- 1 day ago
Seth and Sean kick off the show by talking about potential moves the Astros could make to salvage this thing, and react to Mark Derosa and Dan O'Dowd throwing out some craaazy ideas.
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00:00A lot about weather, man.
00:02Jake Myers, Browns to short.
00:04Now to do it for the Astros on this Wednesday afternoon
00:07as they drop a 4-1 game.
00:09The Twins take 2 out of 3 in this series.
00:13Yeah, Todd Callis on the call right there.
00:16Space City home network.
00:18The Astros lose again yesterday afternoon.
00:21Boy, I got to go back and look.
00:23I'm trying to remember the last time
00:25that I went into an afternoon excited to watch a game.
00:30Every afternoon there's a game I'm excited to sit down
00:33and watch day baseball.
00:34I love day baseball.
00:35I'm trying to remember the last time
00:36I actually came away satisfied in an afternoon of Astros.
00:40It feels like they ruin every afternoon when they play baseball.
00:43Maybe that's just recency bias
00:45and they've lost just the last couple.
00:47But man, it is a tough watch right now with this team.
00:51Good morning, everybody.
00:52The bats have gone completely decrepitly dry
00:56after starting off as one of the best offenses in the league.
01:00They didn't walk in either of the last two games.
01:04Their approach at the plate is pitchers just refuse to throw them anything inside.
01:09The Astros are just there.
01:11The league has adjusted to the Astros' hot start
01:13and now the Astros' hitters.
01:16Of those who are actual bona fide major leaguers,
01:20they're just not.
01:21I think it's back to stretches of last season and the year before
01:26where that old Astros' approach at the plate
01:29just isn't as surgical as it used to be.
01:30Dude, to say the least.
01:33I'm trying to see where they...
01:35Just in runs scored, where are they right now in baseball?
01:37I'm going to sort on runs here.
01:38They're down to about, I want to say, let me guess, ninth.
01:43That's a little aggressive.
01:44Is it?
01:45Yes.
01:46They are tied for 14th in runs scored.
01:49Boy, that's been a plummet.
01:51Yeah.
01:51Because I remember looking and seeing when they had dropped down
01:54to about sixth or seventh.
01:55Back in the day, yeah.
01:56Yeah, that's like, oh boy, this hot start is no more.
02:00Meanwhile, they've been pitching a little bit,
02:02like a roundabout an average MLB team over the last month or so.
02:07Yeah, the pitching's been fine lately.
02:08I have no problems with the pitching lately.
02:11If they'd been able to keep up the streak they were on hitting
02:16at the beginning of the season,
02:17they'd actually be a bona fide MLB team right now, a contender.
02:21Dude, they'd be leading this division by like seven games.
02:25Oh, yeah.
02:26You know what I mean?
02:27This division's terrible.
02:29And yet it may be the thing that keeps the Astros from tearing –
02:35I don't want to say tearing the thing up,
02:36but at least start trading off pieces.
02:39And that's going to turn into the conversation
02:40because I can't come in here every day, Seth.
02:42They're off today.
02:43So it's guaranteed tomorrow that we will not come in
02:46talking about a miserable Astros game in the morning
02:48because there is no miserable Astros game tonight.
02:52But I don't know the appetite.
02:53I'm very curious, genuinely curious, the appetite our audience has
02:58if they keep playing like this to sit here and talk about games
03:00that they're losing four to one.
03:02You know, that you just sit there for two and a half hours in an afternoon
03:06and Mike Burroughs gives up a three-run home run
03:09and you're like, all right, well, that's probably game over.
03:12And that's not an exaggeration lately.
03:14Chandler Rome had the numbers.
03:16I've got to find him here.
03:17They've scored 37 runs in the 15 games they've played
03:21without Carlos Correa.
03:24They've been without Carlos Correa for a couple weeks now.
03:27They've scored 37 runs in those 15 games.
03:30That's 2.6 runs per game.
03:33That includes a 10-run outburst against Cincinnati
03:38in that Friday night game.
03:40They scored a bunch of runs that game.
03:42So in the other 14 games, they've scored 27 runs.
03:45Less than two runs a game.
03:48I can't ever – you had mentioned kind of back to where they were last year
03:53with these lulls and things like that, which is true.
03:55It's just this one – this is the worst I can remember.
