How Astros seek MAJOR impact from gains on the margins!

How Astros seek MAJOR impact from gains on the margins!

Hey, welcome into Stone Cold Shows. I’m Brandon Strange with Charlie Polo and Josh Jordan. You can follow them on X at Palo and Josh Jordan SCS. On today’s episode, if you listen closely, that sound you hear is either rainfall in Houston or crickets waiting for Dana Brown to make a move we can be excited about. If you’re a fan of dead horses, there’s another reason to revisit one of Houston’s most divisive trades of 2025. And it’s another off season of Breggy Watch, except no one in Houston is part of the search. We’ll discuss all that and more. Before that, show your support for the channel by hitting like on the video. If you are one of the 40% of the viewers that haven’t subscribed yet, we invite you to remedy that right now. Click the bell for notifications. Be sure to put your thoughts in the comments. We do our best to read most of them. Thanks to everyone who does. We’re also on all your favorite podcast apps where you can listen. And if you’re a Houston Texans fan, be sure to catch our other podcast, Texas on Tap on here, on YouTube, and other podcast platforms. Charlie Josh, welcome. And so the only real news this week is the Astros selecting Rodri Munes in the rule five draft who’s appeared in 27 big league games 17 of which were starts and per conditions of the rule five. Munes has to stay on the Astros 26man roster all season or be offered back to the Reds. His minor league erra was 476. Uh major league is 673. So not exciting. So Dana Brown’s only moves this off seasonason so far has just been collecting unexciting starting pitching. No offense to those guys, but Brown has been candid and saying that the heavy lifting and talent acquisition this off season will happen via trade. Fingers crossed. The word from around the league is that Houston’s looking for a young controllable pitching. Charlie, do do you think that rules out Houston from landing a bigname starter to replace? Is that a big deal? Or is it more important to have a better rotation on the aggregate than recreate a two-handed monster at the front? >> I think you win with superior talent at the top. And uh barring a Thunderbolt and you wonder how can Dana Brown put together an offer to get a proven quality major league starter front of the rotation type guy. They’re worse. They’re going to be worse without Frankber Valdez in their rotation. in a bad fram year. He had a 366 earned run average, top 15 in the AL among qualifying starters, and that covered 190 innings. If you go with a hodge podge and they’ve been chucking a bunch of darts with Ryan Weiss and Nate Pearson, same thing in the bullpen, bringing back Enel de los Santos and and now the Rodery Munoz Flyer. Uh what’s not to get giddy about? a guy who is 93 and two/3s big league innings has given up 30 home runs with that 6.73 erra Joe Espatada at this point has to be thinking they’re going to ask me to do more with less as I go into my final contract season. I I would just say that if you’re a frustrated Astros fan, I totally get it. I don’t object to it. But the Yankees have done nothing to improve themselves at this point. Uh the Red Sox and on the margins type move. Oh wait, no. They added a Sunny Gray who could have been a guy who’ become the Astros number two starter uh immediately, but they didn’t have the wherewithal, I guess, to to counter that or the interest in paying Sunonny Gay $21 million for one year. Uh the Mariners off season is probably about a net equal at this point. Uh, of course, the Red Sox, the Yankees, the Mariners all made the playoffs. The Astros didn’t. So, there’s some thought that while they weren’t leaps and bounds behind the Red Sox, the Yankees, and the Mariners, they were behind them all, and they’re the one losing the best starting pitcher in the lot. So, you know, if you believe if you’re not getting better, you’re getting worse. To this point, to this point in the offseason, the Astros have gotten worse. I don’t see how you can argue the contrary. Yeah, they’re really testing how much they can get out of their strength, which is developing pitchers. We saw it all last year and they’re really going to see what they can pull off here. We Nate Pearson being stretched out, AJ Blue Ball, Ryan Weiss really makes me really want Blue Ball to take that next step. He’s somebody I at least got my eyes on and I was like, man, this guy has some stuff. He He looks good. I know in the minors he wasn’t as good and as he was when he came up to the big leagues and that happens sometimes. Sometimes you get a taste of the big leagues and you go back to the minors and you don’t pitch as well. He was on Astro line last week talking about that and and how it affected him. So hopefully this year he pitches well and they need everything they could get from him. Um, as far as Munoz, I was taking a look at his numbers and we heard from the Astros that when they acquired guys like Kikuchi, and I get it, his pedigree is higher, but when they acquire pitchers in general, they wonder if their pitch usage is something they can tinker with and get some better results. And when I looked at Munoz, it kind of surprised me. He throws a slider more than any other pitch at 31% at least over last year. After that, it’s his cutter at 29%. He really only throws his four seam fast about 16% of the time, but his four seamer and his sinker, they both sit right at about 96 miles an hour. So he throws hard, but he’s a guy that he throws more sliders and cutters than he does with his fast ball. Barely throws a change up at all. So I wonder if they see something where maybe he’s just spinning it too much or who knows with the Astros, maybe he’s not spinning it enough if if the fast ball is not as successful. But that was just something that jumped out at me is maybe they tinker with that and get some better results. >> They’re just hoping to get lucky. The guy turns 26 in April. 