00:00All right, Randy Flores is the new general manager for the Houston Astros.
00:06He was asked yesterday at his introductory press conference,
00:09which I thought he did really well at,
00:11he was asked what was attractive about this role, this job.
00:16Well, I'll just say what the dork does well is it wins.
00:18I mean, there's a track record.
00:20Additionally, look, some teams say they want to win,
00:23but maybe they don't pay to try to win.
00:26Jim is always invested in the team.
00:28And certainly, I mean, no decisions are perfect.
00:31I've never made perfect scouting decisions, never made perfect draft picks.
00:34No one makes perfect decisions.
00:36No one bats 1,000 in this.
00:37Otherwise, there'd be one team that wins every year.
00:39So to see the investment and the commitment that this team makes
00:44gives you a tremendous opportunity to make good decisions
00:47rather than hoping and scratching and clawing for the revenue of some other team
00:51to help you play in this game.
00:52So I'm grateful to be in this city.
00:54I'm grateful for the pressure that this role demands.
00:58And that the goal here is to win.
01:01That's extremely attractive to me.
01:04And I believe the question was actually,
01:06what do you perceive as the strengths and weaknesses of the organization?
01:09So he ignored the second part of the question, obviously, which is a smart move.
01:12But I think he addressed, I think, perhaps maybe what some people see as a criticism,
01:17which is that the Astros are never going to spend the way that teams like the Dodgers or the Mets,
01:21or even some of the lesser revenue teams, but teams that will spend, you know,
01:26over $100 million on a free agency pickup or something.
01:30That's where I think that for a guy who's coming from Milwaukee and,
01:36excuse me, not Milwaukee, sorry, I'm still stuck on that.
01:38Yeah, no, but for most, the vast majority of executives come from places where you can't
01:46spend like the Dodgers or you can't spend like the Mets.
01:50And Jim Crane does spend like in that upper third pretty regularly.
01:54And he'll kiss up against the luxury tax or go over to the CBT or go over at times.
01:59So I think that there are a lot of executives that look at it as, look,
02:04we don't have to go out and make exorbitant purchases if we're good enough
02:08and we're smart enough and we do a really good job drafting and then critically developing in our system
02:13that just having an owner who's willing to spend, you know, more than average is enough.
02:20And from there, it's all on you.
02:21If I had to look at this job, like through the lens of a candidate for this job,
02:25I think the good thing about this job is, yeah, Jim Crane is willing to spend more than most owners
02:30will.
02:31I think he spends up to and maybe even through what the revenue from the stadium
02:36and the revenue from the TV contract and things like that would dictate.
02:39I think he spends at the appropriate level of what this team makes in attendance and TV money.
02:47So that's good.
02:48The bad thing about this job would be the murkiness of the decision making
02:52and all the cooks in the kitchen for the last couple of GMs.
02:55I think the cooks in the kitchen had a big thing to do with James Click not really getting a
03:00fair offer to come back here.
03:02You got a one-year contract offer to come back here.
03:04And there's already stories of cooks in the kitchen scuttling some of the things Dana Brown wanted to do.
03:11That, I think, if that still exists, that is something to manage.
03:15Maybe Randy Flores, who has a tremendous background educationally, business-wise, analytically, and baseball-wise, he's done it all.
03:23Maybe he's got the personality to handle that.
03:26I hope he does.
03:26But the good thing would be the resources.
03:28The bad thing would be all the cooks in the kitchen.
03:31And then I think some people would say the bad thing is the state of the minor league system
03:34and the state of the current roster.
03:36That's what you're there to fix.
03:38You know, like, there's no—that, to me, is in the middle.
03:41You know, like, there's no GM jobs that are open and have the perfect roster right now.
03:46Like, the job is open because this team needs fixing.
03:50So I would look at that as a GM candidate, as an opportunity.
03:53Like, the resources are great.
03:55Having to manage the whole Bagwell and advisors in Crane's ear, that's a negative to me.
04:00The roster is what it is, and the minor league system is what it is.
04:03I think your hope there is that I am going to be special enough as a GM to be able
04:08to fix these things.
04:08Well, and this is what I think with Crane.
04:10I think without ever—any of us ever being in the room where it happens, you know,
04:15when guys are making the decisions or when they're having discussions about these things,
04:19I would imagine that Crane, who's always been very hands-on and involved
04:23and under—wants to know exactly what's going on,
04:27his bar was set with Jeff Luno.
04:29You know, and the discussions and Jeff Luno's reasoning or, you know,
04:34Crane's not the kind of guy most likely is just going to say,
04:37yeah, do whatever you want and I don't need to know why.
04:40He wants to give guys authority, but he wants to hear the explanation.
04:44And, like, I don't think it's a huge stretch to think that Jeff Luno probably did a much better job
04:49of that stuff
04:49and had better reasoning behind it than James Clicker, Dana Brown.
04:54And that some of this becomes, all right, as they form a working relationship
04:59and as Randy Flores explains his thinking, explains his strategy,
05:03that there is a part of it where Crane just—you want Flores to be that kind of guy
05:09that's smart enough that, yeah, that Crane's saying, okay, well, yeah, I can't argue with that.
05:13Or, okay, you know what?
05:14I got Bagwell telling me this.
05:15Or I got Reggie Jackson telling me that.
05:18Or I got whoever.
05:19Whatever, like, but Randy makes a—like, he's—I trust that he's doing the right thing
05:25and I understand his logic behind it.
05:27His name is Flo.
05:29Yeah, oh, that's right.
05:29His name is Flo.
05:30Get it right.
05:31Just to your point, like, the Astros were seventh last year in payroll as a percentage of revenue.
05:38Okay.
