Houston Astros Manager Joe Espada Breaks Down 2026 Plans and Framber Valdez Incident
First, before we get into it, give us an update on Jose Altuve. Just had surgery to relieve that right foot discomfort. Discomfort. How’s your boy? Uh, he is doing he’s doing well. Um, you know, this is something that has been uh it’s been hampering for a little bit for a couple of weeks and obviously he finished his season playing through it and we actually went in there yesterday and we got a little bit of work done trying to clean the area. Um, but he he’s doing well. um he he should be back moving around and and continue his his offseason workouts here in the next in the next week or two. Joe, first of all, I want to say thank you for reaching out because yeah, you know, I don’t like asking for people’s phone numbers, especially managers because then people, you know, sometimes people are like, “Oh, you want a job?” No, I don’t want a job. But no, you and I, you and I, we talked about it uh during the season. I know and you invited me to the show and I’m like, “You know what? During the offseason, uh we could do it.” And you know, I I I think this is a really great show. The you know, the dynamic between you and and your and and everyone on the show is great. So, um you know, it’s an opportunity for me to come out come here and talk about talk about our club. Well, I I appreciate it. Like I said, that’s why I was thanking you for reaching out and coming on being a man of your word. So, I I appreciate that. You you’ll be fine. He’s going to hit 300. He’s gonna get 180 to 200 hits some next year. He’s fine. I don’t worry about him. But you have new coaches, right? You brought in some new coaches. Can you tell us about your staff and how do you go about hiring new coaches, especially from guys that you’ve had around for a long time. You’ve been around for a while and then they’re gone and you have new faces. AJ, that’s a good question. Um, and you know, for me is trying to bring back trying to, you know, our identity back on who we are as a club. Uh, you know, I’ve been here for eight years and our offense is is great when we when we control the pace of the game and we all working together and we trying to win every bat, every pitch. We trying to win first base. Um, and and I thought that, you know, we just needed a new voice when it came to on that aspect of of the uh of our offense. And I can’t, you know, Alex and Troy Snicker, tremendous hitting coaches. um we we’ve been part of an incredible run here and they deserve a lot of credit um to what we have accomplished but I thought in this in this time that it was important for us just to bring a a set of voice you know a new set of voices that can get our guys um going again and you know our group is changing a little bit. We got some younger players coming. We got some veteran players um that I thought bringing bringing a different way of of doing things can can get us back and and and and you know getting our offense back and and scoring a ton of runs. Is this something that you saw possibly needing to change during the season or was it sometimes when changes need to be had, it kind of happened a year or two before and you’re like, “Hey, you know what? We we kind of we we stayed the course, we still had success.” Or was it something that kind of changed this year when you lose a guy like your Don Alvarez, when you trade a guy like Tucker? Yeah, you know, K, it’s a good question and and I think, you know, uh if we would have had those guys healthy the whole entire year, uh I think the outcome of our season would have been would have been different. Um you know, for for me as a manager and I’m in this position where I got to evaluate our staff. Um you know, we as an organization, we evaluate in the direction that we want to go. Um the the the the next wave for players that are coming, right? um do we have the right uh the right people in place to help us into the future? Um so this is something that you know we we’ve been dis we discussed for for a while and and we end up you know this decision was not easy to make. Let me ask you this. When I think of the Houston Astros, Joe, I think it is synonymous with postseason play and this season was the first time since 2016 you guys haven’t been in it. I I don’t I can’t I mean I don’t even remember 2016. It feels like that long ago since you guys were not in the postseason. What was that like? Because you were still in it at the end. What was that like for you as a manager? Because you take it folks take it for granted that you’re just always going to be there, right? And and it was very difficult. Trust me, it was not easy sitting at at at the house. Um you know, watching postseason from the couch. Um uh you know, our our players um obviously it’s something that we’re not used to. uh this is going to create um you know it’s going to put a chip on our shoulders. We we want to get back. We know that we are a postseason team and uh but it it was not fun at all. Um we knew we know exactly the things that we need to get on starting to getting healthy, trying to keep our our players on the field. Um you know, building building a a a team that could sustain 162 hopefully 180 180 games. Uh so that’s our focus, but it was not easy. Um, you know, I’ve been here now. This is my eighth season and all we’ve known is postseason baseball and and our fans deserves that. Our organization deserves that. And most importantly, our players deserve that. Okay. I got to First of all, I I’ve done the Houston Astros my entire postseason career. So, this is the first year where normally my plane just takes off and just goes whatever plane I’m on, it just goes to Houston, right? But this year, I was even this year I was going to Seattle and they were like, “We might have to make a landing to drop somebody off in Houston.” I was like, “Wait, what? I’m not going to Houston.” So, I I don’t know if it was my