MAJOR factors influencing CHANGE in Astros offseason formula

MAJOR factors influencing CHANGE in Astros offseason formula

Welcome into Stone Cold Stros. I’m Brandon Stranger, Charlie Polo and Josh Jordan. You can follow them on X at Palo and Josh Jordan 975. On today’s episode, after getting swept out of contention for the division by Seattle, it was Jim Crane who just conducted a thorough housekeeping inside the organization. How much of these changes will be positive and how much is just about optics? We’ll discuss before he somehow fires us, too. Uh, the economy has been rough on everyone, but Dana Brown is the one clipping coupons this off seasonason as the front office looks to retool the roster. What is Big Daddy Crane’s appetite to set it off this off season? Or will he decide that half stepping ain’t so bad? And we’ll get we’ll find out from Charlie what the other guy looks like. Before all that, hit like on the video, subscribe to the channel, click the bell. We’re on all your favorite podcast apps where you can listen uh to these episodes. Just search Stone Coldstros and keep your eyes out later in this week for a special announcement about the channel. Some of you will be very, very happy, especially if you’re a Texans fan. Um, Charlie Josh, welcome in. Um, the Astros parted ways with hitting coaches Alex Entron and Troy Snitker, head athletic trainer Jeremiah Randall, catching coach Michael Connels Collins, and assistant GM Andrew Ball. Uh, so lot of news this week. Um, we’ll get to the Randall thing a little deeper in a few minutes, but uh, I was wondering from you guys, from your perspective, how much should these moves comfort Astros fans from an accountability standpoint, and how much should it concern them considering that these guys were in place during a significant part of Houston’s golden era, and there’s no certainty that their replacement will have any more success? Ah, the old careful what you ask for. Uh these moves didn’t have to happen, but they kind of had to happen. Uh starting specifically with the hitting coaches, Cron and Snitker, and as we’ve talked about for feels like the better part of of two years, there was nothing that distinguished those guys as elite hitting coaches, but that they know nothing about it. And see two examples of those who can’t do teach. Uh I think too extreme on the other side. Uh ultimately it’s about the carpenter, not the tools. And I’ll say the hitters at the big leagues themselves and not the tools of learning at their disposal with the hitting coaches. I don’t know who you might identify as the two or three greatest savant hitting coaches that oh if the Astros could lure them, Yiner Diaz would learn to not swing at more pitches out of the strike zone than 99% of big leaguers. Jose Altuve chase percentile in the fifth percentage. Always a free swinger but not as ridiculously as it’s descended to over the last couple of seasons. And good Jake Myers did Cron and Snitker Merritt no credit for that but crappy Jake Myers and collapsed Chaz McCormack. They get all the blame. So, hey, if you’re the hitting coaches and too much of the hitting philosophy and results tail off or collapse, at some point you have to go. But is this the panacea to fix the Astros offensive wos? No, it isn’t. Uh, they couldn’t throw out anyone trying to steal bases. How much of that was on Michael Collins who worked with the catchers as opposed to just Yiner and Keratini not being great at the job? Oh, by the way, how about the pitching coaches getting the pitchers to do a more thorough effort of holding base runners? So, there were going to be fall guys at some point, but I don’t think these are the silver bullets that point the Astros back toward glory. I don’t either, but since they decided to bring a spat back and decided to bring back Dana Brown, these other guys had to go. Jim Crane wasn’t going to just bring everybody back. So once once he made that big decision, I I knew a lot of guys were going to be let go. And as Astros fans, we’ll see how they perform. I I I’m just in a kind of holding pattern here, Brandon. I just bottom line is last year they came into the season saying we don’t see enough pitches and we chase too many pitches out of the zone. And Dana Brown’s like we need to focus on making that better. And that did not improve this year. They were one of the worst teams in the league at both of those things. So the coaches had their opportunity. It was the 2025 season and it did not improve. And it may not improve with the new guys either. That’s, you know, who knows if the hitters aren’t listening and they’re just going to do whatever they want. Also, you have to think then what do the hitting coaches do if we just say, “Oh, well, it’s the hitter anyway. You can’t really blame them.” They do get a salary for a reason. So, we have to hold them