they're already up.
02:50They're all currently playing for the Astros in terms of position players
02:54available to you.
02:55That's why you had to – trading for Braden Shumake ends up being awesome,
03:01at least with how he's played so far.
03:03Yeah, it's interesting.
03:05The Dana Brown part of this stuff is interesting because there are little moves
03:08that have been made on the margins.
03:10Like, the Kai Wei Tang trade has been really good for them so far.
03:14You know, that's been really good.
03:16Shumake, you know, again, really, really small sample size,
03:19but that's been a nice little move on the margins.
03:21They've needed him in some of these games recently.
03:23It would – you know, it would be really good is if Cam Smith could figure it out.
03:28And this is one thing that I demand out of Cam Smith.
03:30Cam Smith, okay, if you've got a problem, you're chasing,
03:34your whiff rate is ridiculously bad, you're not allowed to challenge pitches.
03:40What are we doing here, Cam Smith?
03:42He's atrocious at it.
03:45Like, why?
03:46Why?
03:47Why?
03:48Is there any part of his bandwidth right now that needs to be distracted by him
03:54telling the ump he made a bad call at the plate?
03:58Like, what the hell is going on with it?
04:00It drives me insane.
04:02I think he had a successful one on Friday.
04:04I don't know if he did.
04:05The other frustrating thing, and I'm trying to remember, it was Cam.
04:09One of Cam's – I don't remember if it was the one I'm thinking of.
04:14It's when guys do it when it's like the first pitch of an at-bat.
04:17It was.
04:18It was Cam.
04:18He challenged on an 0-1 count.
04:20Yeah.
04:21And he was the first at-bat in the inning early in the game.
04:24Yeah.
04:24No, honestly, this is a hang-up for me.
04:27Yeah.
04:28Because I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, recognize the young player,
04:31recognize that Dana probably should have had him in the minors for a spell last year.
04:35Sure.
04:35Instead of just accelerating up the, oh, my battleship.
04:39Oh, we've got to get our battleship on the field.
04:41All right, man.
04:42You're James Gladstone in your way to greatness here,
04:45showing that the Astros are going to do it.
04:47We're going to walk differently.
04:48This is the way we walk.
04:51And the kid is struggling.
04:53Yeah.
04:53And meanwhile, but then he's also up there – he's up there challenging pitches,
04:57and he's awful at it.
04:58In situations where even if he's good at it,
05:00you've got to second guess whether you should challenge it or not.
05:03Well, he's awful at challenges, and he's awful at hitting right now too.
05:07That's the other thing.
05:08If you're challenging a pitch where the at-bat remains open,
05:12it's one thing to challenge something when it's a – you know,
05:16it's three and one, and it's a strike, and you go,
05:21I don't think that's a strike, and you challenge it,
05:22and the end result is you get on base.
05:24Right.
05:24It's another thing to challenge it where the ending of the at-bat is still –
05:28it's open-ended.
05:29When you're hitting .202 with an OPS of .600, like chances are you just risked
05:36wasting a challenge.
05:38Right.
05:38If not actually wasted the challenge for the right – for you to strike out.
05:42It's a little bit of a young prince type behavior where it's –
05:45Very much so.
05:46Oh, I'm at 0-1.
05:48I better challenge this so I can get a mulligan on this at-bat and start off 0-0.
05:52Like, it doesn't – early in the game, first guy at the plate in the inning.
05:58And then not to mention, you haven't demonstrated that you've got a really
06:02good awareness of the strike zone to begin with.
06:04So, that's frustrating.
06:06If he would stop doing that, I would give him way more latitude.
06:10What do you make of this?
06:11Someone points out this with Cam Smith.
06:12I think he should be playing third base if they were to trade Paredes,
06:16which I do not want them to do.
06:18I'm wondering if this person is implying that because he's playing –
06:22because he's not playing his normal position that he grew up playing.
06:25He would just be more comfortable.
06:26Yeah.
06:27I don't know.
06:27I mean, he's an incredible outfielder so far.
06:29Yes, he was.
06:30That's the one thing that –
06:31He was a gold glove finalist last year.
06:33Yeah.
06:33He's the one outfielder they have where they show that graphic.
06:36You know the one I'm talking about, Seth, where it's the traffic light graphic
06:40where green means run on this guy all the time, yellow is proceed with caution,
06:44and run is don't run on this guy.
06:46He's the one guy they have that's red, that's don't run on this guy.
06:50Yeah, he's in the 95th percentile of fielding run value right now.
06:53Yeah, like he can't take him out of right field.
06:56No, no.
06:56Well, but I guess I think that, yeah, that person that's texting it,
06:59I'm guessing, is just thinking, okay, he could be more comfortable just playing
07:02something that he's more accustomed to.
07:05Yeah.
07:05I mean, okay, I don't see that as being the bomb.
07:11I think that some of the –
07:13you know, on the broadcast they're trying like hell to make it sound like he's just
07:16had bad luck or something.
07:18That's not the way that Victor Rodriguez and other people are talking about it.
07:22He's got – look, on the actual – the balls that he does hit, he's had some bad luck,
07:27but some of that – that's where some of the expected stats still aren't 100% accurate.
07:31They're a little too generalized.
07:32If he would just pull the ball more, then he'd be looking a lot better than he is right now.
07:38But that's also – it's not like you go out and play every game at a standardized ballpark
07:45against standardized pitchers.
07:47That's right.
07:47And everything else.
07:48And it's just – he's just – he's striking out.
07:52He's missing pitches and missing balls.
07:55It's just – it's not good right now.
07:57I'm super intrigued by Jeremy Pena coming back because Pena – Pena's been injured
08:04for most of the last year.
08:07Like he's been – he got beaned last year in, you know, June or July, whatever it was,
08:13in the ribs, missed a bunch of time, came back, and played at a high level,
08:17but then missed the – when the Astros needed him most,
08:21when they're trying to get into the postseason, in the last week of last season,
08:24he misses the final week with an oblique injury, and he gets hurt in the world baseball class
08:30or an exhibition that was a world baseball – he was playing for the Dominican,
08:34and he got hurt.
08:35That's not really his fault, but he broke a finger.
08:37And then he's got this, you know, hamstring knee thing that's been going on.
08:42So he's had four different injuries in the last year.
08:46I would say two of them are not his fault.
08:49I would say the other two are ones that would be concerning to me just because they're
08:52soft tissue kind of stuff.
08:54Well, he's one of those guys – I told you when he was a rookie.
08:58There's a certain one – like the guys that are really, really fast,
09:01but also still kind of stiff at the same time, you always worry about a little bit.
09:05Genevieve and Clowney was like that.
09:07Super fast, but kind of stiff.
09:08Stiff and yoked, too.
09:09RG3, stiff and yoked.
09:11Yeah, you just – you worry about the fact – sometimes their body isn't limber enough
09:16to handle the extreme explosiveness that they have.
09:19Yeah, I – is he Joe Burrow?
09:22Is he a guy that could be awesome, but he's going to end up missing half of his –
09:26I don't know.
09:26Joe Burrow, by the way, Joe Burrow has only played in 10 games or less in three of his
09:31six NFL seasons.
09:3210 – 10 games or less?
09:3510 games or more?
09:36Yeah.
09:3610 games – yeah.
09:3610 games or less.
09:37No, he has – in 10 – he's played 10 games or less in three of his six NFL seasons.
09:42In half the seasons.
09:42Damn, man.
09:43I know.
09:44It's crazy.
09:45It's crazy.
09:45It's crazy.
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