fault, Joe, or what, but I apologize that you guys didn’t make the playoffs because I’ve stayed enough at that Four Seasons right there that I I have frequent flyer. I don’t know if you have Although, Four Seasons doesn’t really do that. So, that’s that’s not your problem. So, I apologize that my plane tried to make an emergency landing so that you guys didn’t make it. I apologize. But what I want to know is your actually I won’t hold that I won’t hold that against you. You know, we there’s a lot of things that happen throughout the season and we we we learn from those things and trust me uh our focus right now is trying to make those things better. Um getting our players ready to play. I can’t wait to get to spring training. Dude, you’re one of the most positive people I’ve ever been around in my life. Okay. But you brought something up just a second ago and I got to ask you. You said we’re focused on getting players. All right. So give us the inside scoop. Dana Brown’s not going to tell us. So Joe Spot is Verlander coming back. Are you guys bringing Kyle Tucker back? Are you guys going and getting Bo Bashette to play? I don’t know where, but he’ll play somewhere, right? Who are you guys going to get? Tell us now. You know what I I’m want to keep those uh I want to keep those names to to to myself, but one thing I do tell you is that we are always Dana and the front office. Uh we’re always looking for ways to improve our our club. Um uh you know we have a very uh a strong core of players that uh uh that we are very excited about. We got some younger players that we are going to give opportunities for them to develop at the major league level and they’re going to help us win games. Uh but we are looking for ways to improve our club either position player-wise and we you know right now our main focus is on the pitching side of things. Um obviously we we we you know there’s someone like Fran Fran Valdez who’s going to be a free agent. um we continue to to speak to his camp about ways to um to bring to you know to bring him back if that’s a possibility, but we’re looking for ways to improve our club. Uh we have a team that uh is ready to compete next season and we we still feel like the uh that we’re in a position to win the West. So, we’re going to look for every avenue that we can to improve our club. All right. Improving the club. When you talk about young guys, obviously the first name that comes to my mind is a guy you talked about in spring training, Cam Smith, Cam Smith, what does he need to I’m not going to say work on, but when you look at his numbers, you would say, okay, it’s a tale of like three seasons. A slow start, hot middle, slow finish. What on the field do you need to see from him to be that star? I think your exact quote was, “He can be a star one day. It’s up to him or, you know, once he learns. I forget exactly what you said, but what do you need to see from him on the field? Obviously, his work, his everybody’s talked about his makeup, everything is off the charts. On the field, though, you know what? For me, Cy, you guys play in the big leagues for a long time. You and AJ, and and as a manager, you need to have two things when it comes to young players. For me is you need to have give them time and you need to be patient. Um, we cannot rush those two things, right? I I think if we put Cam in a position for him to succeed and give him time, he has the work ethic, he has the ability to do it, but we need to give this process some time. This is just going to be his sophomore year uh in the big leagues and I think his freshman year was a solid season. I I you know, is he is it more in there? Absolutely. But, you know, he barely played minor league baseball. Um he came into camp, he won a spot. We believe in him. We believe in his ability to uh be a right fielder for uh for the future. Um but we just need to let you know allow him to learn the league. Um he came out on the bat really well and the league what happens the league’s going to adjust to you. Um and he just needs to figure out a way to adjust to the league and what they’re trying to do on the offensive side. And we, you know, he is going to be able to do that. My job is to continue to provide an environment where he could be himself. He could continue to develop to the players that we know he can’t be and and just be patient. Uh this kid’s going to be a star and I’m I’m just super excited about the future. What what holds up for you. Holiday shopping season is here and we have you covered from head to toe. Let’s take talk about an area that’s not quite close to the toes. Let’s get crazy with this holiday season. Yeah, that’s MeUndies I’m spinning around. 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And and and again, it’s about, you know, being patient and allow him to do that. And I think this offseason is very important for him to take um to grab right field and run and run with it. I I think there’s opportunity, you know, we want to create opportunities for players like Zack Cole and Jacob Melton. They’re dynamic players. They bring speed and they and they bring some power from the left side. Something that we need in our offense uh to be a little bit more dynamic to, you know, be able to take our game to the next level on the base path. Uh be that athletic team that we’ve been in the past and we have the pieces to do that. Another name that come to mind is somebody like Bryce Matthews who came in and pretty much won us a series in in in Arizona. you know, having creating more opportunity for these players to develop, help us win games, and at the same time, those players will help me uh give our veteran players some some time to rest and recover in in a long in a very long season. All right. On this show, we’ve talked about it and it’s a discussion I even had when I was playing. My opinion, there’s usually eight to 10 aces, true aces in the game of baseball. Depends. It fluctuates