MLB Insiders add SPICY twists to Astros offseason!

Welcome into Stone Cold Stros. I’m Brandon Strange with Charlie Polo and Josh Jordan. Go follow them on XPLO and Josh Jordan SCS. On today’s episode, another one bites the dust as Houston’s coaching staff continues to get a makeover. Free agency sounds expensive. Is the window still open for Houston? And more importantly, will the pocketbook be? We’ll bounce that around some names and some projected contracts courtesy of The Athletic. And what has the NBA scandal taught us about sports leagues? Specifically, how that applies to MLB and the Astros. I’ll put that question to the guys. Before all that, hit like on the video, subscribe to the channel, click the bell for notifications. We’re also on all your favorite podcast apps where you can listen to the episodes. Just search Stone Cold Stros. I’ve also seen your comments about how the notifications are a little wonky. Sometimes you’re not getting them, sometimes you’re getting them late. Hey, me too. I’m getting the same experience. Uh that is a YouTube thing, not an US thing. So uh all all we can do is ask that you click on the bell for notifications and hope those babies make it through. Uh Charlie Josh, welcome in. Um let’s start with the newsy stuff. Astros pitching coach Bill Murphy departs the team to take a job in Pittsburgh of all places. Uh this is another name added to the list of the professionally departed for Houston. Uh, I don’t think anyone’s losing sleep over the hitting coaches and the medical staff being turned over, but uh, the pitching side of things was one of Houston’s bright spots. Um, do you think, you know, looking at this from the big picture, is the Astros organization at risk of possible brain drain with all of this loss? I think where the brain drain issue has been for multiple years now has been in the front office post Jeff Luno and then James Click and the Astros turning over all kinds of scouting positions and the Crane Bagwell Reggie Jackson off season a couple of years ago. You can’t man men in black erased that from the memory much as one might try. Uh, in terms of the coaching staff, hey, I I think a majority of engaged Astros fans get rid of the hitting coaches. I mean, congrats to Troy Snitker who gets the assistant hitting coach with the New York Mets. In the case of Bill Murphy leaving, I don’t think anyone should extrapolate that to, oh, he’s jumping for a lifeboat from the Titanic, the Astros sinking ship. I mean, the lifeboat is the Pittsburgh Pirates. Now granted, he will get to pitching coach uh the one guy in baseball he’d absolutely trade Hunter Brown for as a starting pitcher in a heartbeat. Bill Murphy can’t help but look smart coaching Paul skins. Pirates also have a couple real good young pitchers. But more important is that rather than sitting in the sidecar, he’s at the wheel now, right? Josh Miller was the lead pitching coach and is with the Astros. Bill Murphy was the assistant. Now, Bill Murphy, even though it’s the Pirates, I presume he gets a little bit of a salary bump and he is the pitching coach. So, that’s not one that would have me wary or the Astros going to have anyone smart uh left on the coaching staff. I guess in the macro, it is a it is reflective of just the stage of uncertainty and turnover for the Astros on the coaching staff and the roster to come. Yeah. And the roster is the one I’m really excited to see if they try some things and experiment and just try and rebuild this thing from from top to top to bottom. Uh yeah, I’m with Charlie there too with with Miller. He’s still here. So you have your pitching coach and Dana Brown always talks about how he’s really confident in his pitching coaches and their system and how they develop guys. So I think all that for the most part stays in place. I guess it’s, you know, good news in some aspects that these guys are getting work with other teams across the league. So, there is some type of motivation and and resume where teams are interested in bringing these pieces in. So, but like I said when we started, for me, it’s what are they going to do with this roster that that’s where it needs to begin. Yeah. I I think as we talk about this, as we talk about the success of pitching and development for Houston, what you typically hear a lot is credit being given uh to the advanced scouting department for the successes that they’ve been able uh to realize on the pitching side. Uh that that’s more of a an analysis thing than it is pitching coach. So maybe that’s cope on my part, but uh I think as as long as we don’t see any significant change there, uh they should be okay. Um Josh, you talked about you looking at the roster and that’s where your interest is. Well, that segus nicely into um our next conversation, which is, you know, while most of MLB content is about covering the World Series. Former MLB exec and current athletic contributor Jim Bowden put out his column ranking his top free agents. Uh it’s obviously of interest to us because Frober, Bregman, and Tucker are some of the most highly coveted free agents out there. Um JV also makes that list as far as uh Houston