Astros Drop Nationals Series, Pitching Concerns Linger, LeBron Watch

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
After two o'clock on a Thursday afternoon. This is the
eighteen Wex and Josh Jordan here with you this afternoon.
Full ride today with no Astros baseball. Three games this
week in Washington, all with five forty five first pitches.
Only one of those games useful to the Astros. None
of those games useful to the bullpen, because the starting

(00:21):
pitchers hung about to dry on Monday, and then again
on Tuesday, and then again yesterday. The latest culprit, Spencer Aarraghetti,
eight runs allowed in his twelve out outing yesterday, and
the Astros offense not nearly enough to overcome what was
on the board for the Nationals, and eight to two
loss leave the Astros once again three games under five hundred.

(00:45):
There are only three games left until they get to
the All Star breaks, so any hopes of being over
five hundred are out the window now, and even a
sweep of the Texas Rangers coming up beginning Friday would
only leave them at forty nine and forty nine ninety
eight games into the season, as their four day off
would begin on Monday. Jeremy Panna finished up presumably his

(01:05):
rehab assignment yesterday, so when they take the field in
Arlington against TBD. Jeremy Payna should be back in the
lineup in batting lead off, which is nice for the offense,
which has been, as has been the case all year,
very inconsistent. Eleven runs in the opening game of the
series against the Nationals and a loss, not much offense yesterday.

(01:26):
The back half of the lineup got a lot done
on Tuesday in order to help them win that game.
The most inconsistent Astro, which will note here in a
few minutes, is actually the reigning American League Player of
the Week Jordan Alvarez, and my thoughts on Christian Walker's
involvement in that all fourth coming. But an eight two
loss yesterday on a day where the Rangers got embarrassed,

(01:49):
and they have another game with the Angels today, so
maybe the Angels can do it to them again. And
the Mariners didn't score, so an opportunity to move up
in the race for both the wild Card where they
trail the Rangers and now others, and the Mariners went
by the wayside because they lose two out of three
to the Nationals. The Nationals did to the Astros what
they're doing to the rest of baseball, just not at

(02:11):
a very good clip. They mash, and they mashed against
the Astros. Their best two players had great series, especially
their leadoff hitter James Wood. The Astros basically couldn't keep
him off the bases. He's one of just a couple
of players in baseball with an on base percentage of
better than four hundred. He and Jordon Alvarez are two
of them. Although Jordon barely saw the bases in this
series against the Nationals, James Wood, they just simply couldn't

(02:35):
get out and when he was on the bases, the
guys behind him, their top four in the order is
about as good as anybody, and they are the highest
scoring team in baseball. It showed what also showed which
I alluded to to open up our conversation here, which,
by the way, as the day moves forward, will continue
with some Astros conversation. Our normal Friday visit with chand
Lerome will be bumped up a day. He will join

(02:56):
us at five o'clock on the phone to chat about
the Astros as they can continue to get closer to
the deadline and continue to not get any closer to
the top of the standings. Is there still a balance
between are they buyers? Are they sellers? And how many
American League teams could we ask that same question about?
But specific to what took place in this series, the

(03:16):
starters were awful on not being able to get any
outs in the fifth inning of any of the games,
or after the Mike Burrows game he managed to get
into the fifth inning, I should have said it a
little differently. The starters gave him twelve innings twelve innings
over three games, four and a third from Burroughs, three
and two thirds from me Mai, and an even four

(03:37):
from Arraghetty. Because they lost two games, they didn't have
to play twenty seven full innings or pitch twenty seven
innings against the Nationals. They only had to pitch twenty five, thankfully.
So the bullpen more innings pitched in this series than
the starters, and their results are what really are troubling.
The bullpen, which had thirteen innings worth of outs to

(03:58):
overcome and a map and complete, well, they had a
twoadra during those thirteen innings. It's why the Astros were
able to come back on Monday only to fall by one.
It's why the Astros were able to outlast the Nationals
on Tuesday with six runs of offense and very little
from tatsu Emi, and unfortunately yesterday while they kept things

(04:20):
in check, eight runs off of Verrighetti. Like I mentioned,
none off the bullpen starters of the era twelve point
seventy five bullpenny are two eight and that is the Astros.
For the last two months. Bullpen's been phenomenal. Definitely one
of the top five or six bullpens in baseball over
that time. And considering we're barely over three months into