93 innings over a couple of major league seasons along with the incredible number of home runs allowed 30 one every three innings. He’s walked 51 guys in those 93 innings. So he just has not looked anything remotely looking the part as a major leager. But if he throws hard and uh as you guys often put it, the the Astros car wash their their voodoo that they do with pitching. Uh but there only so many guys you can carry in the bullpen anyway. If we presume hater is all right. You have hater, you have a brau, you have Brian King, and then you have Okert and Susa Deos Santos. You have to carry Munoz or you have to offer him back at half the price you paid to get him. That already gets you to seven guys in the bullpen without mentioning Caleb Wort, Jaden Murray, who had a few outings at the the end of the season, the Blue Ball Pearson type. They’re not going to have seven guys in their starting rotation. So, it’s going to be a try out camp uh in West Palm Beach. And I guess the better guys will will make the club, but this is not an acquisition that anyone should be excited about. if it turns into something, hey, great Astros success story. Um, but this is trying to work on the margins because you’re just not in the deep end of the pool. Uh, Mel Kelly was one of the guys that we talked about heading to a free agency that, uh, wound up going back to Arizona for two years, $40 million. Significant money, but a lot less than will get on an annual average value basis. only a two-year commitment for a guy who’s 37, but has been a steady steady quality major league starting pitcher, better than anyone the Astros have other than Hunter Brown. I presume the Astros were not at all in the game on Mel Kelly for anything approaching two years 40 mil. So just with their payroll structure, I mean, you look at middling guys getting 7 10 12 million per year, you really wonder what is left for the Astros to do if it’s not a trade. Well, with Houston looking for young controllable talent, they’re not going to get anything exciting because they don’t have the means for trading of this isn’t like highle prospects they’re looking for or like highle ready to pitch in the major league pitchers that they’re they’re going to be able to get. They just can’t afford it. So, well, not without crippling the team in some other facet. So, yeah, they’re going to have to shove on the Astros car wash because whoever they can afford is going to be a project guy like the guys they’re bringing in right now. Um, the plan seems to be just catching lightning, hoping to catch lightning in a bottle and hope to be healthy. And it’s a bold choice. You know, Jim Crane famously or infamously said that the window will always be open while he’s the owner. But given the state of the team salary constraints, whether it’s self-imposed or not, the peacemail roster, all the signs that Houston has no interest in being north of the CBT, you guys think anyone in that front office really believes with the benefit of the truth serum that this team can win a championship or is this more just about being satisfied with the playoff birth while they just continue to figure it out with the salary and the farm challenges? I think where they are now, they’re kidding themselves if they believe they have a championship caliber ball club. Other than if you get into the tournament and you run into those hot three weeks where a couple of guys play over their head and in short series, anybody can can beat anybody else. Now, for the regular season, of course, what matters is where you are at the end of 162 games. At the same time, let’s remember, not only did the Mariners slingshot past and ultimately put away the Astros to win the American League West, but from the All-Star break to the end of last season, the Athletics had a better record than the Astros. The Texas Rangers had a be better record than the Astros. Only the Wigggon Angels were worse than the Astros were over a sizable chunk of the season. You know, not quite half the season with the All-Star break coming closer to 100 games played than to 81 games played. They had the one brilliant stretch where they went 29 and 10. The rest of the year the Astros were losing ball club. So the work overund what 23 games I think is a better indicator than over a 39 game stretch where you sizzled within about a quarter of the schedule the year prior. And then you add in the loss of still waiting on backup catcher. They’re gonna wind up with a Jonah Heim type to to complement Yiner Diaz. Keratini’s out there. Still a possibility, though. You’d think he’d be seeking and getting more playing time and maybe more money than the Astros want to commit to the position. But let me circle back to it’s still pretty early in the offseason even though we’ve gone through the winter meetings, right? And most of the big free agents still haven’t signed. Not that the Astros are in the hunt on any of them, but there is time to get work done. It just I think grows the