- 5 hours ago
Seth and Luke kick off the show discussing the lack of sustainability of the Astros' pitching if we all want a playoff run, with an interesting comparison.
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00:00Seth, how we doing on this Tuesday?
00:02I'm good. I'm a little put out, frankly.
00:04A little put out that our visitors are still here.
00:06These visitors from around the world that previously loved us.
00:10That now they're just going to keep playing this tournament, this World Cup tournament,
00:14even though the U.S. isn't relevant any longer?
00:16Right. It becomes a little awkward.
00:18It's like when you throw a party, but you don't want to kick out the guests.
00:23Or let's say a couple.
00:24A husband and wife's throwing a party, and the husband's had enough,
00:27or the wife, and they actually go to the bedroom.
00:30To go lay down and go to sleep, but the guests don't take the hint,
00:33and they're still hanging out in the house, and you don't want to be too rude to kick them out.
00:36And you're like, ah, the party's over. We're done. Why are you still here? Go home.
00:40There's a bunch of people lingering about the Buc-ee's.
00:44Like, okay, they were all social media videos a few weeks ago.
00:48Oh, Buc-ee's is so big, I cannot believe it.
00:51And now they're just, now they're fat like us,
00:54and they're just, they're lingering around the slushy machine.
00:58I have three weeks in America, and I am so fat, and I have diabetes.
01:06Right.
01:07And I do not know anymore.
01:09Yeah, everyone was all excited.
01:10They were like, ooh, Taco Bell, all these different fast food places,
01:12which obviously are in other countries, but not as often, and they're a little different here.
01:16But yes, to your point, right, eat that for a few weeks,
01:19and then see how you feel about that establishment, or just about, you know, just how you feel in general.
01:24Yeah, I feel this morning, honestly, I feel like I went on a fast food binge.
01:28You know, like back in the old days when I would hit a Whataburger,
01:30and then, oh, look, there's a Taco Bell right next to the Whataburger.
01:33And, hey, why not McDonald's for old times' sake?
01:36Let's just do it all.
01:37Let's do it big today.
01:39And then the next day you feel kind of sluggish and empty, and you hate yourself a little bit.
01:44That's how I feel right now after watching the World Cup and after watching the Astros.
01:49Really, let's call it what it is, after watching Mike Burroughs for three innings.
01:55That's all you needed, really, was three innings out of Burroughs to figure out where that was going last night.
01:59Right, and that's part of my problem with Joe Espada, and I've defended Espada throughout his tenure.
02:05I like Joe Espada.
02:07I think many Astros fans are too unfair to him.
02:11But my issue with him, and a lot of baseball managers, I don't like that this is a thing in
02:15baseball,
02:15but they just keep running him out there within a game.
02:18I'm not even talking about, like, should Burroughs still be getting starts.
02:21Once he's out there last night, and he coughs up a 6-1 lead out there in the fifth inning,
02:28and not get anybody up in the bullpen until the Nationals already took the lead,
02:34and I think the bases were loaded, too, by the time they pulled him.
02:36You shouldn't leave a guy in long enough to allow 10 runs, and too often managers, like Espada last night,
02:43do it because they just, we've got to get some innings.
02:45It's a long season.
02:46We don't want to burn out the bullpen.
02:48But I think, especially for the Astros, you're not in a place right now where you can, like, mess around
02:52with games.
02:53You've got to try to win these games.
02:54And the fact that we can leave in a guy to give up 10 runs to me, especially Mike Burroughs,
02:59who we've seen it before, is unacceptable.
03:01Mike Burroughs, for what it's worth, like, I don't know for what it's worth.
03:07He's an innings eater.
03:08I think that's what it's spot like.
03:09He can't divorce himself from, even after Burroughs' horrendous performances, sometimes they'll say,
03:15well, he gave us, you know, he gave us six innings.
03:17He's like, right, he gave you six innings and allowed in a nine ERA clip on any given night.
03:27So I've tried to give Espada a little bit of a break when it comes to the way he manages
03:31starting pitching
03:32because, A, he's just, he's had too many guys like Burroughs to have to deal with.
03:36But then, B, he's had to balance the demands on the relief staff.
03:40And there's just, if you start looking two and three days out, it can get hairy real quick.
