Baseball insiders DISH on who could be in and OUT for Astros!

Baseball insiders DISH on who could be in and OUT for Astros!

Welcome to Stone Cults. I’m Brandon Strange with Charlie Palo and Josh Jordan. Go follow them on X at Palo and Josh Jordan SCS. On today’s episode, if ceases to be an Astro, is cease the answer? We’ll get into that in the latest reports. While walks weren’t Walker’s forte in 2025, could he be walking into another locker room in 2026? We’ll get into the latest rumors there. And while John Cena nears the end of his retirement tour, it’s been Jim Crane who we can’t see. Is visibility an issue with the Astros owner we’ll discuss. Before all that, just a quick shout out to everyone who’s donated to support the show over on buy me a coffee.comcultures. You guys are just plain awesome. Charlie’s been personally replying back to some of those comments over there. If you haven’t yet and feel inclined, buy me a coffee.com/stone to make a donation to the show. Big or small, it all helps. In addition to or in lie of that, you can support the show by just simply hitting like on the video, subscribing to the channel if you haven’t, click the bell for notifications. We’re on all your favorite podcast apps where you can listen. Just search Stone Cold Stros. Charlie Josh, welcome in. As expected this week, Houston extended the qualifying oper qualifying offer to Frober Valdez, but the latest reports indicate he and his reps will be uh in the winter meetings with the team GMs. So, look, the good money is that he’s a goner, which means Dana Brown will need to bolster the rotation if Houston realistically hopes to get back into the postseason in 2026. Enter Dylan Cease. MLB insider John Marose says that cease to the Astros is as likely as any free agent prediction this off season. So, he feels really strongly about it. Do you guys have strong feelings about it? Specifically, the likelihood and fit. Charlie, you’re in the leadoff spot. The fit is obvious in that Dylan cease. While the results year to year have been a touch dodgy, 2025 not his best, though the underlying numbers were stronger than the the traditional surface numbers, but he has been completely durable. Now, if you’re thinking, well, he’s been durable for all these years. He’s due to break down as he gets to 30 years old. You could say the same about Romber Valdez, 32 years old, getting ready to go get his huge bag. It’s going to be huger than what Dylan Cece gets. But the Astros have an innings problem. I mean, after Hunter Brown, no one else on their staff will be back next year through even 100 innings, much less 150, 160, 170. And that’s not even counting for the guys who you don’t want throwing 100 innings. So if you get a 30 31 32 start guy who’s going to give you 175 innings who’s just solid even if he’s not an ace, the price tag may make you blanch, but you need to run out some more competent starting pitching than just Hunter Brown and crossing your fingers really hard. You do. And I heard a spotted talking on Astro Line this week and he’s like, “Yeah, we got to get some some guys to support Eragetti and Hunter Brown and Christian Javier.” not in that order, but I was I found it interesting that he put Aragetti in the same category with Javier and Hunter Brown, but that’s where this staff is currently. So, we’re just going to have to deal with that. As far as Dylan C, I mean, five years straight of over 30 starts. That all sounds great. Last year wasn’t wonderful. ERA over four and a half. Year before that, 347. Pretty nice. Year before that, back again at about a 4 and a half RA. So he has been up and down, but he does have some of those tools that the Astros covet, that high velocity, the breaking ball. So I see why he would be very tempting for them if they want to pay that price. But I remember rumblings at the trade deadline when we heard reports the Astros were real hot and heavy after him. And I heard rumblings. He didn’t really want to come to Houston. Still kind of buttth hurt about the scandal, I guess. So now that he’s in free agency, you have to wonder if he gets to pick wherever he wants to go, will he pick Houston if that’s a team that offers him a good contract? Glorious Petco Park is also pitcher friendly. And even though Dykin Park does not play as one of the great hitters parks in all of baseball, the Crawford boxes are a thing and certainly all pitchers are aware of them. you know, coming here, it’s not like going to Colorado or Arizona, but the rep certainly among pitchers is well, there are more pitcher friendly places to call home than Houston. Arlington as one, but the Rangers don’t appear to be positioned to go