03:59This is bad.
04:00It's miserable baseball.
04:03It's like watching spring training baseball or something.
04:06And like yesterday, you texted me in the bottom of the fourth there
04:13where Vasquez chose not to challenge a two-strike pitch with two outs.
04:19And Vasquez has been horrendous in challenges.
04:23Just awful.
04:23Vasquez and Cam Smith, I'm at points saying never challenge again.
04:28Why?
04:29Why are you even challenging this?
04:30And yet, here's a perfect situation for Vasquez.
04:33This would have made sense even if it wasn't a clear-cut challenge or anything.
04:37It's that, okay, at least this is a situation where you would do it.
04:40Cam Smith the other day challenged on an 0-1 count in the first at-bat of an inning
04:46early in the game and failed because that's what he does.
04:50He fails on his challenges, and it's just an asinine time to challenge.
04:54At least here, Vasquez, okay, he's awful at challenging,
04:57but they don't even know how to choose when to risk being awful at challenges.
05:02Yeah, yeah.
05:03We've got a whole new thing.
05:05A year ago, I had no idea that I would ever be all of a sudden angry at 6.06
05:11in the morning
05:12about a catcher challenging or not challenging a pitch.
05:15But the Astros have found yet another thing to disappoint us in this year,
05:20and it's with some of these challenges with some of their players.
05:23Well, and I thought Callis and Blum at the time, I thought, made a good point,
05:26which is he's been so bad, he's probably gun-shy to do it, and that can't be the case.
05:32You can't be gun-shy in challenging things.
05:35And this is exactly, just to bring the audience behind the scenes a little bit here,
05:39this is what I texted to you yesterday in the bottom of the fourth.
05:43Because that's when the game ended.
05:44That's when Mike Burrows gave up his league-leading 12th home run to put the Astros down 4-1.
05:51I texted Seth, and I said, if there's a sequence that sums up the Astros in a nutshell,
05:56Vasquez chooses not to challenge a borderline two-strike ball with two outs,
06:02two-strike pitch with two outs.
06:04Then the next two guys get on, Victor Caratini, and then the next guy walks.
06:08And so you had a chance to get out of the inning unscathed.
06:12Vasquez doesn't challenge.
06:14The next two guys get on.
06:16Josh Miller comes out to the mound to calm Burrows down, to meet with him,
06:20just strategize a little bit on the next guy coming up.
06:23And two pitches in, that guy hits a bomb.
06:27I'm watching this, I'm like, what the hell did Josh Miller say to him?
06:30What was the conversation?
06:32And I know Josh Miller didn't go out there and say, put it in the heart of the plate and
06:35give up a home run.
06:36It's just, this is the Astros in a nutshell.
06:39Like, they don't know when to challenge.
06:41The pitching has been better, but it does feel like losing the other half of that two-headed pitching coach
06:49monster
06:49has had some sort of effect on them this year.
06:52And then Mike Burrows gives up a home run, which is definitely part of Astros baseball in a nutshell,
06:57because no pitcher in baseball has given up more home runs and more hits than Mike Burrows this year.
07:03So that was it, man.
07:04That bottom of the fourth, if you are looking, if you don't want to watch any Astros baseball,
07:08but you just want to peek in and see what it's all been about this year,
07:11just go watch the fourth inning yesterday.
07:13Watch the Astros fail in the top of the fourth inning,
07:15and then watch them bungle their way through the bottom of the fourth inning.
07:19And that's it.
07:20And you're all caught up.
07:21Or listen to this segment.
07:22You're all caught up on Astros baseball.
07:24Astros called up Ellen Bear Santa as a reliever.
07:29So we'll get to see yet another.
07:31This will be the 25th pitcher they see whenever we've seen with the Astros.
07:35Nate Pearson got in at the end of the game yesterday, too.
07:38Is that his first time this year?
07:39I think it might have been.
07:40So we're going to be up to 26.
07:41I think we're up to 26.
07:42Wow.
07:43Well, once Santa pitches.
07:44But yeah, Pearson, he looked good in the inning.
07:48He came in.
07:49When he was doing his rehab stuff in Sugar Land, he was hitting like 101 on the gun.
07:53I'm like, okay, you know, I've got to find things to get excited about, I guess.
