00:00I'm guessing that you guys did not allow Father's Day and the weekend
00:04to keep you away from Astros baseball
00:05because you would have missed a third straight series victory if you did.
00:09Yeah, you would have, and it leads to some questions,
00:12one of which Bob Nightingale kind of delivered an answer.
00:17Shout out to Bob Nightingale.
00:18Bob Nightingale kind of delivered.
00:19He said the Astros are going to be, quote, buyers at the trade deadline.
00:25Yeah, so the conversation points that we have had, right,
00:27we knew as of a few weeks ago at the very latest,
00:31I can't recall exactly when,
00:32that all the talk about do you trade Jordan Alvarez for a haul
00:36that will ultimately be some level of kickstart to a retool, rebuild,
00:39whatever you'd like to call it, was entirely off the table for them.
00:42Apparently, it's not just that.
00:44No Jeremy Payne, no Christian Walker.
00:46Don't look at none of that because, as you mentioned,
00:48Bob Nightingale of USA Today was quoted as saying that the Astros
00:53would not be sellers.
00:54In fact, if anything, they would be buyers.
00:56And I pair that note with, and mind you, before I even move forward,
01:01he says that Houston plans to be buyers and are searching for bullpen help
01:04and a left-handed hitting outfielder, which, again, are we in spring training?
01:08Because it feels like that was the conversation that we were having there.
01:11But neither here nor there.
01:12I pair that with ESPN putting up, as we head towards the trade deadline,
01:16the executives that are under the most pressure.
01:19And remember, there are 30 teams in baseball.
01:22Where would you imagine that Dana Brown, the executive,
01:25the general manager of your Houston Astros lands?
01:27Under the most pressure.
01:28And this is going into the trade deadline or just in general?
01:31Going into the trade deadline specifically.
01:32Oh, he's top half, for sure.
01:35He is top half.
01:36Not as high as I would have imagined.
01:38They have him as 10th, saying that in a year which his contract is set to expire,
01:42Brown has had to navigate several injuries so far.
01:45So I'm guessing that's what they're using as some level of release valve.
01:49Astros are close to being whole again,
01:50and the mediocre AL is helping to keep them in play.
01:53Will Brown get the go-ahead to make moves?
01:56If so, he'll decide what to prioritize.
01:58That's the blurb that they give.
02:00And it's technically correct, but it spiritually feels wrong.
02:03It just feels absolutely wrong.
02:04Look, this is a good day to talk about the Astros being buyers.
02:08You just laid it out.
02:09Three straight series wins.
02:10Got some guys coming back.
02:12Pitching coming back, if you believe the reports,
02:15with McCullers and Blanco and Javier, et cetera.
02:18You're playing pretty well.
02:20Yeah, some of the pitching that you've been talking about
02:21is actually at least their last time around looked better.
02:24You had Tatsia Imai actually going six.
02:26You had Kai Wei-Tung giving you a much better performance
02:29than the last time out.
02:30You're seeing some possibilities or plausibilities here.
02:33So it's a good day, right?
02:34It's a good day to talk about being buyers.
02:36I think it's fair.
02:37It doesn't make it any less dumb.
02:39All right, go ahead.
02:40Go on, J-Lo.
02:41I saw it.
02:42It doesn't make it any less dumb.
02:45It doesn't.
02:46What's the goal, man?
02:47What do you want to be?
02:48You want to sell tickets and get to the postseason, maybe?
02:51Is that the goal?
02:53It's always the goal.
02:53Maybe get to the postseason with a team that is minus 41 run deferens.
02:58A man once said, as long as he was in place, the Astros were going to get 10.
03:03The thing is, well, the other thing, here's the biggest thing.
03:08In order to be buyers, let's say a relief pitcher and a left-handed outfielder,
03:13a left-handed hitting outfielder, all right?
03:15You would gut and absolutely gut a farm system that is already in either bottom two or three
03:23in the entire Major League Baseball, all right?
03:27That's number one.