spend any money uh this off season. So, that would not appear to be u one possible rival, but CE is going to have a market off the durability touches the high 90s. I mean, look, six years, $160, $175 million, uh, if given the prayer, the team that signs them, they’ll be saying their Hail Marys and all that, but it’s a marketplace, and if you’re a larger market franchise with your window always open, purportedly, calculated risk, taking gamles, part of the operation. You just hope to hit on a higher percentage than your competitors. And I notic is one of those guys that often has the, you know, the pitch collar on his glove. He’s a guy that likes to get into a rhythm. I don’t know if that’s something that he always does, but I’ve noticed that when he starts against the Astros. So, you wonder is, you know, Astros are so famous for helping you with your pitch calling and getting you throw at bats and giving you tips on what to do with batters. Is he a guy that would just kind of rather work on his own? I I don’t know. But because of his age and his stuff, just 30, he’s going to command minimum five years. And then you see how the bidding goes and what is the point at which the Astros would say too rich for our blood, we drop out. You know, is there one team that says, “Okay, we’ll give you the seventh year or at least with a $10 million buyout if you don’t throw 125 innings.” Something like that. I think he’s going probably at beyond five years. Will the Astros go there or if they just flat out get out bid or cease picked somewhere else? Whatever the Astros offer could turn out to be, do the Astros then back down to that Mel Kelly, 37 years old, probably no more than a two-year, three-year max type contract. And here’s the Q Justin Verlander’s name mentioned. Yeah, indeed. And look, the the swing and miss is still there. And that’s going to be especially important in a place like Dyken. the numbers give me pause. Not so much what he posted in 2025, um, but just more along the projections of what he’s going to get. Look, even the combination of the advanced metrics making his numbers look more like he had an unlucky season than anything else. And then the combination of him working with Houston’s advanced scouts, the way we’ve seen them in the past, be able to really refine uh pitch usage from certain pitchers. Like I I don’t think he would be a bad selection. I just don’t love the idea of them locking into six years at a pitcher who’s going to be 30. So, and you just call me gunshy after seeing the results of bringing in aging first baseman, even though I I know we’re talking fielders and not pitchers, but it would likely be the biggest deal Jim Crane has ever approved. And I just I just think that makes it more unlikely. But you have to do something because otherwise all that talk about the window always being open under Jim Crane’s ownership means nothing because you have to bring in a pitcher. And a move at this level, it starts with Jim Crane charting the course, meaning the budget. They’re at roughly $30 million under that first CBT threshold. And that is not counting if they intend to resign Victor Keratini if he’s interested in coming back. Uh I do not count Jesus Sanchez on their payroll. I think they’re going to look very hard to move off of him rather than pay him6 million or so. Uh I am not counting Mauricio Dupan. Depending on who is talking about him, how could they possibly move Mauricio Dupon? Well, he’s god-awful offensively. That’s why it does not offset winning a utility man gold glove. at least in my view, not to pay him 6 million. So if the idea is, well, you bring Keratini back at 7 million, a 1 million bump from where he was and you’re keeping Sanchez and you’re keeping Duban, there’s almost 20 of your 30 million under the threshold gone. Yeah, if Dylan Ce is going to be 25 million plus, Jim Crane’s either going to have to embrace or at least swallow the bitter pill of being a threetime taxpayer and the increased penalty that comes with that or they’re going to have to slash payroll elsewhere on the roster to fit guys in. Well, Jeff Passen from ESPN had a cheaper option. He thought Michael King, Ce’s teammate, might be something that would have some interest for the Astros. Now, he only started about 15 games last year. He dealt with some injuries. He had a knee injury. He also had some nerve issue near his shoulder, which, you know, that worries you a little bit, but he was really good in that half season and he was really good the season before that. I know he hasn’t been a starter for his whole career, but he does have some attributes the Astros might have interest in. But if he’s three years, $70 