07:58So this is going to turn into, as we turn the page on May next week, or whatever, 10 days,
08:04to June.
08:06I have a feeling this is going to be, this June and July is going to be way more about
08:11what this team needs to do long-term and big picture
08:13than, you know, they're going to, hey, what do they need to do to get back in the hunt?
08:16This just, this feels different than the last two years when they started bad for some reason.
08:21So the guy, the folks on MLB Central yesterday, Robert Flores was on there, native Houstonian, watches all the Astros
08:28games.
08:29He was on there with Mark DeRosa and Dan O'Dowd.
08:33And they were talking about teams that need to retool or reset, rebuild.
08:39And DeRosa said, brought up the Astros, brought up a few really bad teams.
08:44And then the Astros and said, the Astros look different.
08:47They can maybe flip this thing quick, but they can't be late to the party.
08:51I'm looking at the basement dwellers right now.
08:53And I'm saying to myself, okay, Rockies.
08:57Rebuilt.
08:58Yeah.
08:59Angels.
08:59Angels, I don't know what they're going to do.
09:01Agreed.
09:01And then you're looking at the Houston Astros, and I'm saying to myself, if they did a reimagining,
09:08they had big-time star-type players, they could redo this thing with two or three trades
09:14and bring in a completely new hole.
09:17Yeah.
09:17You know, I think it's imperative.
09:19When's it too early, I guess?
09:20Well, I think when you're 50 games into a season, I think good baseball operations people have a vision
09:25for what kind of team you've got.
09:27So you can't get – you can't be delusional about what you see on the field
09:31versus where you may stand in a division.
09:33I think that's nebulous.
09:35I think you always have to keep the big picture in mind, understanding the short-term consequences.
09:39But I don't think this is like tear the house down to the foundation and rebuild all over again.
09:45I think it's like moving walls, you know, repainting.
09:48But I think now they can't get caught again being too late to the party.
09:55That's what I'm saying.
09:56Okay.
09:57Yeah.
09:57I guess what would be an interesting one, could be caught again being too late to the party.
10:01I don't know if that's – maybe you didn't mean that all that impactfully or so.
10:05Yeah, or maybe he thought they should have made more moves at the deadline last year.
10:08You know, Dan O'Dowd was the other voice.
10:11He's a former executive in Major League Baseball.
10:13And I have no idea what Dan O'Dowd's opinions have been on the Astros the last couple years.
10:18The only thing I can think of is maybe he was an advocate for them, you know, moving maybe Jeremy
10:23Pena at the deadline last year or something like that.
10:25And they didn't do it.
10:26And now it feels like, boy, if they had done – because I tell you what, if you had traded
10:31Pena last year,
10:35his star was much higher last year than it's been this year so far.
10:38Well, and I guess the other part of it, too, is that one of the reasons that – or maybe
10:43the major reason that they wanted to have Dana Brown in here
10:46was to restock the farm system.
10:49And as of now, the Astros are about the 28th, 29th-ranked farm system in all of baseball.
10:58Is it too early with three years?
11:01Do we need to wait for –
11:02Three drafts.
11:03Yeah, yeah, three drafts to let some of that take effect.
11:08But that part of it, the part of building from within and not having to sell away major assets and
11:15remain competitive,
11:16so far you're not really seeing all the benefits of that.
11:19I mean, you know, Cam Smith wasn't a – he's not homegrown.
11:24Bryce Matthews is the first guy we're really seeing where you hope to get something out of it.
11:28But other than that, it's a decrepit farm system.
11:30Yeah, yeah, by all accounts, that's the case.
11:33And so the follow-up question to that is, is this the guy you want trading off your biggest pieces
11:38to go get minor leaguers?
11:40Like, you know, he evaluated all these guys they would theoretically be trading for.
11:45He also evaluated all the guys that comprise the 28th-best farm system right now as well.
11:50Yeah, yeah.
11:51So it's kind of a catch-22.
11:53Robert Flores, this is interesting because DeRosa was like, hey, it's not a total rebuild.
11:58You can retool and reset here.
12:00And then he – listen to the names he starts firing off about who they should trade away.
12:04You could put deals together with Jordan Alvarez.
12:09Jeremy Pena.
12:10You start to imagine – I was sitting there last night.