the sense of urgency or angst among the fan base and others just paying attention to the Astros that they need to get something done. Inertia’s not good enough for ball club that won 87 games, missed the playoffs for the first time in nine years and has lost its second or presumably is lost at sec not presumably Dana Brown said I haven’t even talked to Frober. So they’re losing their second best starting pitcher. And we see this a lot free agency that the big dominoes the big dominoes they fall first and then after that that the guys more on the margins as teams kind of know what they have and they don’t have those smaller deals start to happen. So I think that’s kind of where the Astros are right now. And to Charlie’s point about last year, there was a good chunk of the season when that their pitching was elite and that’s when they were performing really well and and and we know the pitching situation is it’s just completely different heading into this year. It doesn’t mean it’ll be bad or good. We just it’s kind of an unknown right now. Of course, signs are saying like, oh man, that they’re really rolling the dice, but it is the Astros. They’re really good with these types of things. We saw him last year get a lot out of guys like Jason Alexander and they’ve done this before. So, I’m going to hold my judgment until we see exactly what they do. But the thought that they’re going to have an elite pitching staff for a good chunk of this season just doesn’t seem super likely to me. >> Yeah. Going back to what I said earlier, if your entire philosophy for this season is rolling out four different versions of Jason Alexander, that’s a that’s a bold choice for the season. Now, Charlie, you brought up division rivals. We have some division news. Adoulles Garcia lands in Philly, so he can no longer haunt the dreams of Astros fans in uh in the division. Uh Jorge Palano departs the Mariners for the Mets. Uh, speaking of the Mariners, Seattle and San Francisco have emerged as front runners for Brennan Donovan. So, with the M’s retaining Naylor and potentially adding Donovan, sure would be cool if Houston did something. Now, I saw this on X today. Um, Fang Graphs projects Cam Smith’s 2026 stats. games played 86, nine home runs, 38 RBI, 242 average, 39 393 slug, and a 0.7 war. Now, we said when the Tucker trade happened that trades get judged over time that the the immediate response is just that it’s it’s not worth much. But now with more perspective, more hindsight to to kind of process as far as contextual information here, you got Wesneski missing a large chunk of last season. He’ll miss a large chunk of 2026 as he’s rehabbing and Cam Smith’s production being projected what it is right now. How are we feeling now about the aftermath of the Tucker trade? >> The Cubs won it in the short term. They made the playoffs. The Astros didn’t. Uh Kyle Tucker had a better year than Paradus, Smith, Wesneski combined if you want to measure it by war. Even with Tucker having the stretch where he fell off a cliff and actually got benched for a three-game series in the middle of a of playoff race. But you add it all up, Kyle Tucker was still an over four- win player. Uh but the long game can still go very favorably for the Astros cuz the Cubs are not resigning Kyle Tucker now. they repurpose the money they maybe had been thinking they’d invest in him remains to be seen. I think ultimately it’s still defined by what Cam Smith becomes or doesn’t become West Neski’s more wish and hope than expectation and is Paradis a short-timer around here. If he’s not uh and is going to be with the Astros for another couple of years, the Astros payoff on that trade can still be very good. But for 2025, the Cubs won the trade. >> Yeah, I think Pettis is a big factor in this. If especially if he’s uses a trade chip that gets you something really good, then we might look at this very differently and or if he just comes back and plays well. But yeah, with Wes Neski, that’s a shame because if it feels like that was an injury that Astros could have avoided with him that I feel like they pushed it a little bit and sometimes you roll the dice like that, it doesn’t pay off in your favor. But if we’re being honest, did we really expect Cam Smith when they made the trade for him to play in the major leagues last year? I mean, I think we were all shocked that he hit as well as he did in spring training and he made the club and he played as well as he did in right field, never having done that before. So, there are some positives there, but there are some concerns because Sanchez is still on the roster. He plays the corner outfields. I know he had such a poor showing after the All-Star break that it might be tough to move him right now, but it’s also an insurance policy if Cam Smith doesn’t work out. >> If Cam Smith doesn’t become all that in 2026, it still doesn’t close the book on it. I mean, he only turns 23 years old uh in spring training, right? His year kind of went the opposite of what you thought it might. He started well, so much for acclimatizing himself to a new club and in the major leagues playing a new position and then he was just an absolute disaster and didn’t belong in the major leagues uh the last 3 months, right? The thought was, well, maybe he goes and tears it up double AAA and and forces his way to the big leagues the the second half of the season. Um those projection numbers and and hey, they’re data based and and and so forth. But look, if