million from the bargain bid, that’s still 23 million per year, right? It’s the average annual value. There won’t be the longer term 150 million plus commitment of the cease from category, but it’s still major moola. And if you’re trying to work under the 244 threshold, it’s a problem with the Astros payroll so topheavy. Altuve 25 million, Koreah 22 million, hater at 19 million, McCullers at 17 million, and Yordon comes in at over 19 million. Yeah, Charlie, you brought up Justin Verlander. We’ve talked about that for several weeks about the possibility of him returning. I I kind of paint that under the same picture as CE is, you know, like you’re going to want to need people are going to want to have to come here. This isn’t as easy of a sale as it was coming out of the 2022 season where people were like, “Oh, these these guys are in line for another ring.” They didn’t even make the playoffs this past season and were bounced in two games the season before it. So, this is less and less looking like a roster that a big league frontline starter is going to want to come. And then, you know, Justin Ferlander, um Josh, you brought this up on in the pre-show, uh Leavon from cron.com speculating that JB is probably going to want a raise after that prove it deal in San Francisco. So, this idea that maybe he’d take a team friendly deal to come to Houston, I mean, for a guy that’s going to be chasing uh wins at on the tail end of his career, is he going to be able to get that here? Is this the opportunity for him? And then also, if ego comes into it and he’s like, “Hey, I’m I’m worth I shouldn’t have to take a deal. I I should be able to get more than than 10 or 12, which was kind of what we were speculating maybe he’d get, like it may be 15 or up uh for JV in a in a single year deal.” So, it’s not I don’t know. They have they have their work cut out for them. If they were to land any combination of maybe two of those pitchers, if maybe they could get CE and Verlander or King and Verlander, I’d feel a lot better about this rotation because you’d have two bonafide starters in there to back up Hunter. And then and then it’s like okay well then you can fill it out with a Jason Alexander or a a Spencer Aragetti like that start that makes sense but um but you really need at least one or two people two starters to really give you a real threat of a rotation. Now one of the ways Houston can free up money is obviously via trade. Um, and while I believe there were rumblings of this before, Bob Nightingale confirmed uh recently that from a source that Dana Brown did try to bundle Christian Walker in that trade to land Carlos Koreah. Uh, obviously uh the the Twins uh said no. Um, but Nightingale believes Houston will again try to move him this winter to free up that log jam on the infield and in the salary ledger. How likely do you think Houston is to move him for anything of value or is the value just in freeing up that money? Two years 40 million of Christian Walker. That sounds terrible. But if you are say the Arizona Diamondbacks from whence Walker came to the Astros, you’re not going to give up major prospects for him, right? It’s a salary dump, salary relief move for the Astros. And if you tell the Astros, okay, you pay 8 million of the 20 million and we have ourselves a deal. If you’re the Diamondbacks, you going to go that route or are you going to say, okay, we’re going to get in on a Pete Alonzo bidding and go 5 years, 140 million, wherever his market is. So, team budget calls are huge. You also look around there, there aren’t all that many teams that would make sense for Walker. I mean, you just start in the American League West, Nick Curts in Sacramento. If Seattle brings back Josh Naylor, the Angels, well, one, suck and have a young guy in Nolan Shauel. That leaves Texas, which could use offense and Walker Texas Ranger might make sense. Uh, but the Astros going to trade him up the road. And you can go in the other divisions, same thing. The Yankees have a young guy and Ben Rice. The Red Sox have a young guy off injury and Tristan Cases. The Blue Jays have that Vlad Guerrero Jr. fella. So, there’s not a wide market, I don’t think, for Walker coming off a stinker of a year, though he was better in the second half. The Astros will try to cover up the first half stats and say, “Hey, he was over 750 OPS, closer to 800 after the All-Star break.” He also turns 35 years old the first couple of days uh of the season. And everyone knows the Astros aren’t trading him for value. They’re trading him for money. So, it’s a poor leverage time for the Astros to try to to try to force him and his contract on someone else. And remember, it’s