12:12Like, you imagine Jordan in the Yankee lineup.
12:14Yes.
12:15How dare you?
12:16You imagine Jeremy Pena.
12:17Robert, you watch him on a nightly.
12:18What's your take?
12:19I think –
12:20Hunter Brown and someone else.
12:21I think to Dan's point, obviously, there's a lot of validity to it.
12:25However, knowing what Jim Crane has said –
12:28You've got to do it.
12:29Or they're going to go –
12:30The window will always be open as long as I'm running things.
12:32It's not open, though.
12:33You're watching them on a nightly basis.
12:34It's unfair to say it's open.
12:36Now, I know they've been hit by the injury bug, but let's have a true trust rate here.
12:41Correct.
12:41But you're not good enough.
12:42I think DeRosa – DeRosa is in take-a-mania territory on this thing.
12:46It's like, hey, you don't have to tear it down completely.
12:49And then he mentions Jordan, Hunter Brown, Jeremy Pena.
12:52They're three best players.
12:54They're three best players.
12:55No, no.
12:56You could just – he's doing this annoying thing where he's using one of these new phrases
13:00that's popped up in the last few years.
13:02Yeah, what's that?
13:03Reimagining.
13:04Oh, let's reimagine this.
13:05If you just reimagine what this whole thing could look like – listen, dude, I was here
13:10in 2010 and 2011 when they traded Lance Berkman, Roy Oswalt, Hunter Pence, and Michael Bourne.
13:18The four best players.
13:19They were the equivalent at that time of Jordan Alvarez, Hunter Brown, and Jeremy Pena.
13:24They were the three or four best players on the Astros.
13:26You know what happened after that?
13:28They won 55 games three years in a row.
13:32So, like, if you trade Jordan Alvarez, Hunter Brown, and Jeremy Pena – and I'm not even
13:38saying don't – like, don't jump in.
13:41Like, if you're going to jump into a rebuild, jump into a rebuild, whatever.
13:44But don't sell us that this is some sort of recipe for them to all of a sudden pivot
13:50and be back to winning 88 games again next year.
13:53Yeah.
13:53Make no mistake.
13:54If you trade Jordan Alvarez, Hunter Brown, and Jeremy Pena, it probably means two or three
14:00other guys are getting traded as well.
14:02Right?
14:03You don't – if you're going to trade those three, don't stop there.
14:05Go ahead and trade Isak Paredes and Christian Walker and Josh Hader and just do the damn
14:11thing.
14:12But don't – don't sit here and say, like, oh, no, man, just a few small moves.
14:17And you can get right back to where you are.
14:19Okay, what are those small – I'm expecting – Seth, in that – I was literally expecting
14:22him to say Christian Walker, Isak Paredes, Josh Hader.
14:25This clown is saying you're not Alvarez and Hunter Brown.
14:29Don't worry, everybody.
14:30Hey, hey, kids, don't worry.
14:33Don't think of it as a divorce.
14:34Just think of it as mommy and daddy are never going to talk to each other again.
14:39And daddy's going to go live in California.
14:41But don't think of it as a divorce, okay?
14:43Right, right, right.
14:44Legally, yes, it's a divorce, but it's really not like that.
14:47Is it your fault?
14:48Yes, 100%.
14:50Hey, Seth.
14:50But don't worry about it.
14:51We're just reimagining marriage is all we're doing.
14:56That's all we're doing.
14:57I'll tell you what.
14:58I'll tell you what.
14:59This is where karma is biting the estros and the buttocks right now.
15:03And it's that – look, in the classic, okay, what are we going to do with a guy in an
15:07expiring contract?
15:08Like, if there was ever a guy that showed, man, you were clinging on to something that
15:12was not worth clinging on to, Frambois Valdez.
15:15I mean, okay, he sticks around, has one of the worst stretches of his career after you
15:22decide to stick with him to be sure that you keep that window open.
15:25And now, whatever – I don't think they ever thought about re-signing him for real.
15:31But, like, he's been a mess this year.
15:35Yes.
15:35He's just – everything that continued on from last season.
15:38He had a few good starts at the beginning of the season.
15:41But he's been just getting – he's got a 4.56 ERA, and it's not just because of a
15:45couple major meltdowns.
15:47Over the last five or six games, he's been really bad.