centric uh you know, player watches go. Uh Bowen also identifies some free agents with whom Houston, he thinks Houston would be a good fit for. Um, beyond that, he gives some predictions at their comp, which Charlie, we were talking about this beforehand, is just kind of throwing darts on a board is trying to nail down these projections as far as contracts go. Um, but I think probably a good place to start is Frober. Um, since we’re operating under the assumption that Frober won’t be back because, uh, the market will be so rich for him. He has Frober landing a six-year $190 million deal, which is uh close to a $32 million AAV. I think that certainly prices out Houston, if not for the AAV, but I I think the years, but there’s also two other pictures that are kind of in that same ballpark of of age and comp. He has Ranger Suarez landing a six-year $164 million deal. Dylan CE grabbing a six-year $187 million deal. Um, so as as we’re looking at those three, I guess you know, we you can give your thoughts on how realistic you think some of those numbers are and then I guess if all things were equal, who would you rather have out out of that based on the numbers that we have to work with? First, Jim Bowden, I think it was 16 years he was a general manager, so he has connections still, though he’s been out of the game for a bunch of years now, but through connect contacts in a grapevine and so forth. He’s still guessing. Last off season, he had Christian Walker getting three years, $72 million. He got three years 60 here. He had Usay Kikuchi leading the Astros for three years, $42 million. He got three years, $63 million. He was off by more than a hundred million on Juan Sodto. Of course, so are many when Daddy Warbbucks with the Mets came in at 765 million. So Bone’s a fun read, but he’s basically chucking darts at the board like most of the rest of us can. uh 6190 on Framber does not strike me as absurd given his performance and his durability, but just taking the numbers collectively, if you’re an Astros fan, it’s pretty depressing because it’s like they’re eating at the kitty table on Thanksgiving, whereas the grown-ups will go bid on Frober Valdez and Ranger Suarez and Dylan Cece before we even get to the the offensive players. I do want to put in the caveat and I get it because the Astros missed the playoffs. They’ve been trending down now over a three-year period, but that Jim Crane as we enter the holiday season is Ebanir Scrooge and just miserly ba humbug. The Astros were seventh in MLB payroll in 2025. Just so happens they and the Mets were the only two franchises in the top eight to miss the playoffs. Well, that’s a performance issue. That’s not a cheapness issue. That was an asset allocation throwing away $50 million of 2025 funds on a Breu, Monttero, Presley, Walker, etc. 2024, they were fifth in payroll. So, they’re not being the Pirates or the Marlins or anything like that, but the Astros are carrying a fistful of big ticket contracts. Guys who are not worth it at this point. Altuve was not close to a $25 million player in 2025. Well, he has four more years coming at AAV, average annual value of$25 million. Carlos Koreah nowhere close to being worth $22 million off his 2025 production. Well, he counts 22 million for the Astros for each of the next three years. Walker is a 20. Josh her whenever we see him if he’s back and wonderful for 70 innings 19 million. Another year of Lance McCullers at 17 million. Yordon played 48 games for his$19 million in average annual value. So they’re so topheavy and bloated on the payroll. the idea that they have room to make a couple of splash acquisitions unless they’re able to dump money somewhere or Jim Crane says okay for a year or two let’s go crazy folks and we’ll compete at the if not Yankee and Met and Dodger levels ahead of basically everyone else in baseball because I presume all of us as we see 30 million per year plus for any of these pitchers it means the Astros are folding their hand before the anties have been put on the on the table. Yeah, that Jim Crane doesn’t like to go and go top of the market in free agency. We’ve only kind of seen that with Brayu and with Walker. It’s top of the first base market, but for a guy in his 30s, it’s only getting maybe a three-year deal. So, I don’t see him going gang busters here. I think he’s going to tell Dana Brown, go make some trades, go make some moves. Uh, you know, Bowden also talked about how Brewers Freddy Peralta could be available. Maybe that’s a guy the Astros go after. Once again, we get into that. Who’s going to want to trade for the Astros when you have a piece like that? You could go to another system and get better quality players, but he’s he’s been really good. 30 starts in three straight years, 359 career RA, had a 270 RA in 2025. A little bit of struggle with the long ball, but Astros need pitching. So, I wonder if if they go that route somewhere along the line. Uh I don’t know. We talked about it before the show. We keep hearing about Alonzo and the Astros have interest in him. Could be that something that they explore if they keep bringing up his name, but we