not a publicized list, but Christian Walker has six teams that he can veto when it’s a limited veto. It’s always interesting, do guys like that, you know, they say, “Well, the Pirates and the Marlins of the world, they’re not going to trade for me. I make some money, so I don’t need to use up my blocks on them, you know, or their markets. I don’t want to go to New York. I don’t want to go to Philadelphia.” Um, but we don’t know which six teams Christian Walker can say, “Nice try, Astros, but I’m not going there.” Yeah, and he could certainly do that. I think they’ll try like hell to move him, but Charlie’s right that the leverage is just they people know the Astros want to get him off the team and for good reason. They want to get Pettis over at first base. And just the way Pettis gutted out the rest of the season, you still almost felt better with him on one leg than Christian Walker up at the plate. So, I see why that they want to do this. And then after that bad hamstring injury, could make some sense to want to move him to first base where he doesn’t have to be quite as mobile. That could I see why they might want to do that. And obviously the bat that’s a strong infield. It’s you know offensively if you’re assuming I touve at second, you got Pettis and you got Pñena and Koreah. As far as the guys the Astros have, that’s a pretty good combination for them. And I I think we’ll see some bounce back from the offensive numbers from those guys, but we’ll have to wait and see. But yeah, they got to try and move him. The problem is is they couldn’t have known that they were going to trade for Koreah at the trade deadline. So, I don’t blame him for that, but we know what happened with Jose Abrau before the Christian Walker thing. It was almost the exact same scenario, the same type of build, a bigger guy, right-handed hitter, playing first base. I get it that Walker is known for being a great first baseman, but I saw a little bit of fall off this past year. I didn’t I didn’t watch Christian Walker and be like, “Oh my god, I couldn’t live without him scooping balls at first base.” say he was fine, but I wasn’t I wasn’t overly impressed. So, we’ll see. Dana Brown’s going to earn his paycheck because the market is they’re going to know what’s up. I think you’re going to have to send something with him. Not only just cash or are they going to want some some prospects, too, for Christian Walker and then we come into that problem again, right, where the Astros don’t have a lot of prospects, people covet. And even if it’s Bryce Matthews, think how terrible you would feel if you had to give up Bryce Matthews just to get Christian Walker out of here and throw in some money. I don’t think they’re going to do that. But my point is is, you know, the Astros best prospect is another club’s C or B ranked prospect. That’s just the reality of the situation. Yes. And if the Astros were of a mind to try something bold, their two most marketable guys by far would be Hunter Brown and Jeremy Pñena. Well, you don’t deal an ace who’s under team control for multiple more years. If Bryce Matthews looked like he was all that as a prospect, right, drafted firstrounder, shortstop, Jeremy Pñena getting increasingly expensive two years away from free agency. But the market for PA would be substantial. You just look at shortstop around Major League Baseball. But there’s nothing about Bryce Matthews that says anything remotely approaching can’t miss stature. And there are ample can’t miss guys uh who miss. So uh Dana Brown can be open for criticism. Certainly, it comes with the gig and Matthews was his first first round pick uh running the Astros, but he just is in a very poor spot to try to engineer a deal that you’re thinking, “Wow, that was great for the Astros.” Yeah. And I told you before we started uh here, it’s I wouldn’t be surprised if Christian Walker gets dealt and then had a bounceback season given his road home splits and we know there are several players that don’t hit well at Dykin. See Mike Trout. How much of a bitter pill would it be for fans to see him have a good season elsewhere while also the team’s eating part of that salary? Now, granted, they’d feel better about it if it freed up salary that allowed them to field a a better team in 2026, but that’s not going to sit well with anybody to see him hit well somewhere else. And I’ll tell you what else too is that would be a very fitting exclamation point to the end of the snicker centron era in Houston as well because that would be more evidence to that is the hitting coaches just couldn’t get it out of these guys. I don’t necessarily think that’s the case. I I I think that