00:00But you still want the Astros to be buyers at the deadline at this point.
00:04Payne and Pendergast wrapping up this Thursday morning.
00:07We'll catch up with the fellas from In The Loop here in a few moments,
00:10get the question of the day.
00:11But I'm Luke Morrow in for Sean alongside Seth Payne.
00:14713-572-4610 on the text line or YouTube and Twitch chats are there for you as well.
00:20Astros lost last night 8-2 to the Nationals, dropping that series.
00:25None of their starting pitchers made it through the fifth inning,
00:27which that's a good thing that they have an off day today so everyone can get well-rested now.
00:31And they start a big series.
00:33Astros actually have a big series with the Rangers starting tomorrow.
00:36The Rangers and Mariners are both playing today, so they can gain a half game on the Astros.
00:41And Houston will enter the weekend either a game and a half out of first in the West
00:46or two and a half games out.
00:48But they play the Rangers starting tomorrow, three-game series leading into the All-Star break,
00:53which, again, Texas will either be one or two games up on the Astros.
00:57By tomorrow.
00:58And the Mariners play the Rays this weekend, which is the best team in the American League, I should say.
01:04So, you know, if the Astros take care of business and if you get some help from the Rays,
01:09there is a scenario where, who knows, they might be in first place heading into the All-Star break.
01:14Yeah, this is the AL West, which I've lost.
01:17I have no shame about it anymore.
01:19I don't even care that the team that's leading the division is 47 and 46 right now.
01:28That's the world we live in.
01:29And when in Rome, you live as the Romans do.
01:33That's what the AL West is.
01:35It's a bitter death battle to see who can be slightly above 500 at the end of the year.
01:40Yeah, that's what someone on the text line said.
01:42I just want the Astros to put us out of our misery.
01:44But the AL is so bad that we're going to be in the race until the very end.
01:48So that's the case.
01:49If you were in another division or in the NL, it might be different.
01:52But that's the thing here.
01:54That's my thing, is what's the best move realistically for the Astros?
01:58As fans, you always want to compete and be relevant and try.
02:03And you don't want to think about the future.
02:05And it's not your money, so you don't care about that and everything.
02:08But is it best to truly try to be buyers if you do believe our ceiling is just to get
02:15to the playoffs this year?
02:16Or is it best to kind of set yourself up for the future where you can come back and actually
02:20be a true World Series contender in the future?
02:24Because I think back to in this division, the Texas Rangers just a couple years ago, it was 2024 where
02:32they had just won the World Series.
02:34At the trade deadline, they were three games under .500, but they were three and a half games out of
02:40a playoff spot.
02:41And so some of their pieces had a disappointing season.
02:46Last year was even worse.
02:48This year hasn't been much better.
02:50And it's that idea of almost kind of getting stuck in that purgatory or spinning your wheels instead of admitting,
02:57like,
02:57you know what, we're not good enough right now.
02:59Let's kind of bag this season and make sure we're set up better for the next couple of years.
03:04That's where it's always, I mean, everybody's going to feel differently about it.
03:08There's going to be a spectrum of people who will just tear it all down at any given time versus
03:12other people that want to fight until the bitter end.
03:15I think that it's always easier to say, hey, no, like, you guys need to really just hit an actual
03:22reset button on this team and organization
03:25and get, you know, build back up from within, et cetera, et cetera.
03:30It's hard for GMs to survive that cycle.
03:34It's always easy to say, like, oh, yeah, I'll be totally cool first with actually sucking for a couple years.
03:41Nobody ever actually is.
03:42Your resolve gets tested immediately.
03:44So I think that for me right now, I look at the mediocrity of the American League and look at
03:51it as an opportunity, really.
03:53And I do have, I have more of an appetite than I would have expected.
03:56If you had told me, you know, two months ago that the Astros would work their way back up to
04:02near 500,
04:04would you want them to be a buyer at the trade deadline?
04:08I probably would have guessed, I probably would have said no, that I needed some kind of a, like, a
04:13real surge.
04:14I want to see a 12-game win streak or something.
04:18And they didn't do it that way.
04:19They did it more gradually.
04:21And they won a bunch of serious, most against mediocre teams.
04:25But I think that they've gotten to a point where you can see how, with just a couple of twists
04:32and adjustments right now,
04:35including bringing in a starting pitcher, and that if you get the best offensively out of guys like Paredes and
04:41Christian Walker,
04:42that, all right, in this AL, yeah, this is a team that can actually make a run in the playoffs.
04:46So I've just got, I've got more of an appetite to be a buyer right now than I thought I
04:50would for a sub-500 baseball team.
04:52Yeah, and I do get that perspective as well, of, like, just get there.
04:55Chip, chair, and a chance.
04:56And we've seen some teams that, especially in baseball, that get hot at the right time or didn't have a
05:01good first half,
05:02or even the 2006 Cardinals I keep referencing, who were only four games over 500 and ended up winning the
05:07World Series.
05:08Like, just get into the playoffs and let's see what happens.
05:11It doesn't help that the Astros won the series versus the Rays.
05:14I feel like I still have, like, a little bit of a, I've still got a little bit of false
05:19confidence and bravado from that.
05:20To say nothing of what happened the last three games versus the Nationals.
05:24That Rays series, I'm going to lean on that hard for a while.
05:28That was a great series win.
05:30Problem is, there haven't been enough, and part of that is because the AL is so bad.
05:34But, like, they've only beat the winning teams.
05:36The only winning teams they've won series against currently are the Guardians, the Cubs, and the Rays.
05:41And the Rays is a great win that series this past weekend.
05:44If there's only, I don't even care about making the World Series as much as I do beating the Yankees
05:49in the ALCS to go to the World Series.