somehow accountable to the results. So, we’ll see. And it’s a lot easier to fire coaches than it is to fire players, guys. So, they’re going to give it, you know, a new voice. See if they respond this year. here if they make any improvement. And you know, time will tell. I don’t know. But especially with them being one-year contracts with Espatada and with Dana Brown and the possible lockout coming in the future, I think Jim Crane was like, why don’t we just run it back with this GM and and this this coach for this year and and see what happens with the lockout. So, I’m not really surprised drastic decisions were not made to to get rid of everybody. No CBT ramifications for moves on the coaching staff and to the hitting philosophy and instruction other than a little time during spring training, maybe the occasional offseason think tank gathering. Hey, the Astros haven’t developed many good hitters at all from the farm system, right? The major league surfaces what the fans care about, what the Astros are doing, not what they’re doing at single A and double A and triple in terms of the results. But the Astros have not produced a good major league hitter from their farm system until this year. Jeremy Pñena under the toutelage of Sniter and Cintron. um going back all the way to the Kyle Tucker Alex Bregman draft which was 2015. So how deep their systemic problems are in not cultivating good hitting approach mixed in with just some bad draft picks and lost draft picks and so forth. But that the cure all is Cron Snitker out and the Astros are going to be a disciplined mashing machine. That’s exceedingly simplistic. Yeah, and Josh, I agree with you. It’s it’s just understood in sports that coaches usually get the blame first because the players are more valuable. Their contracts are uh multi-year and guaranteed. So, it’s it’s much easier to move on from coaches than it is from players. But Charlie, to your point, we talk about it all the time on this show. Pitchers come to Houston typically get better. Hitters not so much. Is that Centron and Snickers fault? I don’t know. But to Josh’s point, it’s someone’s fault. Someone has to be held to account for that. And so I I think, you know, the the picture that’s being painted here is there is just uh an underwhelming uh amount of hitter development that happens in this organization from top to bottom. And so these are the first dominoes to fall. And if it doesn’t get going in the direction, I wouldn’t be surprised to see more dominoes fall. And on that point, do you think there’s any message being sent here by the dismissal of the assistant GM? There are multiple assistant general managers. So why ball was the fall a guy on the don’t know personality conflict? Did he have a particular area of evaluation or or study where they felt yeah you dropped the ball. Um so I don’t know are the other assistant GM saying hey we better tighten up things in 2026 or or we could be next. I really have no feel on that. From my understanding of that is he overlooked the the medical stuff with the Astros. Ball did. So I think that’s maybe why he’s on the outs was because that was that was his responsibility the medical stuff. But I’m also thinking like you know he’s a Click guy, right? That he was hired by him. So I’m kind of surprised he lasted this long to begin with just because you know we know the famous way Jim Crane and Click departed and you know no love lost between those guys. So, I’m kind of surprised anybody that Click brought in here has stuck around for this many years. And while they’re not in hideous disarray and a lousy big league team, lousy minor league system, uh, but since James Click left, the Astros results have gotten worse, worseer, and worstest. 2023, 24, 25, ALCS 2023, bounced in the division round in wildard round in 2024, and didn’t even make the playoffs this year. Uh James Click, meanwhile, is attending American League Championship Series games. Go figure. Yeah. And I think that’s that’s a good segue considering Click was one the one who famously called out the team’s return to play policies and then the announcement came down this week that longtime head athletic trainer uh and the Astros parted ways uh after Houston declined to renew Jeremiah Randle’s contract. So, for the most part, this was met with positive feedback from the fan base. Although, I have seen some people that I actually respect push back on this, saying that Randall was made the scapegoat here for a team of guys who were quote made out of glass. Now, even Dana Brown himself acknowledged that what Houston experienced was in line with league injury trends, but there’s no doubt that Houston experienced more than uh most did numerically speaking. Uh do you think Jeremiah Randall was made the scapegoat for just a series of unfortunate events during the 2025 season? An element