03:48I mean, at some point, you just got to hope that one of your starting pitchers doesn't have the second
03:54worst ERA in all of baseball.
03:56And yet, there you are with, yeah, but it's expected ERA.
03:59This is what annoyed me last night is, like, Burroughs citing bad luck.
04:06You know, this is a quote, I'm in the zone, I'm not afraid to make those guys swing.
04:11You get beat a couple times a game, if it's right at someone, then it's going to be a great
04:15start.
04:15If it finds a way from them, a way away from them, or a fence, that's when some runs come.
04:21You can't be perfect.
04:22All right, you're expected ERA is 4.64.
04:26You know, it's just, you're not, no.
04:28No, just because you've had a little bad luck, especially early in the season, it doesn't diminish the fact that
04:35you have not been pitching well.
04:37I don't mind pitchers citing bad luck at times just because they've got to keep their brains right, you know.
04:43They can't totally just feel like they suck.
04:47And yet, there seems to be some need to depend on or lean on the analytics with Mike Burroughs when
04:54anybody can see with their damn eyes.
04:56Oh, oh no, you had a little bit of bad luck.
04:58Yeah, only 10 of those, only 7 of those runs were chalked up to you, okay?
05:02You've got to break on 3 of those runs that scored.
05:05No, no, you're not citing bad luck.
05:08By any stretch of luck, or by the traditional stats or anything, you're a horrible pitcher this year.
05:14And Dana Brown traded young prospects who just haven't done anything yet.
05:19But still, it's endemic to so many of the lackluster additions they've made in the last couple years.
05:26Yeah, it is.
05:28And it's hard to cite bad luck.
05:30I get it over a small sample size.
05:33But, you know, like Parcells would say, you create your own luck.
05:36When we're talking half a season in, now beyond half the midway point, and you have the second worst ERA
05:43in the American League,
05:45it's hard to say.
05:46And a really unlucky three months.
05:48That's too large of a sample size to fall back on luck.
05:51And to your point, he's second in ERA amongst qualified pitchers.
05:55And Emei, who pitches tonight, he hasn't thrown enough innings, but he has an even higher ERA.
06:00So that's where I struggle to fully buy in, where 40% of your starting rotation, statistically,
06:08they're two of the three worst starters that teams are running out there in the American League right now.
06:13And they're still getting starts.
06:14And you go up against a team like the Nationals, hey, 500 baseball team, but they've got one of the
06:20best offenses in baseball.
06:22And if we talked yesterday, and I've talked a bunch of times about how, man, just like you had in
06:29the previous couple seasons,
06:30when the Astros made a push into playoff contention, like real bona fide playoff contention, you've got a win streak
06:38somewhere along the way.
06:39Or you have a stretch where you win 10 out of 12 games or what have you.
06:43And even though they won a bunch of series in a row, I mean, that one real big push, it's
06:50hard to envision when you've got guys like Burroughs and Emei
06:54that are just going to throw a wrench into any kind of streak or a run you can get on.
06:59Right.
06:59People are going to say, like, in the playoffs, you know, you're not going to need them.
07:03They're not going to start.
07:03But we've got to get to the playoffs.
07:05That was me yesterday.
07:07But we've got to get to the playoffs first, right?
07:09And then we can dump those guys and only worry about three starters.
07:13Or if you have a four-man rotation in the playoffs, though, that's a problem.
07:16One of them is still going to be Burroughs or Emei at this point, depending on what happens with Javier
07:21and how they decide to use him.
07:23I mean, I don't know how many more Burroughs starts, or they start really thinking, okay, yep, it's time for
07:29Javier to stretch out into a starter.
07:32Or, I mean, maybe it starts after last night.
07:35Right.
07:35I know.
07:37And for those, by the way, I sort of buried the lead, so to speak.
07:41I mean, Burroughs is the lead.
07:42But if you're just waking up with us, the Astros lost the opener last night.
07:4512-11 was the final.
07:47They were up 6-1 and then allowed 11 unanswered runs to the Nationals.
07:52Tried to fight back, but went 1-2-3 in the ninth inning, lose by one, and now they're 45
07:57-48.