03:28Number two, some of these guys that you already have up here in the big leagues,
03:30you would have to trade.
03:31You know, some of these young guys that you already have up in the big leagues.
03:34Quite possibly.
03:34I mean, hell, they're out here trading for dudes to come and play for the team.
03:38Didn't they just trade for yet another guy this weekend?
03:41Mm-hmm.
03:42They did.
03:42Look, it's a bad time to say it's dumb because the Astros are on to a little something here.
03:48They're still, what, five games under .500?
03:50They're still, you know, two games out in the wild card.
03:53I get it.
03:54That's workable.
03:54That's plausible.
03:56But at what cost?
03:57At what cost are you doing this to maybe, maybe get to the postseason, maybe win a series?
04:04I just don't see it being the smart move.
04:06Oh, by the way, you don't know what your general manager and your manager is going to be next year.
04:10You don't know who it's going to be.
04:12But it just doesn't make sense.
04:14If you want to play and say, hey, we want to try our best and maybe go into the edges,
04:19into the margins, and pick up a player here to, you know, roll the dice on McCullers and Blanco
04:24and maybe bolster your bullpen with some of the guys that like Tang, who is a bullpen pitcher.
04:29You know what I mean?
04:30Then, okay, I'm good with that.
04:32Take your swings.
04:33See what happens when you get to the postseason.
04:35But to be buyers, to be buyers, you're going to gut the future.
04:39The only thing that I will say, one, is that you have kind of walked yourself into a corner here.
04:44Yeah.
04:44Where, like, if they are not buyers, the other alternative, I'm guessing you're saying is just stay and pat, right?
04:48And just see what you can do with this.
04:49Or just work the perimeter.
04:50You know, work the margin.
04:51I think that that's kind of what this is because notoriously at the trade deadline, probably the most,
04:56the cheapest, if I can use that word, of, I guess, where's to procure during a trade deadline is relief
05:03pitching.
05:04Like, that is the cheapest because it is not something that you can project year over year that your relievers
05:09is going to be,
05:09unless you're getting high-end, back-end in the rotation, or not back-end rotation, but, you know, like high
05:15-leverage relievers,
05:16like when you went and acquired Josh Hader, right?
05:18Unless you're going and getting those guys, relief arms are actually the cheapest, relatively, of things you can get.
05:24The left-handed outfielder has just been something they've needed for a lot just because your outfield has been pretty
05:31atrocious.
05:31I think I saw a statistic very recently, in fact, speaking about just how bad, relative to, like, Astros history,
05:39these outfielders have been, right?
05:41And I think it was Chandler Rome saying that in 2012, the 2012 and 2013 Astros have the only two
05:46outfields in franchise history to finish with a sub-660 OPS.
05:50And currently, the 2026 outfielders are on pace to do exactly that.
05:54So you're on pace to match the worst outfields that you've had as a franchise.
05:58So, like, that is just, we need to address what is, like, the worst part of this team.
06:03I mean, I think one of the things that kind of keeps me in a weird place is how costly
06:08is it when you consider that it's not like they're actually doing a good job with these outfielders anyways.
06:12Like, I come to it from the school of nihilism, which is, you know, everything's bad, eat at Arby's, right,
06:17with the way that they've gone about things because they have not invested properly in the farm system.
06:21So I cannot blame him, Dana Brown, being a lame duck, going, well, damn it, let's go and try and
06:28make this happen.
06:28Well, I don't blame him.
06:29No, no, you're right.
06:30I don't blame him for that because he's looking for job security.
06:33He's looking for some semblance of, hey, look at the run we made, you know, and I need to stay
06:38on as a job.
06:39I'm talking in terms of the Astros, from Jim Crane to all his confidants and everything else.
06:45This is dumb, man.
06:46It's flat-out dumb.
06:47I think I largely land with you.
06:49I think maybe the argument you can make is you kind of have a hard line set for you in
06:53the way that you have lame duck manager, lame duck general manager, where you go, all right, one last shot,
06:59right?