every year. Is Hunter Brown an ace? And if not, absolutely. an ace in the game. Yes, I I I believe so. You know, and and not I’m going to take away the performance like you you do need to perform, right? I think performance goes with that description that you just that you just said, right? You have to perform, but there’s also an element that a bring to a team is which is every day he steps on the baseball field, the dynamic, the environment in the clubhouse just changes. You know, we all feel like we going to win that game, right? You go through stretches of games where you’re not playing well. You can’t wait for that ace to get on the mound so it could change the course of the series or the week, right? That’s the description of an ace. That’s number one. Number two, you know, he brings he bring this element of of like humility, arrogance to him where it’s contagious to everyone, right? He’s got an edge to him. JV had that edge. Garrick Cole has that ed that has that edge, that level of confidence where he knows that today we have to win this game today. I’m going to give, you know, our club six, seven innings because our bullpen needs it, our team needs it. And Hunter Brown has developed into that ace mentality. and from you know moving on on now he’s got to continue that consistency in his preparation and discipline is what is going to you know m you know keep him in that level where when we talk about the age the schools of the world that’s this those guys are on a different level because of how consistent they are not only on the performance but in their preparation. All right, I got to ask about a guy who was your number one for a few years. Got into a sticky situation, the Framber crossup, no crossup on the show as catchers. I had some heated words about it. How did you handle that as a manager? How did you handle that when you saw it? Did you have the same feeling when you went back and saw it on video? You know, Chie, I you know, as the manager of the team, I I want to hear from both sides, right? I I know the the type of competitor that Fran Valde is. I know him for for for a very long time. Uh this guy cares about winning. Um he’s he’s a competitor when he’s on the mount. So instead of me uh reaching conclusions without talking to both Sally and Valdez, that’s the way I diffused the situation. Obviously Salazar was not happy about it and and and I brought both guys in my office and I wanted to hear from both sides. I wanted to, you know, what happened? Was it a crossup? And both guys said, Joe, yes, there was a miscommunication and, you know, he threw the he threw the wrong pitch. I wanted to hear from both. I wanted to the, you know, bring the the fire down because I know how heated the whole entire situation was. Also, we’re playing the Yankees at the time, right? So, when I come in my office uh after the game, it was a tough loss. You know, I knew what social media was saying, right? I, you know, I sat down with my PR department and I knew I was going to be asked about this. So before I spoke to the media and I spoke um to to the rest of some of my players, I wanted to hear from both of them and that’s that’s what it went down. Um I I think both players handled it well. Um, listen, we we are a family and and during a season, uh, stuff is going to happen and there’s fights between brothers and and and and this is this is what happens when you want to win so bad. Um, but we were able to turn the corner right around. The next day we came back and we beat, you know, we beat the Yankees and and we continue to move on and and you know, because we know how important it is to have everyone uh working together. So, uh, you know, this the whole entire scene did not look great. Um, and I understand, um, but but I think once I spoke with both players and both players got on the same page and we were able to move on. Joe, along those same lines, you know, Frober better than anybody, we’re not in the dugout. We’re not in the clubhouse. Outside of the Houston Astros organization, there’s a bit of a reputation that he’s not a great teammate. is I don’t believe that you think that’s the case, but I would rather hear it from you. What is he like as a teammate? I mean, he’s a free agent. So, what can people expect from Valdez if he’s part of their organization? I’ll tell you what, if if I’m a manager of the team, I want him on my team. I’m going to start with that. Um, when he’s when he is on the mound, he’s going to give you he’s going to post, he’s going to give you everything he’s got. Uh, right. You know, for me is what the definition of his great teammate is where people just have different definition. They see her differently than everyone. Um, you know, Fran is well respected in our clubhouse. Um, he’s got a ton of friends. He’s his work ethic is impeccable. He’s he’s strong as a bull. He poses every day. He wants the ball. Um, he’s someone who I want to go on a battlefield with. Um, so I understand the reputation because of one event, one thing that happened and people might reach conclusion to that, but I’ve been around him for six, seven years. And if I want to go into a dog fight, I want this guy to be right there next to
Houston Astros manager Joe Espada joins AJ Pierzynski, Erik Kratz, and Alanna Rizzo for a deep offseason conversation about the Houston Astros. Joe gives an important update on Jose Altuve after foot surgery and explains why he revamped his coaching staff. The crew dives into how the Astros plan to get back to the postseason, the development of young outfielder Cam Smith, and why Hunter Brown is emerging as a true ace. Joe also breaks down the Framber Valdez and César Salazar crossup, how he handled the situation internally, and why he believes Valdez remains a strong teammate. Plus insight into offseason priorities, staff changes, and what Houston needs to reclaim the AL West in 2026.
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