07:58So, you know, kind of two steps forward, one step back, as we were just saying,
08:01because of this rotation, Burroughs now leads the league in losses.
08:05He leads the league in earned runs allowed.
08:08He is third in most homers allowed.
08:12And one of the guys in front of him pitches at a minor league stadium for the A's,
08:15so that's with an asterisk.
08:17It's going to be tough for him to climb up.
08:20He's trying.
08:21He's trying his hardest.
08:22The Astros have any games left in Oakland or in Sacramento?
08:26Yeah.
08:26Yeah, we'll see if Burroughs has to start out there.
08:29So I tried to do some research and find, what was the last playoff team that had two starting pitchers,
08:36both with ERAs over six?
08:38And my qualifier was 15 or more starts, so that they actually were pitching for a majority of the season.
08:44Yeah.
08:45I only found one team in the history of the wild card era, which goes back to, I believe, 94.
08:50So the last, you know, 32 years, I found one team that actually made the playoffs with two starting pitchers
08:58having ERAs over six.
08:59And, funny enough, it was actually a team that won the World Series, the 2006 Cardinals.
09:04Oh.
09:06Remind me of the Astros in the sense of they only had 83 wins that year, so they were hardly
09:10over 500.
09:12They were in what statistically or historically was the worst national league of all time.
09:172006, the National League had the lowest winning percentage.
09:20This year, the American League has the lowest winning percentage in the history of the American League.
09:24It might only take 83 wins for the Astros to get to the playoffs.
09:27Yeah.
09:28And somehow the Cardinals still found a way to win a World Series that year.
09:31By the way, their scouting director at that time, Jeff Luno.
09:34Oh, that's right.
09:35Yeah.
09:36But here's the thing for the Cardinals.
09:38It's amazing that they won the World Series that year.
09:40I don't remember this being the case, but they had four different starting pitchers with ERAs over five.
09:45I don't know how they won the World Series.
09:47Obviously, with a great offense, you know, with Albert Pujols.
09:50But the thing with the Cardinals was that they actually made some changes.
09:53Mark Mulder had an ERA of seven.
09:55He only made 17 starts.
09:58You know, Jeff Weaver had an ERA over five, only made 15 starts, so on and so forth.
10:02But when you look at this now, like Burroughs were approaching 20 starts.
10:06So it begs the question, like, when are the Astros going to make those changes to try to save their
10:11season, sort of like the 2006 Cardinals did?
10:14One of the trades they had made that year was for Jorge Sosa, the pitcher.
10:20And he ended up with a – it's not like he was a revelation for the Cardinals or anything at
10:24a 5.28 ERA with the Cardinals that year.
10:28So, yeah, I was impressed.
10:29When I saw that you cited the 2006 Cardinals, I thought that you just pulled that off the top of
10:34your dome.
10:34Like, oh, that was – yeah, oh, yeah, this reminds me of the 2006 Cardinals.
10:39That's the first thing that popped into my brain.
10:41Yes.
10:45I think, again, the peril of saying the same thing over and over again.
10:52I mean, last year I was kind of – I was one of those dopes that was saying, hey, your
10:57deadline acquisitions are the guys you have coming back from the IL.
11:02Don't you guys realize how glorious it will be when all these guys come back from the IL?
11:07Well, and now I can't say that for the second year in a row, especially when it's – okay, we'll
11:12see exactly how they end up using Javier.
11:15Javier's back, but he's in the bullpen, and we'll see.
11:18I mean, Lance McCullers, great.
11:23Like, I have no idea even how to address whether to get excited or intrigued by Lance McCullers' return to
11:29Major League action.
11:31Blanco and Wisniewski are the other two guys that – they'll come back, and then I feel like the entire
11:38second half of the season becomes like an extended spring training
11:40where you're trying to figure out exactly what you can get out of Blanco, what you can get out of
11:44Wisniewski.
11:45And there's not that much time by the time they get up there to really just ramp them up and
11:50know what you have with them.
11:51Yeah, it's – and that's why, look, I get the reports that the Astros are in on all these starting
11:57pitchers, Sonny Gray, you know, Scooble.
11:59I just don't think they have the pieces to bring in.
12:01They might be able to bring in somebody, but not the big fish of the trade deadline this year.