of it, he was here a decade. The Astros were named the medical staff of the year in 2017. Did Jeremiah Randall lose his skills over the ensuing eight years. Um, he’s a doctor of physical therapy. He was the head trainer. He’s not a surgeon. He’s not a hand specialist. So, for instance, the whole Yordon debacle, I can’t see how any of that goes to to Jeremiah Randall. Um, but the soft tissue stuff, you know, I might point to Jake Meyers specifically as one there. Hey, you know, calf muscle, you’re doing massages and working out and ultrasound and how’s it feel and stretching. So, that might be the one that I’d say, hey, head trainer, he comes back on two separate occasions and pops it, blows it out again. Um, but in the overall right there, epidemic of Tommy John surgeries and other arm issues, I mean, Lance McCullers, you could put in bubble wrap and no one was going to keep him healthy. And again, Yordon Alvarez, uh, I find that one to have been well above Jeremiah Randle’s pay grade, and I have no idea what that pay grade was. I don’t know if he was scapegoed. They they had to do something here, but but I will say this on his behalf. We don’t know if these trainers are saying like, “Ah, Jake Myers, I don’t think he’s ready to come back.” He’s saying he feels good, but it seems too soon. And Dana Brown even came out and said, “If you could do over some of this stuff, you know, what would you change?” And he’s like, “Oh, maybe we could have gotten more imaging, especially with Yordon and some other circumstances.” To me, that’s where it’s all at is the imaging. You have to wonder. I would think the medical professional would want to get imaging as much as they can just to, you know, just, you know, notch things off. Oh, it’s not this, it’s that, you know, what have you. I would almost think the team would be the ones pushing it back against the imaging, wanting guys to come back early, get back on the field. And and we’ve seen some of that stuff with the Astros. So, it makes you wonder, is it is Dana Brown or, you know, a spotter, are they trying to push some of these guys back on the field when they’re not quite ready? And the imaging thing is what jumps out to me is you would want all the imaging especially with guys that you have under contract for the next five years. If you know if you vested a invested $100 million in a player, you you would think you would want as much imaging as possible to protect your investment. So, but we’re just not privy to all this stuff behind the scenes. So, yeah, this could be a deal where they did fine medically, but the team was pushing them back on the field. And, you know, the player is always going to try and get back out there. You have to protect the player. You have to save them for themselves sometimes. Yeah, Randall does go back to that time when Click called out the return to play process. Uh, but you know, look, we can put aside the growing list of setbacks. Sorry, the Yordon situation alone merited turn turnover for everyone involved. You can’t screw it up this bad for your best player. You just can’t for a team that absolutely needed offense uh and for them to be without York on for over a hundred games. Obviously the uh the ankle sprain was a freak thing that happened that that’s not on the medical staff per se, but they let the man take live BP with a fracture in his hand without doing imaging. Yeah. It’s inexcusable. It it’s just inexcusable if if anything and that’s above the head trainer or if it was not he should have been fired in July. I I just don’t know in what scenario in what world and apparently it’s the Astros world but in what world you send your best player back out there who’s had numerous hand issues over his career. you send him back out to take live BP without making sure that everything’s good. Now, I know I’m speaking from, you know, this is this is me with the benefit of hindsight, but I’m also it’s not my job to keep these guys keep and maintain these guys’ health, and I just think it’s inexcusable. I I I think that that mistake alone was enough to cost everyone involved uh their position uh who had anything to do with the health staff at that point. Um, even if it is just from a optic standpoint, you have to do it. Um, so let’s move on from the coaches and trainers to the guys that actually have to produce on the field. Uh, there are some big decisions that have to be made this off season as we’ve noted and the CBT line uh that the Astros have, I’d say unsuccessfully towed over the past two seasons. Uh, have has to be navigated. Um, I used Chandler Rome’s article, just FYI, for this uh from the Athletic for this uh breakdown here. He got his numbers from Cot’s contracts, which estimates these numbers. So, any discrepancies, hey, not my fault. Um, but here’s what Houston’s looking at for 2026. They’re getting 57 