saw the projections for him. He’s going to make a ton of money and you already paid a first baseman. Brandon joked, “You paid two first baseman last year a ton of money.” That just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. So, I’m really curious how they’re going to finagle this. I wonder if Dana Brown just has to get super creative and and find some, you know, some gems that other people aren’t talking about. Yeah. And to stick with, I guess, the the poker analogy, Daniel Brown’s playing the short stack, right? If you don’t have the money, self-imposed cap to go bid on bigger fish, are you dropping down to 37year-old Mel Kelly, who’s been solid, Michael King, who’s been excellent for a couple of years than in 2025. He lost a big chunk of the season to injury, right? Those guys Bowden projects in the three-year, $75 million range. Much shorter contract, much less total cash uh on the barrel head. On the trade front, the system’s a joke. Manire’s a lot of scuttlebutt that one season away from his free agency. The Tigers are open for business on Tar Scooble. Mhm. The Astros could offer their entire farm system for Tar Scooble. And the Tigers would go, “Yeah, thanks for trying.” The Seattle Mariners have eight of the top 90 prospects in the game according to MLB pipeline. The Astros have Bryce Matthews at number 93 as their lone entry in the top 100. So unless Dana Brown gets colleagues drunk at the general manager in winter meetings or has some hocus pocus voodoo spell to cast, where a major upgrade can come from beats the hell out of me and probably Dana Brown. Yeah, I think he’ll have to be real creative. I want to circle back to what you said about uh Jim Crane and how you can’t complain that he doesn’t spend when he’s in the top seven in payroll, but it’s just we talk about this all the time. It’s a results driven league. So, it’s really hard in in my opinion to give the organization credit for spending when then when they misspend, they paint themselves into the corner that then they can no longer spend because they’re self-imposing a cap on themselves to say, “Well, we’ve we’ve spent uh we’ve spent all we’re comfortable spending.” So, I think that’s really where I’m at odds in kind of judging this organization considering yes, they have spent a lot of money. Uh, but that has been largely misspent over the past several seasons. I wonder just real quickly, we don’t have to stay on this, but do you think in hindsight now we look back, was letting Kikuchi walk for a three-ear $63 million deal, was was that kind of a blunder on Houston’s part given the state of the pitching staff? Now, I won’t say blunder. Uh, I was a little surprised that Kikuchi got over 20 million per year and it took a terrible Angels organization overpaying for him to get that. But as a pitcher who was just excellent for his two months here. Now, it was two months, not two years, but he was excellent. He five, six years basically hasn’t missed a turn. So, rock solid, durable. If you could get Kikuchi right now for three years, $63 million, that would seem very fair value given what the Astros have on campus and seemingly don’t have to go spend in this off season. Sure. I mean, who wouldn’t want to have him right now considering you’re about to lose Braomber? You’d feel a lot better about it if you have Kikuchi on the roster. But I also look back that you know hindsight’s 2020 and the amount of injuries that they got to the pitching staff ju we even forget about Wes Neski like you were hoping he could give you some innings this year and the Aragetti just hurt and doesn’t pitch well. Luis Garcia I mean just what a terrible ending to what could be his career. So a lot of things went against them where and we did talk about it before the season. It would be nice to have a little more pitching, but I just I think it was just a title wave that nobody saw coming of the amount of injuries they got in that short period of time. And then at the same time, you got Frober just falling off at the end of the year and just down the stretch, he was just terrible. So, it was just a all these different things happening at one time. Pñena missing all that time with with the rib. It just wasn’t their year. Sometimes that happens and you just have to suck it up and be like, you know, maybe maybe it’ll be better next year. I remember the Yankees missed the playoffs not that long ago and they were right back in it the next year. So, you just got to hope that you get a a little more lucky with the injuries. The And how about maybe the guys play a little bit better? You know, I know that they’re getting older, but is it too much to ask that maybe some of your staple players elevate their game and and play a little better this season? On the pitchers, Brandon jumping back a week, Bowden pegs Vertlander at one year, 12 million. Yeah. Uh, you know what’s what’s interesting, Josh, is, you know, as we’re talking about the injuries, I kind of circle back to what Charlie has kind of pushed back on over the past several weeks, which is like, yes, there was a certainly a title wave of injuries that happened, but they never lost