12:06Yeah.
12:06So –
12:07I think it honestly – and we talked about this yesterday – so much of it is for them to
12:14be a team that really scares people.
12:16It's going to have to be with Pena and Christian Walker really being in their best element in the second
12:22half of the season.
12:22I mean, look, and you had – look, Christian Walker leads on double at the beginning of last night's game.
12:29And you saw they had the output.
12:31You know, they scored the runs.
12:32They just – which is funny because they haven't really given Burroughs a whole lot of run support.
12:39And you can see why.
12:40Why bother?
12:41It doesn't matter.
12:42It doesn't matter.
12:43You can score double-digit runs and he's not going to get a win.
12:45You're right.
12:46That's deflating.
12:47You build a 6-1 lead, you score 11 runs on the road, and you don't even win the game.
12:51I would say that's where if I'm a batter for that team, I'm like, I'm skipping the amphetamines tonight.
12:55You know, Burroughs up there.
12:56Now, I don't need any – I don't need any of my truck stop meth to try to win a
13:01game here with this guy out on the mound.
13:03Yeah, that's right.
13:04That's why they don't get any run support.
13:07And the funny thing, too, about the Astros is, like, it was the back of their batting order, too, that
13:11did most of the damage, where you had Bryce Matthews and Shoemake and Yiner had a – Homer and Cam
13:17Smith had a good night.
13:18It was the second half of the guys.
13:20And I said yesterday, like, the Nationals, one of the best lineups, terrible pitching staff, maybe the worst bullpen in
13:25baseball.
13:25They almost coughed up that game last night.
13:27So you're going to get opportunities as hitters for the Astros.
13:30But, man, you have Burroughs and tonight, Emei.
13:33We'll see.
13:33Yeah, Emei.
13:34Yeah, that's what – no, we got to – Emei's been – he's been awesome except for the times when
13:39he's really, really, really bad.
13:41He's the most bipolar of guys right now.
13:44And we've just – we've been so tantalized by his undefinable slider that I just – I have to believe
13:53and hope that he's just going to figure out exactly how to rein it in.
13:57Be appropriately aggressive and that somehow we'll be talking about Emei with a little bit more stability or confidence over
14:05the course of the next –
14:06That's a huge – that's the other one.
14:09I think a realistic wild card on the offensive side, I would say Parade Ace and Walker.
14:14And then a realistic wild card defensively would be that Emei, we see it.
14:18We know what he's capable of.
14:21It's just a matter of just really nailing it in.
14:24And maybe that ends up being one of the big stories of the second half.
14:27You've got to have one of those guys.
14:28You can't – well, maybe you can.
14:30The 2006 Cardinals probably did it.
14:32But they're the only example.
14:33That's the outlier.
14:33You typically can't be a playoff team when you have two of the worst – two of the three worst
14:37starting pitchers in the league in your rotation.
14:39So one of those guys needs to step up.
14:41How'd you filter for all that?
14:43What'd you – how'd you go through and figure all that out?
14:46I just – I just used AI.
14:49Oh, did you?
14:49Yeah, no, it's a good – it's a good way to get you to head start and go down the
14:53–
14:53I mean, there is a way – like, if you have baseball reference stat head, I think it's called.
14:58Yeah, yeah, stat head is – yeah.
15:00I would have filtered – what I filtered on AI was two pitchers – a playoff team, two pitchers with
15:05ERAs over six, and both with 15-plus starts.
15:09Yeah.
15:09I think stat head – I think you have to pay for that?
15:12I don't know.
15:12You do.
15:12You do.
15:13Yeah, okay.
15:13So I love stats.
15:14I love baseball, but I'm not paying for, like, a stat service, so I don't pay for it.
15:18You pay for stat head, and you get a lot of value for your dollar, but the problem is you
15:22cannot calculate how much time you lost in productivity when you realize, like,
15:27oh, I've been on stat head for four hours looking at the dumbest, most arcane thing, you know, like, pitchers
15:35whose names ended in vowels that were born before 1970.
15:39You can do whatever the hell you want, but it's a time suck.
15:41Yeah, I get it.
15:42That's part of the reason why.
15:43I don't want to entrap myself in pen.