they’re right, it means that Cam Smith is strictly a platoon player or spent a chunk of 2026 in the minor leagues. But if he’s only going to play in 86 games and hit 240 something with a war of 0.7, that’ll mean a very poor 2026 for Cam Smith. Unlocking his power, I think, is is where it starts, cuz I just think once it went bad, it went bad and and worse and just became a a vortex of misery for Cam Smith. But he did show earlier in the season he has concept of the strike zone and can take some pitches which gives you the thought that he can be a pretty good on base guy if he hits decently for average but the power was never there. He had the two home run game and then he had another stretch where he hit I think homers in back-to-back games. The rest of the year almost nothing like five home runs in 125 games. I mean he went two months between home runs. He’s going to have to learn how to hit the ball in the air more often if he’s to become a major league power hitter. >> Consistency was his issue, right? There there were parts in the season where he was your cleanup hitter. And I know that speaks to how bad the Astros lineup was at certain points of last season as well, but there were little spots in the year where you felt better with him up to the plate with guys on base than pretty much anybody else. It’s just he also had some really poor, you know, uh, segments of the season where it wasn’t good. But that’s something that you expect from a rookie, right? Is it’s that consistency. He showed you the high upside. You one of the guys like, yeah, this guy can produce some runs, but he also showed you some of the rookie stuff where, you know, he he was making mistakes, swinging at pitches he shouldn’t have. And Charlie’s right. For as big a dude as he is, you’d like to see him get the ball in the air. And especially with the Crawford boxes, a lot of his power seemed to not be to the pool side. A lot of stuff he hit was to the right side, which is good in theory, but you’d like to see him, you know, go ahead and be able to use those Crawford boxes and and use that power. We know it’s there. He’s just got to find it. He hit 149 his last 55 games of the season and struck out at a worse rate than Christian Walker. Youth on his side is the the lynch pin. And as context, the first 3 weeks or so of last season, a guy named Christian Campbell with the Red Sox was tearing it up, hitting about 350. One of the Red Sox elite prospects, the best one until they promoted Roman Anthony. Roman Anthony turned out to be the goods before he was injured. Campbell, three hot weeks. The Red Sox signed him to an eight-year $60 million extension. A month later, he’s in the minors for the rest of the year. So, uh, some guys can be, uh, pistol hot early and whatever happened to that guy? Uh, sometimes the stew needs to get a chance to to reimmer, but if Cam Smith puts up the numbers that I forget who you said, Brand, baseball perspectus or whoever it was, >> 2026 will be a very poor year for him. And it means someone else in the Astros outfield better be making a big leap forward to make up for that. >> Which is why a guy like Cam would benefit. You talk about you cooking the stew, that stew is better cooked in the minors when you can work on mechanics against AAA pitching versus facing big league pitching because it’s just a completely different league. And he would be in the minors on most good teams, but this team went from a glut in the outfield to now a deficit, especially if they’re looking to trade away Jake Myers. Now, moving on to some other news. former another former Astro Jose Ariti lands a deal with Arizona. And speaking of Arizona, uh, and former Astros for that matter, the Dbacks have become a surprise entrant in the Alex Bregman sweep stakes per Bob Nightingale. Now, that’s an interesting use of sweep stakes considering winning a sweep stakes usually involves being the recipient of a windfall of money and not being on the hook for it. But, uh, we know Bregman has a place in Scottsdale, so that could be a good fit for him if Arizona were to come correct with the money. And all indications is that’s really what he’s looking for is that last big long-term deal. Reportedly, the Cubs have some interest. So, that’d be funny if they uh swap out one former Astro for another one. But um what I find fascinating about some of the reports coming out of Boston and uh and Bregman is uh WEI’s Rob uh Bradford says that there was a split in the front office last year between those that wanted Bregman and those that were fine with uh going after Nolan Aronado. Um, and that while plan A for them still is Bregman, one prominent agent told Shawn McAdam of Mass Live that Boston doesn’t believe in long-term deals. Sounds familiar. Um, so while we’re talking about Bregman, do you think Bregman kind of given the state of where everything’s at right now? Um, I mean obviously one thing that’s I don’t know if whether it’s going against him or for him is a possible work stoppage coming in a in a in season after next, but do you think Breggy bites the bullet and just sacrifices some wins for that final paycheck? >> Well, I don’t think any bad teams would have interest in in Alex Bregman. Uh, Arizona’s kind of in that middle ground, right? They have the behemoth Dodgers in their division. the San Diego and a little bit of of payroll flux. The Giants are eh. Uh but Arizona wasn’t terribly out of the wildard mix last season. Uh great hitting environment. You