Brown or Frober throughout that. And I don’t know that anybody that they lost was as good as Kikuchi. But From was awful like down the stretch for like the last third of the season. He was healthy, but he was terrible. But his overall season, he was good. He was 13th in the American League in earned run average. And 1990 innings of good is better than anyone else they had other than than Hunter Brown. And look at the Dodgers about to try to win another World Series. Obviously, their own payroll stratosphere. Well, with the Mets. Uh, but Blake Snell made 11 starts uh all season. Glass now missed half the season. Otani made 14 starts, averaged three and a3 innings, right? Yamamoto was their only bellcow who was who was healthy all season. The Astros owned no monopoly on starting pitching injuries. And as we’ve discussed in in weeks past, guys that they lost, a number of them, not much there in terms of resume, right? Blanco had one very good season. Wesneski’s done nothing yet. Arrogetti had two nice months after the All-Star break, but wasn’t off to a good start this season. And if they don’t have those injuries, they don’t get the 20 taken as a group outstanding starts of work they got out of Jason Alexander and Brandon Walker before they went down. So, uh, if hope is the plan, they’ll kind of deserve to be disappointed. And indeed, um, we just have to touch on it because it’s in the article, but uh, he’s got Kyle Tucker at the top of his list projected to get, uh, 10 years, $427 million. Now, I don’t think that’s crazy. Do I wonder who do you guys think, you know, I mean, do you do you think that’s the neighborhood that we’re talking here? And and who do you think ends up picking up the bill on that? I I think that’s definitely the number because once that number for Sodto came out, that’s when Dana Brown went, man, if he got that much, Tucker should have no problem getting 400. I’m sure that went across their minds, Dana Brown and Jim Crane. So, I’m not surprised at all that it’s going to be right around there for Tucker. 10 years. We always heard he wanted a longer contract. So, that seems like a big commitment to me, but free agency is kind of crazy. The the numbers are big and it’s like that every year. It’s extremely stupid. Kyle Tucker is not worth $42 million two seasons in a row now. He’s missed time to injury and he was benched briefly with the Cubs for goodness sakes. Now, still had an excellent season in OPS plus of like 136. He’s an outstanding player. He’s not a franchise player year in year out. 10 years will take him to age 38 42 million per year. But all it takes is one of the multi-billion dollar conglomerate franchises. Um, the Mets are out presumably with Sodto uh playing right field. Don’t throw anything. The Dodgers could make sense. They have interest. They could move Tascar Hernandez to left field. They have Andy Pahz in center. Uh, they do have a young elite outfield prospect on the come, but probably still two years away. Um, the Yankees, if they don’t resign Cody Bellinger, that left-handed swing for He doesn’t strike me as a New York temperament type of guy, but for the right money, I bet you he could become one. So, uh, it’s going to be a financial superpower franchise that that signs him. And the Astros are much more have than have not, but they’re no financial superpower franchise. So, yeah, I think we can safely rule out the reunion on Tuck. Yeah. Uh, if the Dodgers ended up being the ones who signed Tucker to a deal and add them to their super team, I’ll I’ll walk to MLB headquarters myself with chain and lock in hand to lock the players out because that will be the ultimate sign that uh we need some change in this uh in this league as far as uh compensation goes. Um, so you like I I’m going to talk out of my both sides of my mouth on this show because on the one hand I say why are we still talking about the Astros and science stealing and the other hand on the other side of my mouth I’m going to talk about the Astros and sign stealing because um two reasons one is Springer still you know Springer’s in the news getting you know uh you know getting hurt and being cheered you know his injury cheered by some terrible fans. Uh I don’t think that’s indicative of all of them, but obviously there was an audible uh group of fans that were uh cheering on and waving by as he uh limped out of the game. Um the the flip side or the the other thing that’s that brings this up is because of all of the headlines that the NBA has grabbed over the last week with uh the revelations of the the gambling ring that the FBI has busted up which implicates uh Chanty Bilips, Terry Rosier, and other other guys. Um, one of the things that came out of that investigation and why this reminds me of MLB is because the NBA there there’s evidence the NBA had prior knowledge that some funny business was going on. They did their own investigation and then shockingly determined that there was nothing to it. Um it it reminds me of MLB because of the way that the sign stealing scandal was handled in that um the league seemed um really apt to just allow Houston to be the scapegoat because