05:38So, like, what percent of their revenue are they spending?
05:40Yeah, that's—yeah, so they spend right up to it, man.
05:43So they—that's—I think that's a good thing.
05:45This was Jim Crane yesterday.
05:47The two magic words that I think Astro fans want to hear for whoever the GM was going to be.
05:51Take a listen.
05:52I think you'll know what they are.
05:54He'll have full authority.
05:55I think, you know, what I've done in the past is when things needed some help or I was asked
06:00for help,
06:01I pitched in a number of times in trying to retain guys or trying to get a guy to move
06:07over at the trade deadline.
06:08I'll continue that area.
06:11You know, I'll stay focused on the business side.
06:13I'm pretty hands-on in that area, and, you know, I'll sit in the meetings and get a feel for
06:18what's going on and how things are working.
06:20Nothing I've never—nothing's changed with what I do.
06:23Yeah.
06:23I have no problem with that.
06:25He's the owner.
06:25It's his team.
06:26It's the—you know, it was the Jeff Bagwell, Reggie Jackson stuff that I think—you know, I know Reggie's not in
06:32the building anymore,
06:32but, like, that's the thing for me.
06:34I want a GM who can craft this team in his vision, and if that involves getting back to using
06:41analytics more than they've been using it,
06:43I'm not saying do it exclusively, then let's do that.
06:47And I think that's what I'm encouraged about with Flores' background, Seth,
06:50is that it's hard to find any facet of his background where you don't get a little bit excited about
06:55what it could mean for the Astros.
06:57Like, the scouting part, they need to keep rebuilding this minor league system.
07:00That's great.
07:01This dude started his own company that provided analytics data and whatnot to 11 Major League Baseball teams.
07:07Right, yeah.
07:07He went and got a—he went and got a master's at USC so he could jump into the business world,
07:13you know, like that kind of stuff.
07:14No, and he was a Major League Baseball player, too.
07:16That, too.
07:17That's not like that's a prerequisite for the job or anything, but I think in trying to find those guys
07:22that understand the human side of things.
07:24Yes.
07:25Like, just, you know, understanding and being able to read humans and understand the challenges that the managers have
07:32that are completely non-analytical or that you can't quantify in the moment.
07:37Like, that's what A.J. Hinch had, you know, that broad experience in the front office, everything else.
07:42By the way, if you want to feel bad about yourself and how rich the Dodgers are.
07:46Yeah, yeah.
07:46Where do you think the Dodgers rank in terms of, like, percentage of—their payroll is a percentage of revenue?
07:52So, like, how much—so, like, the Astros are seventh.
07:56They're seventh in the—
07:57So, they're spending a pretty good chunk of their overall revenue on payroll.
08:00Yeah, their revenue, what they bring in.
08:02So, the Dodgers, who spend in the top three every single year, how much—what percentage is it?
08:06They spend in the top three on their payroll every single year.
08:09On their actual payroll, yeah.
08:10Um, I—you—because you're asking me—with the tone you're asking me, I'm going to guess they're below the Astros.
08:15They actually make—
08:16They're 16th.
08:16Yeah, they're like—
08:17That's how rich they are.
08:18They could just keep spending and spending if they want to.
08:20They're—yeah, yeah.
08:21Like, they're—like, regardless of how much they're spending overall, it's still—it's—they're 16th in terms of, like, wow, big of a
08:29chunk out of that revenue.
08:30And that's why there will be no baseball come March.
08:33Yeah, thanks a lot, Dodgers.
08:35Yeah.
08:35All right, one more from Jim Crane.
08:37Um, it's funny you bring up payroll.
08:40He was asked—this question was actually about the—about something Crane said when he fired Dana Brown,
08:45that they were going to take a good, hard look at what some of the lower payroll teams were doing
08:50to be the successful lower payroll teams,
08:53like the ones that made the LCS in each of their—in each of their—the leagues, the Brewers, the Guardians, teams
08:59like that.
09:00Um, this was—this was Crane, who didn't really answer the question.
09:04He basically just talked about the Astros' payroll.
09:06We've looked at the payroll.
09:08We've—we've had a pretty high payroll right at the cap most of the time in the last few years.
09:12Um, we'll—we'll continue to look at that.
09:15And really, it just comes down to what players we can obtain and what the price.
09:19Um, and, you know, with—with, um, things settling out on December 1st, that will have an effect on how we
09:27approach that in some form or fashion.
09:28But we'll always stay positive on the payroll.
09:31We always want the best players.
09:33We always have stretched and—and try to obtain all the best players we can.
09:38And we have the ability to run the payroll where we need to run the payroll.
09:41Okay.
09:42He didn't really—you know, I—the only reason I played that is I liked hearing Jim Crane say they're going to
09:46keep spending money.
09:47That's good.
09:48I am kind of curious.
09:49Yeah, because I think there—I think some people got nervous when he said that he wanted to be looking at
09:53GM candidates who have operated in a—in a low-budget environment.
09:57Yeah.
09:58That—they read that as, oh, it means he wants to be low-budget.
10:01I—I just—I looked at it as it's, no, he wants people that are proven.
10:05Yeah.
10:05Like, in an environment where you've got to find every edge because you don't have a payroll advantage that you're
10:12still getting good work done.
10:13Yeah, I was just curious.
10:14I was hoping he'd say something that he'd learn through evaluating these GM candidates from Milwaukee and St. Louis and
10:20places that are shedding payroll like that.
10:22Yeah, yeah.
10:23But he also—you know, you don't want him to give up the competitive advantage of whatever he did learn, you
10:28know?
10:28Trade secrets.
10:29That's a good point.
10:30That's a good point.
Comments