(04:42):
the season, that's roughly two thirds of the season. It
definitely got a shot in the arm with Josh Hater's return,
also the emergence of a usable Brian Abraw Like I
said yesterday, I'm ready to discuss how he's pitched a
lot better, not ready to discuss he's come back from
where he was to the point that he is who
he once was. But we're getting closer. Obviously. Brian King,

(05:03):
Steven Okert, and a host of others have all been
very good and the team was very unified at the
beginning of the season. Oh, we're not going to hit
very well, perfect we're not going to pitch very well either.
Our starters aren't going to be very good, and we're
gonna have injuries all over the place. No problem, everybody
in here hands in we aren't good on three well,
different parts of the team now have separated it from
one another. And no matter how many times we hear

(05:27):
about it from the team or you hear about it
discussed here over the airwaves and elsewhere, written about on
social media or in articles, the Astros are interested in
an outfield bat left handed preferably, and probably some bullpen depth.
They have a problem with their starting rotation. I'm not

(05:47):
flip flopping. I'm not roller coaster riding in that manner,
because I've said it for more than a week now
and I'm still not going to change my tune unless
I really really feel like I have to. The Astras
are going to win this division. They're obviously going to
playoffs because of it. But yes, I can react to
how they're starting pitching has performed. You're not gonna have
this same rotation the rest of the season if this

(06:08):
is what they're getting. They finally made a move with
Mike Burrows. They're going to have to make some decisions
with each With each of the two pitchers who started yesterday.
They're going to have somebody else to consider once we
get to Sunday. They just haven't acknowledged who that pitcher
will be, and I actually hope they do very soon.
I wasn't surprised to see Christian Javier pitch in yesterday's game. Unfortunately,

(06:31):
he did what I was afraid he might do, and
I'm afraid he might do when given the opportunity to start,
which may come as early as Sunday, thirty pitches to
get out of the inning with his team down six
in the bottom of the eighth inning. I mean, the
Nationals aren't gonna stop competing. Obviously, they want to get
the game over like anybody else. Certainly they probably are

(06:53):
in swing mode, and they were. And he walked two
batters and he gave up a hit. He got a
couple wings and misses, but not a whole lot. And
that's my concern. Javier may very well look a lot
like tatsu Imai has so far this season. He might
not have a blow up. He might not give up

(07:15):
eight runs, which is something that Emai has not done.
But after he goes for twenty eight pitches in the
first inning and allows a run, after he goes for
twenty four more pitches in the second inning and keeps
the game with just one and then he has another
twenty six pitch inning in the third, and you've given
up three runs. It's not the worst start in the world.
There's only three runs on the board, but his night's
pretty much over already because he can't get in and

(07:38):
out of innings very quickly. Little too early to say
that as a definitive statement from what we've seen from
him since his return, But how about since his return
from the injury and the subsequent surgery and how he
pitched at the beginning of the season. Now with the
two appearances he's made thus far, so there's definitely something
for the Astros to consider. It doesn't take a roster

(07:58):
move to move him into the starting road, at least
for this one start. They obviously can reevaluate things and
recalibrate the rotation because they have four days off after
Sunday's game, But these games are enormous. The Astros want
to win the division. The Astros want to have one
of the best records among those three division winners, and
of course, as I keep telling you, it's absolutely in

(08:21):
play to all of the teams in the American League Central,
just like all of the teams in the American League West,
among those that are pushing for the postseason, there's no
difference between any of them. Tigers might be at on
a little bit of an uptick with the return of
tark Skooble. You know, maybe the Guardians hang on just
long enough to get the return of Jose Ramirez. The
Astros got the return of Josh Hater and Hunter Brown

(08:44):
and are clearly overall for almost half of the season
playing much better baseball. So certainly trends play a part,
but there's just not much difference between these teams. Minnesota's
on a huge uptick and sliding past the Astros, and
now all that and all those games that they played
against all of these teams, what absolutely comes into play,

(09:06):
just like it did last year. Losing a tiebreaker to
lose out on the final spot in the playoffs last
year happened to the Astros. Then it could very well
happen again this season, depending on what things play, how
things play out, what teams they're up against. You know,
Minnesota is right there with them and now surpassed them,
and they finished their season with the Minnesota Twins, and

(09:26):
they lost it. They lost four of those six games
to the Twins. If the Tigers keep moving in this direction,
they did win the season series against the Tigers. These
three games this weekend against the Rangers, the one team
in this division that the Astros have handled, manhandled. Actually,
I think everybody knows how they've done against Seattle very badly.