they were the more visible. They did the most egregious part of the sign stealing, which was to make audible signs or audible signals to players in real time, which there’s no evidence that that existed in any of the players that were or any of the teams that were participating in using technology and decoding signals, which was also against the rules. Um, but uh that seemed to be the the the one thread that separates Houston. But MLB tried their best to really do uh from from the invest very service level investigations um to protecting the letter uh trying their hardest to fight the Yankees letter from being uh unsealed. So, I just I wondered, you know, thought exercise here, but do you think had MLB not been left to their own devices, had a third party come in and investigate and was really allowed to dig in to the extent of the league and how pervasive sign dealing was because from all indications from uh players across the league and reporters, it was very pervasive using technology to steal signs. Um, do you think the outcome and the legacy of the science stealing scandal would have been different had a proper investigation been allowed to proceed? I don’t have a real strength of conviction on this. I think the biggest variable would have been had the Astros not won the World Series. Then it would have not blown over, it would have become a much uh less bold print in a permanent record that the cheating Stros won in 2017. I mean, fundamental difference, MLB in essence got the conviction, right? The Astros were caught red-handed and they were punished. And I think Jim Crane basically was told you have to fire uh Luno and and Hinch, which also enabled Crane to kind of separate himself uh from that. Uh neither of these leagues or any of the leagues for that matter have subpoena power. Um you know, they can’t threaten. You can either settle with us now or you know, we’re the FBI. We have a 94% conviction rate or whatever it is. Um, like I I don’t think anyone really believes that Kawhi Leonard and Steve Balmer and the Clippers, oh, it was all just independent on the up and up and what a wonderful coincidence that all this money funneled to Kawhi Leonard and he had nothing to do and had nothing to do with violating the salary cap, blah blah blah. Um, you know, the leagues, they do value their integrity other than all getting in bed with all the the gambling uh outfits because hey, their money’s green, too. Dark and a lot of it. um they want to shine the light of their investigations and we’re looking into this, but we don’t want maximum wattage on there because this is really in our best interest. Oh boy, if we come up with the ugliest uh side underbelly and and so how much do we really want to find out and know? So, um, I I don’t know how it would have changed, but look, the the the Astros did it and their players were given immunity to acknowledge that they did it. So, I don’t know that the legacy would be a whole lot different other than circling back to where I started. Had they not won the World Series, if not no biggie, would not have been nearly as a biggie. I think had the league taken some action then then maybe there’d be more more clarity on what actually happened and who actually cheated and who did what because by kind of burying their heads in the sand you allowed Johnboy media to be born and you have some guy nobody’s hardly heard of just some guy online digital sitting there listening to all the trash can bangs and then eventually coming up with conspiracy theories about buzzers that weren’t even true and most the common person just believes that that happened and that that’s real. So, I think that’s you run that risk if you don’t try and uncover these things yourself and and have a little more openness, then it allows somebody else to come in and and notice something that you didn’t. And then you may look even worse after that than if you had just come out and talked about it ahead of time. And the other thing I think of too is how much heat George Springer’s getting right now for the cheating scandals. Yet, nobody says anything about Mookie Betts. He’s out there on the Dodgers and he they got busted for cheating when he was in Boston. They were draft picks were taken away. They had to fire a video guy. So, they all did that, too. But nobody really talks about that. It’s always just the Astros. Yeah. And Charlie, to piggy back on your point, I don’t think it was just that it was that they won the World Series. It’s who they beat on their way to winning the World Series, which was two of the biggest franchises and who have the largest, you know, fan bases. And so the echo chamber becomes louder and louder and uh you have more uh vocal fans uh beating that drum. Um, you know, one of the uh the guy who’s one of the guys that’s been reporters that’s been really following the NBA stories, Pablo, and he was talking about how um the NBA knew it was highly probable that there was more going on, but they they were inclined to not do more because it was a calculated risk given how much money was on the line. because uh you Adam Silver kind of led the charge in the