15:49That might have been the one Dan O'Dowd was referring to.
15:52I'm with you.
15:52When O'Dowd said that, like, they don't want to be late to the party again, I'm like,
15:56Yeah, that's probably what it is.
15:57It had to be it because Frambois was amazing the first half of last season, and then some
16:02switch flipped with him, and he turned into a nut job and a bad pitcher.
16:06But, yeah, so one more here from the MLB crew.
16:09Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Frambois.
16:11He was Mr. Frambois.
16:12That's right.
16:13Here was one more.
16:16O'Dowd saying the team that accepts the reset first wins.
16:19Where it's key for me is I think there are going to be a ton of teams in the American
16:23League in this position this year.
16:24But it's not a great league.
16:26And so I think the ones that are smart enough to realize no matter where we are in the standings,
16:33there's an opportunity to get good again very quickly and get my payroll to the point
16:37where I've got some flexibility.
16:38Everybody who's ever first to make that decision, I think, has a tremendous competitive advantage
16:44to be sitting in a different position next year.
16:46It is a fascinating dynamic, the mediocrity in the American League and what that's going
16:51to do to teams.
16:52You know, do teams...
16:54How do teams look at themselves?
16:55Do the Astros look at themselves?
16:57I know how the Astros look at themselves.
16:58They look at it through Jim Crane's eyes, and Jim Crane thinks anything's possible, that
17:02they could get back into this thing because it is so mediocre.
17:05But that's what's going to be interesting.
17:06The AAL is so top-heavy right now.
17:09It's the Yankees, the Rays, and then this slew of teams that are hovering around 500 or
17:13even with the Astros, well below 500, but are two good weeks away from being right back
17:18in this thing.
17:19They're in danger of becoming one of these depressing, lagging major companies that once
17:26were, you know, titans of industry, but now it's Sears.
17:31They're like, oh, just keep doing the same thing.
17:34Yeah.
17:35Just keep motoring at it.
17:36We're Sears, damn it.
17:38Yep, yep.
17:38A blockbuster video, man.
17:40You know what people are going to want to do forever?
17:42Watch movies.
17:43Kids, Sears used to be a big deal, okay?
17:45It did.
17:46You'd go do your Christmas shopping.
17:47You'd get your hair cut there.
17:48A few of them had an actual diner in the Sears.
17:53Yeah.
17:53Dude, it's depressing.
17:54Amy and I were coming home from somewhere.
17:56Oh, we were coming home from Conroe last Saturday, and we drove down Shepard, like the long way
18:02down Shepard, where you go through Garden Oaks over there, kind of north of the loop,
18:05and there's an old Sears.
18:06There was an old, like a big Sears over there, and the huge sign is still out in the parking
18:12lot, like next to the street, like the gigantics, and it's all decrepit, and it's worn down,
18:18and you can barely make out the letters Sears on the sign.
18:21Yeah, oh, yeah.
18:22I'm like, oh, it's so depressing, man.
18:24Like, Sears used to be a big deal back in the day.
18:26That's more depressing than Blockbuster, because Blockbuster was relatively short-lived, whereas
18:30Sears was such a mainstay for so long.
18:32No doubt.
18:33No doubt.
18:34All right.
18:34We are off and running on a Thursday.
18:37You can text in 713-572-4610.
18:41Apologies to any Sears executives in the audience.
18:43I know.
18:43It's not your fault, okay?
18:44It's not your fault.
18:45It's not.
18:46It's not.
18:46It's tough being 90 years old.
18:48Yep.
18:49All right.
18:49There was a quick story about Sears that reminds me a little bit about the way it sounds like baseball
18:53is run sometimes.
18:55I know when they tried to, like, have a major turnaround at one point, they brought some bro in who
19:00had never been in retail before,
19:02but he was going to reimagine the way they did business.
19:05And I guess, like, the first week, it was, like, him sitting down with a bunch of retail executives explaining
19:11the way the retail industry works.
19:13Like, he was almost, like, reading it out of a textbook.
19:16They must have loved it.
19:17Like a 100-level textbook or something.
19:19I'm sure old-timey executives loved being told what to do as they were smoking their third pack of cigarettes
19:24in the boardroom.
19:25A kid that was probably wearing a scarf or something.
19:29Right, right, right.
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