sometimes guys uh there’s an adjustment period to teams. Uh also some ballparks are just not uh friendly to some hitters. and the oblique. Remember, he had that oblique injury in spring training. And then you go back the season before, he had that same oblique injury in Arizona. So, piling on the point that he’s 35 and he’s kind of had the same reoccurring injury the last couple years. And we don’t know how much that affected the start to his season. Let’s throw in something mentioned end of the season. Post all-star break. Christian Walker stats were a lot better than Alex Bregman’s. You know, if you’re looking for a corner infielder and Bregman’s going for six years, 180, wherever he’s going to come in, right, the Astros can pitch Christian Walker as a as a much more economical alternative. Yeah, we also don’t know how much of that quad injury was lingering on Bregman. Uh, but we’ll we’ll see. I mean, Breg’s going to get a bag somewhere. So, I want to shift over a little bit just we’ve heard from Joe Espatada and Dana Brown both this off season commenting on the team, their philosophies, their needs, but not a peep from Jim Crane. When things were going good, Crane was out in front of the media sitting behind home plate. But over the past couple of seasons, as his team’s onfield performance has waned, so has Jim Crane’s visibility. So, do you see Jim Crane’s absence from the media as bad optics? And do you think it’d behoove him to like put a face to some of these decisions that are being made besides Dana Brown? I’d say it’s preferable, but not a big deal. I mean, how many owners in Major League Baseball with any regularity at all really across all the major sports? How often do you hear from the owner? But at some point after the end of the season when you’re writing the epitap, writing the obituary, whatever, or painting a smiley face on it, we just missed our window. Damn right it’s still open. Uh, you know, even it’s just kind of sell the soap to the to the fan base. Uh, that Crane has had nothing to say. I don’t find that particularly ominous or hotty, but yes, if you’re more available when things are going swimmingly and invisible when not so much. Um, as you said, optics little frontr runner-ish, but again, relative to his peers, I don’t think it’s like Crane’s going and sticking his head in the in the sand while other owners are out there facing the music all the time. Right. Steve Cohen with the Mets, he’s just kind of an out there personality. name another baseball owner that you think that name another baseball owner. Um they just don’t talk very often. That’s why they have presidents of baseball operations and general managers and then down the field managers. Well, after he parted way with Click, you know, he took a lot of criticism for how they handled things and a lot of people started comparing him to Jerry Jones, which I didn’t think was fair at all. The Astros have actually won something recently, so not applicable. So, a lot of fans, I think, maybe wanted him to take a step back a little bit and let the baseball people handle it. So, that’s fine with me. I I guess I’d have more of a problem with it if he was out just, you know, talking bleep when they were 20 games above 500. Maybe he was more uh prominent in the in the stands when they were 20 games above 500, but I don’t really remember that being the case. I It just seems like he hasn’t been around all that much altogether, whether the team was cruising or or they were struggling. If I were in Crane’s inner circle, as hard as I’ve tried, uh, I would probably suggest that you give a little state of the franchise address. Hey, any of you think we’re going on the cheap, we were eighth in payroll, and yeah, we had to eat the bad contracts and pay for our mistakes, but we are not retrenching. We’re not going slash and burn. We’re not remotely approaching a deep rebuild phase. judge us on what we do in 2026 and they’re not too far beyond. Our track record’s pretty damn good over the last decade and if it goes south, I’ll be the guy that he could start, you know, slinging the arrows at. Uh but if you bail now, you might regret it. Yeah, him trading for Korea, he’s not. He’s committed to keep winning. He could have easily just packed it in last year, but no, he he took a risk and rolled the dice. Yeah, I I agree with that. And I think Charlie in that vein, I I would like to hear from him though. Like I we know that he’s the final word on any big deal or trade. So I’d want to hear him speak confidently about the future of this team. I’d love to hear him say that he believes that the window is still open. And the more that I don’t hear from him, the