06:59Like, it is 145.
07:01What is it?
07:01It is 145.
07:02We at the bar.
07:03It's already out.
07:04We already out late.
07:06We already out late.
07:07Let's have another drink.
07:08Let's put another shot up.
07:09Let's see if we can score real quick, and then we will deal with the consequences tomorrow morning.
07:12But is it one more shot?
07:14Is it legitimately one more shot with this squad?
07:16Again, you know, minus 41 run differential does not lie.
07:20That does not lie.
07:22So you're quote-unquote within range.
07:24You are not a good team by the stats that you well know.
07:28Right.
07:28You know what I'm saying?
07:29You're not a good team.
07:30And so let's say you add a left fielder, I mean a left-hand hitting outfielder.
07:36There it is.
07:36And a relief pitcher.
07:38How is that better than maybe taking a shot on these guys that are coming back, putting some guys that
07:43are in the rotation now back into the bullpen, and still keeping what you have, even though it's not a
07:50lot, on the farm?
07:52Because we know that, hey, you have enough to get by in the pen, but you can wear them thin,
07:57which honestly is a scary point in this 13 games and 13-day stretch that you're walked into.
08:01If somebody ends up giving you the old Tatsi Emai, and now your entire bullpen is screwed for the rest
08:08of it because you don't have anybody, I understand why you do that.
08:11Giving yourself an opportunity in the outfield where you have been mixing and matching all season.
08:15Like, that makes sense to me.
08:17Yeah, I think ultimately the reason why I can kind of get behind this, and begrudgingly is probably the way
08:22that I should say this, is one, the AL is so bad, and baseball is such a sport where you
08:27just got to be playing the right baseball right at the right time.
08:29All right, so that's a what-if, right?
08:32Maybe you can get these guys, and they can add some, and you can make a run.
08:36It's also probably equally as possible that nothing happens.
08:39Absolutely.
08:40That you end up out of the playoffs, and you've got what's left.
08:43They don't have a single top 100 player right now in the farm system.
08:46Correct.
08:46Not one.
08:47Whatever you do have, they're going to want.
08:50Maybe some of these major league players that have been up and down, they're going to maybe want one of
08:54those.
08:55Maybe they're going to want someone else for a high-quality reliever.
08:59It's very possible you could maybe get in the hunt and maybe make the playoffs.
09:03It's also very possible that you don't, and you're worse off for it.
09:07No, I mean, you're right.
09:08I just feel like you're already pretty down bad.
09:11And again, I understand.
09:13Maybe this is where your larger point is.
09:15It's all stupid no matter what.
09:17And I'm like, within the stupid, I mean, we're already in stupid land.
09:19Let's get stupid.
09:20We're already in stupid land.
09:22I'm going to do the stupid thing that makes me feel better for just a little bit longer than the
09:26stupid thing that makes me have to account for my issues and my difficulties.
09:30Which, to be fair, they've not done a great job of accounting for right now.
09:33So it's either we do a half step at taking accountability, or we just go all the way done and
09:38see if we might luck into something.
09:39And at this point, in a weird way, that seems more palatable to me in this moment.
09:44Maybe.
09:45I am not down with this.
09:47I understand that.
09:47In the least bit.
09:48I think you might be the more logical here.
09:51But I'm at the point where I done already watched enough bad baseball.
09:54You are within range.
09:56Just go ahead and shoot.
09:57Man.
09:58Just crank it.
09:59Heat check.
10:00Heat check.
10:01Hey, man.
10:02One for 15.
10:04We down a little bit.
10:05It's an open look.
10:06It's an open look.
10:07I'm just pulling this one.
10:07I'm pulling this one, baby.
10:08That's right.
10:09I'm pulling this one.
10:10All right.
10:10You're in the loop right here on Sports Radio 610.
10:12I still think it's asinine that he's only 10th when it comes to God's pressure.
10:15I feel like there's all the pressure in the world, big dog.
10:16Man.
10:17Can you make this one shake?
Comments