marriage of sports gambling uh and legitimizing that with the uh with the league and their partnerships. Uh he’s been outspoken about saying that sports gambling gambling should be legalized um and that it should be allowed to happen. And so they’ve uh kind of led the way and uh in these and I think as long as these leagues view as you know uh impropriies as um financially lucrative as long you know as long as they can maintain some semblance of plausible deniability the risk will always be worth the reward when there’s that much money on the line. Now, I I don’t know that it would have came out. I think there’s always the risk that had a third party um investigated. Maybe it would have been confirmed that Houston did the most cheating. Like, we don’t know. Um but on the flip side of that is I I wonder even had a third party investigated and confirmed that multiple teams were doing the exact same thing. Um, I just wonder would it matter because the Astros were the first most visible and as you said Josh, they got kind of highlighted because what they were doing was audibly trackable. So you could have a guy like John Boy going out and and marrying the the footage uh with the the trash can bangs and making the just they made it so easy. They just made it so easy and for the stupidity alone, they probably deserve the amount of scrutiny that they’ve received. Um, final thoughts before we jump out on this episode. The Gold Glove Awards are handed out when we get into the post World Series season and the trickle of awards culminating with with MVP in 3 weeks or so. MVPs three weeks. Uh not going to be a bountiful harvest in the awards front for the Astros. They do have two gold glove finalists. Neither guy should win. Cam Smith’s rookie season that began with so much promise and then just went down the toilet the second half of the season. Uh but for a guy who converted to right field on the fly starting the season, a lot of promise, chance to become an elite right fielder and he is a gold glove finalist. probably should be third among the three finalists, which being a finalist, very impressive. And Mauricio Duban perhaps on his way out the door. Uh won it a couple of years ago as a utility guy. He’s back as a finalist, though Ernie Clement of the Blue Jays pretty clearly should win that award this year. Uh but one to keep tabs on when the Sai Young voting comes out in 3 weeks. Does Hunter Brown finish third? Scoo’s going to win. Garrett Crochet is probably going to finish second. The Astros really need Hunter Brown to finish third. If he does, the Astros get an additional draft pick that would come at the end of the first round. Uh the program they put in a couple of years ago to encourage teams to promote top prospects from the very start of the season. The Mariners got an extra first round pick from Julio Rodriguez winning rookie of the year back in in 2021. The Astros can get a bonus pick at the end of the first round if Hunter Brown is on the metal podium. uh he has no chance to win. Probably won’t finish second, but he should finish third over Max Freed and the Astros should get that bonus pick at the end of the first round. Uh my quick takeaway is Bleach Report. We love Bleacher Report. When they put these little trade possibilities together, it’s all fun for everybody. Can we make it somewhat realistic? I was telling the guys before the show, so they had this three-way trade where the Astros get Steven Quan, basically a slappy outfield hitter, 281 career hitter, topped out at like 14 home runs. He’s under control for a few years, fine. But to get that, the Astros would have to give the Orioles Brian Abrau, and they would have to give the Garden Guardians Jacob Melton and Spencer Aragetti. This team has no pitching. They’re going to go out and give away Spencer Aragetti and a guy that was your closer for part of this year who’s an affordable option. At least he’s hasn’t been a free agent yet. And all for that you’re going to get is a left-hand left fielder, left-handed that that’s a slappy hitter with no power. Plus, you got Altuve you’re worried about mixing into the left field and Yordon. That just makes no sense from an Astros perspective. So, come on Bleacher Report, give us a better Astros trade. Uh, you know, on that note, it makes me think of Jake Meyers because, uh, you know, we had a lot of talk about the progress and the the turnaround year that Jake Myers had. I’m going to be interested to see what this offseason looks like because Dana Brown to make things happen, he’s going to have to make at least a trade. And so, I wonder does some does Jake Meyers get sold high on because he had an outlier year. I wonder if they sell high on him, bundle him with other players to try to free up some money to bring uh a player in. Um I’ll have my eye on that. Interesting because I I wouldn’t necessarily be be in, you know, I don’t want to ne necessarily see him go, but I could certainly see the argument for selling high given his history. 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 and Josh, I’m Brandon Sing. So long. Thanks for listening. And as always, ghost rose.