around 57.5 million in salary relief that comes off the books from a combination of expiring roster contracts and expiring dead money. Um the Frober, Keratini, Rogers are the the live deals and then Abrau Montter and Presley are the dead money that falls off for that total of 57 a.5. Um the arbitration eligible guys is around 67 million preb is estimated in around 13 million. So uh guaranteed money for the team 169 million total 134 of which applies to the tax. So that in total, for those not keeping track of all those numbers in your head, uh $214 million in luxury tax payroll, which is uh $30 million under the first threshold of the uh the CBT in 2026. So the challenge has been Jim Crane, who’s typically been pretty aggressive at the deadline, uh most every season except for the last two has been able to keep it under the tax. uh two seasons in con in consecutive order. They have uh exceeded the tax and have zero postseason victories to show for it. So, I wanted to ask you guys, do you think a lack of postseason success uh significantly changes how Houston will operate going forward? Only Jim Crane can truly answer that. And if the window is always going to be open, he’s going to have to be willing to eat a third year as a taxpaying team. Their tax penalty will start at 50% at every dollar over 244 that counts toward uh the threshold. They don’t have a good enough team. And getting to that $30 million to work with, give or take, that’s with no Valdez. So, a replacement needs to be found for him. Uh, no Victor Keratini. So, Yanner Diaz coming off a poor season, he’s now going to catch all the time. Um, I presume you’re just cutting the cord on Dubon. Uh, I fully expect them to try to trade Jesus Sanchez. So, you’re pulling off 6 million here, 6 million there. But, they’re going to have some major arbitration bites. Uh maybe they can make a play for one pitcher in free agency should they choose to get after a Dylan CE in three years. 72 million might be uh enough for him. But any deeper in the pool unless flat out you’re going to accept that you’re going to be a tax team. And and Brandon, you talked about the Astros lack of postseason success, zero wins the last two years. Let’s mesh that with the Seattle Mariners sudden success in the ALCS. a better team than the Astros. Now, a farm system that just runs laps around the Astros farm systems by any evaluation. Mariners elite. Astros garbage. Mariners every postseason home game they play. Millions of additional dollars in the coffers of which the Astros got zero this year for the first time in almost a decade in terms of postseason revenue. Mariners payroll in 2025 75 million or so below that of the Astros. If the Mariners are emboldened by their success, this is our time to now dominate the American League West Astro style of the last near decade and they’re now flush with new cash, they’re going to get a big attendance bump next year. If Jim Cran’s thinking, well, we can’t be a taxpayer for a third consecutive year, then the Astros are going into next season realistically playing for a wild card unless they’re hoping a whole bunch goes wrong for the Mariners. Yeah. And I think that’s kind of what they are doing. And Crane’s kind of tipping his hand a little bit by bringing back a spot, bringing back Dana Brown. I think he just kind of wants to run it back this year, which is I don’t think they go over the tax again. I I think they get right up close to it. I just I don’t I don’t see Crane doing it again. And I think they’re going to have to get big uh contributions from some of these younger guys. You know, we talked about AJ Blue Ball last week and you know, Charlie brought up how he wasn’t that great in the minor leagues, and that’s all true, but it got me thinking a little bit that maybe he did have some success because he was with the big league club and he got the Astros pitching intel. And we’ve seen what the Astros can do when they have a guy with a certain amount of velocity and a good breaking ball, you know, like Kikuchi, like they were able to work wonders with him. And Blue Ball has some of those things where he can get it up to 97 miles an hour and has a breaking ball. So maybe because of his skill set, the Astros will be able to get something out of him that maybe he what didn’t get from the minor league coaching. That’s just kind of my my bright side. I’m hoping for him, but I I think you’re going to have to go out and bring in another starting pitcher. We talked about it last week. Eric Getty was not good last year, even when he was healthy. Javier wasn’t dominant again either. That you can’t count on McCullers. I just brought up the the issues with Blue Ball. There are so many holes in the starting rotation. It’s going to be a challenge. But I I just don’t see him going over the tax. I don’t I probably don’t think he should