more the possibility is that he could be softening on that position. But you can’t say it in a in a pedantic, well, of course I’m me. the window is open. You can back it up saying, “Hey, we were top eight in payroll. We missed the playoffs by one game this year. We know we have things to address, but all these other franchises aren’t pitching perfect games and we’re still clearly or intend to be clearly in the fight.” And doesn’t Vegas have the Astros currently is like sixth best odds to win the World Series? I believe I just saw that. So, Vegas thinks they have a good chance still. Yeah. And look, I I love everything you said, Charlie, but I I want to hear it from Crane. Like what you said was perfect. I would just like to hear him say it. That That’s my There goes the final buck stop. And it’s And we know it’s with him. I just like to to hear from the guy spending the Bucks. Uh final word before we uh jump out here. General managers meetings going on this week in Las Vegas. Very rarely does something with a a lot of meat on the bone take place. Uh Dana Brown ideally comes back to Houston end of the week. Having primed the pump, uh laid the foundation, the groundworks there, getting a feel for the market. Do they really intend to try to resign Keratini? Um Dana Brown’s remarks were in the market for a backup catcher. I don’t think Keratini is looking to be a backup catcher off his performance the two years here and the pay grade uh of being a backup catcher meaning further Yanner Diaz is the guy until or unless he’s not general managers can speak with fork tongues he’s not going to come out and say we’re sick of Yiner swinging at anything make us an offer and we want to trade the guy um and then they’re going to have to come up with those decisions on Sanchez Duban salary arbitration eligible guys on wanting to move them off the roster or how are they going to be able to accommodate those $6 million salaries that when you add them up for a team that’s trying to dance around a threshold has a real problem with as we talked about earlier five guys making 17 million plus what I heard from Apata the Astroine stuff was pretty interesting to me one thing he mentioned was he wanted somebody that could take the heat off Brian Abrau like somebody that he didn’t feel like you have to give him a clean inning somebody that come in and can clean up a mess and not always have to get a Breu up to go do that. I don’t know who that is. I think it’s a great idea. That would be wonderful. So, I wonder if they have somebody in mind for that, you know, and maybe this is a ripple effect of the hater injury and and hoping to just keep him to one inning and and a lot of these other guys to one inning just because gosh, they they just dealt with so many injuries to their pitching staff last year. early part of the year it was the starters and the last part of the year was Susa and hater all the bullpin guys got hurt so I wonder if he’s really going to try his best to just try and you know not get guys up throwing and then them not going in the game he talked about you know that stuff can can wear on you over the course of a season and then finally Dubon Charlie I was he really doubled down talking about how Dubond was his Swiss Army knife that that allowed him to get through the season and mentioned him along with the outfielders and the infielders and went out of his way to bring up his second gold glove and how he played even better this year than the year before. So, if if Joe Espatada has anything to say about it, I’ll be curious to see if he’ll be willing to move on from Dubon. 398 played appearances except for that one week in California uh mid-season and credit to Dubon for his versatility. How many wars have the Swiss won? Well, I I think uh I think they’re rounded out. I I do believe Jim Crane still has an appetite to win. I I don’t know why, but I I do believe that we’re going to see some moves this off seasonason that reinforce that. I think he’s going to allow Dana Brown. I don’t think they’re going to go crazy, but I do think they’re going to make some shrewd moves that uh that retool the roster in a way that’s going to make us feel better about the outlook at this team in 26. I don’t know what I base that on, just kind of a gut feeling. Jim Crane has been aggressive as an owner as since his tenure here. I don’t have any reason to doubt him. Now, uh, 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, please give us a fivestar rating while you’re here. For Charlie and Josh, I’m Brandon saying so long. Thanks for listening. We’ll see you next week. And as always, go.

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