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23 comments
  1. NBA gambling was being investigated since 2023 but I’m supposed to believe MLB’s totally unbiased investigation that took 74 days cleared Ohtani of wrongdoing, found his interpreter guilty.

  2. I am impressed with how Brandon has matured as the host of this show. I've watched from the beginning. You started as pretty raw but I now enjoy your analysis as .uch as both Charlie and Josh.

    That is a strong statement as I have considered Charlie to be the premiere Houston sports analyst since the early 90's.

  3. Jomboy has done irreparable damage to the Astros reputation, despite his team being guilty of the same thing. You can't find a social media post about Altuve without people mentioning the buzzer. I had people tell me with extreme certainly that MLB was going to single out the Astros (again) when they banned foreign substances for pitchers. The fact the buzzer video is still up is a travesty – and when the Astros next make the postseason he'll gladly market tshirts about his favorite team.

  4. You know i was watching the World Series game and they said that the Blue Jays got new hitting coaches and improved in runs scored from like 25th or so in the league to top 5 this year. This made me hopeful for like 1 min then i realized that if we do improve with our new hitting coaches they will just claim we are cheating again.

    This is why i dont think we should be kind to folks like correa, springer, bregman and the others that tainted our franchise and then left for greener pastures.

  5. Every time the scandal comes up, Astros fans should be screaming what a number of big leaguers have publicly stated: this was a league-wide scandal. But MLB decided to conduct an investigation on the Astros only. We were scapegoated and we’ll gladly keep our trophy, thank you very much.

  6. Let’s be real, Charlie. The Astros lost Pena. yordan, parades, and Meyers for much of the season. Their 4 best hitters were out along with the pitching injuries. Dodgers had nothing of the sort.

  7. this team is playing with fire who are they going to get they have to run it back with an older club they need youth, and that means what they dont want to do so its another year of hoping and no actual good team!!! eventually you have to get YOUNGER OR have a big time player you can put a fork in them!!!

  8. I keep coming back hoping you guys will finally say something that makes sense. But alas, the answer is no.

    Josh is clueless as always. You can’t wax over the key injuries this team has dealt with the last 3 years. Most recently was Tucker and Alvarez being out last year (24). And Alvarez, Peredes, Pena, and a dozen pitchers including Hader (25). You can’t have it both ways. You can’t say they were injured, but this team also sucks and needs a complete rebuild. It’s just asinine.

    Yes every team deals with injuries but not to the extent of the Astros in 25.
    It’s not a performance issue when you have 21 players on the IL. It’s stupid. And they have over 50 million coming off of the payroll for 26. This team was steamrolling the AL West and 20 games over 500 before Pena, Peredes, and Hader all went down. So let’s not act like Brown and Crane don’t know what they’re doing.

    And when it comes to how bad the farm system is, when the 25 playoffs started there were 21 ex-Astros playing for playoff teams.

    They have plenty of moves they can make and some money they can spend in the offseason. There’s more that they CAN do, than what they CAN’T do this offseason.

  9. As far as the cheating goes, sadly it’s never gonna change for the perception of the Astros. I ended up kind of enjoyed the Astros being the villain. The reality about baseball is there’s always been cheating and if one team’s doing it, they’re all doing it or trying to implement it… every time a pitcher walks off the mound he has to be checked for substances. The Astros didn’t invent that.

  10. I just look in my subscription page and when I see one of these post they immediately go to the front of my to watch list. As for teh Stros unfortunately they're paying the price for having a bad system. They need guys coming up who can contribute and give them cheap pieces and the system isn't providing that. Until that changes I don't know what the Stros do to stay a contender.

  11. I just have to say, we've had an incredible decade of dominance from 2015-24, which is far longer than most franchises could ever dream of in this era. But we knew it had to end. We built the legacy on great draft picks late 2000s to mid 2010s, and added other great pieces through savvy trades. But those trades greatly depleted our farm system, and so many of our studs chased the green and moved along.

    Houston may still be competitive but we arent going to be the NYYs or LADs of baseball and spend big {nor should we}. Much like my hockey Blackhawks who won 3 titles in the early-mid 20-teens, we willl now take our lumps and probably need to rebuild from the ground up. Its just reality, no matter how harsh.

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