either. I I think they need to see what they have this year. See if the coaching does make a difference with the offense. And like I said, you’re going to have to go add some pitching. Yeah. As is, they’d be poised to go to 2026 spring training with their rotation. What? Hunter Brown, Aragetti, Javier, Blue Ball, and 32year-old had a nice little run, Jason Alexander. But what real meat is there on the bone to think that he’d be a legitimate starter in 2026, right? He had his little Walter Mitties-esque JP France of a couple of years ago run toward the tail end of the season. He tailed off again. He’s 32 with mediocre stuff. They can’t go to spring training with that and say, “Oh, yeah. The window is wide open. We think we’re as good as any team in the American League.” Yeah. Look, I think offensively speaking, as we’re watching this postseason unfold, I think it’s pretty clear that Houston is not in the same league offensively as uh the Blue Jays and Yankees. However, watching the Tigers and Mariners series, I think a healthy Houston team could have hung with those guys. Now, granted, health certainly giant caveat here, uh especially as you’re talking about a team that has cleaned house when it comes to uh the the medical staff here, but you know, in fact, I’d say like watching uh that game five, it it was kind of like watching the Astros versus the Astros, which is pitchers pitching themselves in and out of jams and hitters just being unable to get guys home from scoring position. I mean, how many times did we harp on that all season? Now, granted, you could say maybe that was because those teams are a little bit more closely uh, you know, are rated a little bit more closely together than maybe the Astros would, but it just seemed like very Astrosesque games uh that that were being played. So, I don’t think it’s I don’t think you’ve lost all hope if you are playing for a wild card spot because like any season, you just hope to get into the dance and hope that you get hot at the right time. But not knowing who replaces Froer Valdez is a major question. uh you who who is it that’s in your rotation that needs to be answered uh first and foremost and then what do you do with the rest of this roster because as much as I’ve seen people rationalize the Christian Walker numbers and say well this is just who this guy was for his career I think the disparity between home and away is something that’s definitely jumps out off the the the paper at you. Um, and then you’ve got to get you’ve got to get Yiner turned around. You got to hope that Jeremy Pena can sustain the offensive production that he maintained this year. And you got to hope that Carlos Koreah can put together a healthy season for this team. Final thoughts before we’re out the door. Okay. On the lighter side, for those who consume us, as do what, the vast majority via YouTube, the other guys looking for spleen and about 12 teeth. No. Uh, terrible bad hop. 5 years ago, I think I’d have gotten a glove up a little more quickly than I did. Uh, but the money maker should be all right over time. And frankly, it hasn’t made me much money anyway. U, for me, I was just thinking about all the Astros issues with injuries and all this kind of stuff. I propose the Astros need a common sense injury committee that I would be very happy to volunteer for. I think some of this stuff is a lot of common sense stuff that they’re making just mistakes that don’t need to be made. I wonder if you may not even need a doctor to be like, “Huh, Jake Myers, uh, he just hurt himself a few days ago. You want to put him out there again? You sure he’s okay? Well, he just fell down in the outfield and he’s having to be carried off.” Common sense could fix a lot of these things, guys. And the other thing I wanted to talk about is, you know, Pñena seemed to benefit from working with Kareah last off season on his hitting. Maybe these two guys together this off season, they can kind of, you know, carry that momentum into this, you know, upcoming season and maybe some of the other guys will get involved and it could help them too. So if Craig could kind of help turn around Pñena, you know, maybe there’s some benefit of these guys working together and as we’ve talked about in this video, we’re not sure how much hitting coaches really do anyway. So maybe that’s something positive. Maybe that can rub off on the other guys and and they’ll get the offense going this year. Uh, Michael Brantley for hitting coach. Anyone? There you go. Uh, one last reminder, if you’re watching on YouTube, be sure to click like on the video. And if you do listen on podcast on apps like Apple or Spotify, give us a fivestar rating. While you’re here for Charlie Josh, Hi, Brandon saying so long. Thanks for listening. As always, ghosts. [Music] [Music]

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