know, if you’re Bregman and thinking, “Hey, let me go where my power will play and I can put up stats. Uh maybe next to Colorado, the best hitters park uh in the National League.” I I just don’t think he’s worth six years $200 million. Uh he had a spectacular first half of the season with the Red Sox. And while he’d been healthy for a couple years prior, Bregman has some history with leg injuries and he pops a quad. He misses six weeks. And oh, by the way, he sucked the last month of the season for the Red Sox after that. Uh the Red Sox may be loathed to long-term contracts for free agents at the oh my god dollars, but I mentioned Christian Campbell. They took a flyer on him. They signed Roman Anthony. eight years like $120 million after he was in the major leagues for for a month or six weeks or whatever it was. Uh but for guys in their 30s, I think the indicators are pretty strong that you go six years plus, you’re not going to get return on investment, uh unless you’re thinking a couple years on the back end or sunk cost. George Springer is looking like an outlier. The third and fourth years of his contract with the Blue Jays, he was poor. Year four, he frankly looked washed up and then he rebounds and has a tremendous uh 2025 for the Blue Jays at age 35. Helps them to the World Series. Um I would not bet on Alex Bregman having that kind of season at at 35 years old. I just that’s why you hire Scott Boris. I think Bregman’s got a team or two in mind where he’d like to end up. And then that’s why you have Boris to drum up interest and create bidding wars and try and get you to where you want to go. I I think he wanted to be with the Red Sox from Jump Street. We we we knew that he liked the Red Sox from years back. In that ballpark, it was perfect for him. So, I think that was kind of always the plan. It’s just try and create some interest from other teams to get, you know, the Red Sox to meet my number. This year, I don’t know. It depends. Maybe it’s not the Red Sox he has his eye on this year, but he’s got Boris to help him get wherever he wants to go. We’ll see if it works. Boris doesn’t always pull it off, but he’s pretty darn good at his job. He gets it done more often than not. >> I think the settle for Bregman, if Detroit is in the game this off season, as it was a year ago, that could be the settle where he’d still be getting a big pile of money. And while the Tigers have made the playoffs the last two years, you go look at the attendance figures. It’s not an awesome baseball market. I know Bregman’s a family man now with a a couple of kids, but he’s still a baseball gym rat, and I think he gets off on and thrives and and relishes being in a real hot uh baseball city, which Houston became here while he was here with all the success. Boston obviously qualifies. If the Cubs truly uh pivot and decide they’d spend, I think that’s a place that qualifies. Detroit’s just I mean I’m not going to say it’s the it’s the the lounge as opposed to the main stage. It’s a major market and it’s not like they draw like the Marlins or the Rays. Uh I would just think he’d consider that a much less desirable place than a more glitzy market in franchise that you know is going to always be equipped to spend big year after year after year. If the Tigers drop 32 million a year on Alex Bregman for five, six years, wither TK Scoopel is probably going to be 40 million a year or they lose him. What’s Bregman’s playing situation even though he has all his money there? >> Yeah, I think he’ll wait. I think he’ll I do think he’ll get the length of contract he’s looking for. I don’t think it’ll be blow you away AAV per se. I would be surprised if it’s a good team. I would be surprised if it’s not some sort of deferral money, some some sort of backloaded contract to make it work. Uh cuz that deferred money is all the rage now. So, uh I wouldn’t be surprised in the right circumstance if that’s a scenario that we see with Bregman. >> It’s I think a good point. And even in Bregman’s case last season, you know, Scott Boris loves to set records and standards. And look what I did. Bregman’s 40 million per year with the Red Sox was really 31 a.5 million per year which is not to be scoffed at obviously uh but that the three years 120 million included a chunk of deferrals so for calculation purposes players association what counts against the the CBT Bregman was a 31.5 million per year player if he gets that for six years going forward he should be all over it again I don’t think he’ll be worth nearly nearly that amount the back half of contract and you can argue he wasn’t worth it in the end. 40 million, 31 a.5 million if you miss a third of the season no matter how good you were for most of the time that he played last year. >> Yeah. And just quickly, we know Pete Alonzo was looking for a long-term deal. He wasn’t able to get it last year. This year, who’s his agent? Scott Boris able, you know, to get that long-term contract. So maybe this will be the year for Bregman as well. >> Indeed. I think we’ll leave it there. One last reminder, if you’re watching on YouTube, be sure to click like on the video. And if you listen on podcast on apps like Apple or Spotify, give us a fivestar rating while you’re here. Reminder for Texans fans, be sure to subscribe to our other podcast, Texans on Tap. For Charlie and Josh, I’m Brandon saying so long. Thanks for listening. Have a great week. And as always, go

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