15:46If you put – for me, if you put chat into thinking mode, into deep thinking mode, then it tends
15:53to be pretty accurate with a lot of statistical stuff.
15:56I get into my most trouble just when I simply think I'm going to go old school and Google something,
16:01but then Gemini spits out its AI answer, and it's just horrendous.
16:07Like, Google has turned into a nightmare.
16:09It'll tell you the dumbest crap that ever was.
16:12It's just so easily that sometimes you know it off the top of your head.
16:16Sometimes you're like, that doesn't look right, and you do a little minimal fact check, and it's ridiculously wrong.
16:20Yeah, I know it.
16:21I guess that's how they're trying to force us into the paid AI.
16:25They make the free stuff.
16:26But that's not how freemium is supposed to work.
16:29Freemium is supposed to be pretty good, and then you pay for the, oh, wow, we're going to have the
16:33slam dunk.
16:34I'll pay for premium.
16:35But with Gemini, it's just – it sucks.
16:38It's awful.
16:39Yeah, I pay for Claude.
16:41Ooh.
16:42Yeah.
16:42What are you, a programmer?
16:43Yeah, a little bit.
16:45Yeah, so that's what I do.
16:46I pay for Claude, but I really only use Claude Code, and then I use still my free ChatGPT to
16:52do my research.
16:53Yeah.
16:54And that's the one where I do catch – it's my stubbornness.
16:57I guess I should just use Claude.
16:58I'm paying for it.
16:59But ChatGPT seems more like a better research engine to me.
17:03What do you code?
17:04I don't code.
17:05So I use – I just use it – I use Claude Code to really do anything on my computer.
17:12Okay.
17:12It has access to – it's kind of scary, but it has access to everything, like all the files and
17:17everything.
17:17It can send emails for me.
17:18Yeah.
17:19And then I use another app called – I think it's called Ghost Whisperer where you could just talk to
17:24it and just say like – email to Joe Smith telling him I'm going to be late to lunch today,
17:30whatever it is.
17:31And he'll just go and do it.
17:32And it'll do that, and it can access your texting and everything, right?
17:35I gave it – do all that.
17:36Yeah.
17:37Scary – yeah.
17:38I might regret it, but I've given it access to my email.
17:40Ah, screw it.
17:41We're all going to die someday.
17:42So what – is it in a gulag somewhere?
17:45Perhaps.
17:45Run by computer overlords?
17:47Probably.
17:47But still.
17:51Okay.
17:51So you just – so Claude can basically act like a personal assistant to you.
17:56Exactly.
17:56That's what I'm using.
17:57Just using it for efficiency to really help me with anything.
18:00Yeah.
18:00Okay.
18:00Yeah.
18:00Yeah.
18:01I tried to – I thought I was going to learn programming for a little bit.
18:04I spent about three hours, and then I quit when I couldn't – I just couldn't figure out the most
18:08basic of things.
18:09I'm going to have to go to – like I might have to take like an in-person class with
18:13somebody to learn how to code.
18:15I've had –
18:15Like I couldn't – I didn't know how to copy and paste the code to make it actually work.
18:19Oh, I got you.
18:20So like that's the level of boomerism we're dealing with.
18:23So I mean I know how to copy and paste, obviously, but to actually get it to do anything, it's
18:28completely lost.
18:30I need Gen Z to come in and help me with this stuff.
18:32That part I can do, but I can't create – I have somebody create the things for me that I
18:37want Claude to do, and then I do – I just do the copy and pasting, and then I have
18:41it set up to automate things for me or just expedite things.
18:44So yeah, so I'm not quite there, but it's just like when I tell people I live in Westview.
18:49It's just like projecting something that I'm not.
18:53I'm a Claude coder over here, but really I have somebody else doing it.
18:57Yeah, I'm going to start calling you a startup founder.
19:00That's all you have to say.
19:01Call yourself – get yourself a little LLC, and we'll make you CEO.
19:07Come up with –
19:07Now we're talking.
19:07To bilk people out of millions of dollars.
19:10Yeah, perfect.
19:11Hey, that's why I like sitting in with you in these mornings.
19:13Talk about potentialities and such.
19:15Yeah.
19:16We're up and running.
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