05:52That's my, that's my emotional ring that I wear more.
05:55That's why I have one of my, one of my commemorative rings that I have, keep it here near me
06:00all the time, is the, uh, is an ALB in 2019.
06:05That's right.
06:05That matters more to me and feels better than just a meager World Series title.
06:10Hey, how about the Yankees 5-15 in their last 20 games?
06:14Worst record in baseball during that time, and they're averaging, like, two and a half runs per game in those
06:2020 games without Aaron Judge.
06:21Is this, um, is this as simple as, is, is this just going to be another classic Yankees team that,
06:27whatever they end up doing in the regular season,
06:30it just, they can't face up to good pitching, um, when they hit the playoffs, or is, is, is it
06:35deeper than that?
06:36No.
06:36Like, is there, like, deeper than that, I mean, like, okay, are we, am I, can I buy into this
06:41losing, this ridiculously bad stretch that the Yankees are having,
06:45and say, yeah, they're just actually not that good, or is it just a blip on the radar?
06:48No, I think they're, and again, I'm biased, but I don't think they're that good.
06:52My Yankee friends are tired of me texting them all season long, calling them fraudulent.
06:57Uh, they're 500 against teams with winning records this year.
07:00They've beaten up on a lot of bad teams, and it just, if you, if you watched them all year,
07:05I, I, I, again, I'm biased, but I watched them and wonder, like,
07:08how are they winning this many games?
07:10This is a bad lineup, uh, especially without Judge.
07:13They do have good starting pitching.
07:14I will give them that.
07:15No doubt they have a good rotation, and that might help them, that might carry them to a certain, you
07:19know, spot in the playoffs.
07:20But the lineup's not good enough.
07:21The bullpen can be shaky.
07:23They really only have Aaron Judge in that lineup.
07:26Um, they, they are still relying on the home run ball.
07:29So, yeah, uh, I'm biased, but I don't worry about the Yankees in the, in the playoffs, uh, making a
07:33World Series run this year.
07:35But maybe I'll be proven wrong.
07:36Uh, on the text line, somebody said, biggest need at the deadline, which, by the way, is just over three
07:40weeks away.
07:41Biggest need?
07:43A new G.
07:43Another, uh, person said, the Astros fan in me wants to win and make a move, but I don't trust
07:49Dana to be the guy to do it.
07:50So let's just ride this thing out and see what happens.
07:53Yeah.
07:53Not a bad thought.
07:54Uh, somebody said Astros continue to prove they are fool's gold.
07:58Um, they're 46 and 49 right now, but two games out of first.
08:02However, the numbers I keep referencing, fourth worst run differential.
08:06They've overachieved by three wins so far.
08:09And they're 20 and 25 against teams with winning records.
08:12I feel like fool's gold is a little bit too generous to say.
08:17Like, fool's gold would be if they, you know, they actually had a, like a, a respectable winning record right
08:23now.
08:23But it feels like it's all going to fall to dust.
08:26So I think fool's gold is not, uh, aggressive enough of a criticism for me.
08:30And the last one I wanted to get to was somebody said, the 2026 Astros have no chance competing for
08:36anything real other than the AL West, which is meaningless.
08:41Yeah.
08:41Yeah.
08:41So that's, that's the, and to your point, as you referenced earlier, not only do GMs not want to, uh,
08:47like be in the tank or be bad, but especially when you have Dana Brown, who has an expiring contract,
08:52uh, he definitely doesn't want to try to pack it in on the second half of the season and just
08:57fade away from Houston.
08:58Even if that's what fans prefer, I would like, yeah, you know what, if he makes a desperate, uh, if
09:03he makes a desperate, uh, you know, attempt to save his job by some aggressive moods at the trade deadline,
09:10it would still serve a dual purpose.
09:11It would either, it would either a, uh, maybe work out or B it'd be a miserable disaster.
09:18And then the organization would have no choice, but to say, all right, like, listen, we got to, uh, we
09:23just got to be a little too, a little bit more hardcore into hitting the reset button and take our
09:28medicine for a couple of years.
09:30And maybe, you know, you have some rough seasons, but so, so, so be it, we've done it before.
09:36Like you've, uh, you know, it's for me with Jim Crane right now, it feels like, um, he went through
09:42the really miserable hard part of tanking, which was at the time, like, like people love to act like they,
09:48they had faith in the process at the time. Very few people had faith in the process.
09:52You never do when it's a new group of people that are intentionally sucking and you just have to say,
09:57okay, well, oh, we're only going to, we'll suck for four years and then we'll be great.
10:01Sure. Like nobody ever actually emotionally signs on for that. In hindsight, you say, oh yes, of course I knew,
10:07uh, all, I knew all the moves they were making.
10:08I was monitoring all these triple A championships they were winning and I knew that it was going to be
10:12incredible.
10:13Um, but so Jim Crane has been through it before and he's come out the other side and he's made
10:18four world series appearances with it.
10:20But then to try to go back and do that again, there's probably like a little bit of PTSD of,
10:27and it wouldn't have to be as aggressive a tank as it was in 2013, 2014.
10:33Um, but he just doesn't have an appetite for it. Now it's, so it's like when I decide every now
10:38and then in the summer, I'll be like, all right, I'm going to get back in shape.
10:40I'm going to do my old football workouts. Now I'm going to do a conditioning test. Just like I did
10:44in football.
10:45Man, I get like 20 minutes into that workout. I'm like, nope, nope, not, not, no reason to go through
10:51this again.
10:52I don't, uh, I did. There's a, I don't need to be miserable like this ever again in my life.
10:56And I think Jim Crane just doesn't want to ever have to be miserable like that again in his life.
11:00Yeah. I don't blame you.
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