(09:47):
They're one and seven. Their record against the La Angels
also a losing record, only three to four. Half the
series left with both of those teams. Roughly, you play
thirteen games in the division, and they lit the six
games with the Athletics. They're three and three. The Rangers
are the only team they've handled, man handled, and that

(10:08):
has to continue. Anything short of a series victory is
in my opinion, disastrous, But honestly, they need to do
it the longer they go in this same rut. And
now they've lost two of their last three series. None
of their last eight series were sweeps, even though they
won six of them. I know the tortoise in the hair,

(10:29):
and I know the story and the slow and steady,
and that's what the Astros are doing. But you run
the risk of having things as that happen to you
against Washington, happening more often. You're gonna have some teams
that are probably gonna be a little bit better than
expected because they will have made moves at the deadline
and thus have a better team than the one you're
looking at right now. A sweep wouldn't be the end
of the world Astros. It's been a long time since

(10:51):
they've gotten one, and playing against the team that goes
into their game tonight, the Rangers at forty six and
forty six, just the run of the middle, just like Houston,
same number of wins as Houston. Hunter Brown pitches Friday,
Peter Lambert pitches Saturday. I brought it up that you
should have of both of those two starting again on
the following Friday and Saturday. Hunter Brown needs to pitch

(11:13):
like an ace. Peter Lambert just needs to keep doing
what he's been doing, and then maybe this series goes
the way that the team needs it to and all
of a sudden, the second part of the season, post
All Star Break portion of the season, as you approach
the trade deadline portion of the season, maybe people realize
that this can be a return to a winning postseason

(11:33):
for the Astros. And yeah, I say all that after
they looked very very bad yesterday in the A two
loss to the Nationals. One very large aspect of yesterday's
game is a very large, I think tilt point in
the future of Astro's management. I'll tell you about that
when we come back here on the A Team, the.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
A Team on Sports two with you.

Speaker 1 (11:57):
This is the A Team. AC continues to be out
and we'll take that into next week also before he
makes his return during the All Star break, talking a
little bit about the Astros and yesterday's loss eight two
and what the future holds for the front office. I
think everybody is aware. By the way, you can phone
us in if you've got to comment on anything we
are discussing today. I want to bring anything to the table,

(12:17):
Feel free to do so at seven one three two
one two five seven ninety. You know where to find
me on Socials at Adam J. Wexler, and we'll often
respond there during the show, especially if you send it
during the show. But the Astros and their future, I
think everybody is aware that their general manager Dana Brown
does not have a contract for the upcoming season. Neither

(12:38):
does manager Joe Aspota. There are times here, times spent here,
not all together. Obviously, Joe was here with Dana, but
just not as manager until three seasons ago. There's a
third season together in tandem. Dusty Baker was the manager
with Joe Spota on the bench during twenty twenty two,
year one for Dana. Obviously, things went quite well for

(12:59):
the Astros that and they have trended in the other direction,
and obviously the roster is reflective of that. This particular
offseason came after the Astros missed the playoffs, and after
the team had an enormous amount of injuries both sides
offense and pitching, and with the pitching issues that they had,
and the decision that was pretty much already made on

(13:20):
one of their starting pitchers from Bervaldez, and that he
was going to hit free agency and the Astros weren't
even going to be negotiating with him. He would find
a deal and it would be with another team, which
is exactly what happened. He pitches again tonight for the Tigers,
carries his four to twenty nine ERA into that game.
He will have the option on whether or not he
wants to take thirty eight more million dollars from them

(13:43):
after this season, signed a three year deal with options
for him over the life of that contract, but the
Astros were never in that territory with him to begin with,
but they really didn't negotiate with him at all. So
Dana Brown knew that this team would need to add
pitching in the offseason. There was no doubt about it.
They do have plenty of internal options, but none that
they were so obvious would be successful this year. Lance

(14:05):
mccullor's junior, Christian Javier, when he was ready, turned out
he was ready at the beginning of the year. For now,
Blanco and Hayden was Nesky and Brandon Walter went and
if they were ready, and none of the three of
them have pitched yet for the Astros this year, but
Blanco likely will soon after the All Star break, if
not Sunday. They haven't ruled that out yet, but I
don't see that coming. We will see, and a host

(14:28):
of others internally. Lance mccullor's junior was here, Spencer Arighetty
was here, and things along those lines. They made the
move with the Pirates and Rays to add Mike Burrows
to the staff, sending out Jacob Melton and Anderson Brito
in that three team deal. Jacob Melton has had no
major league at bats this year, although he has had
a nice partial season in the Ray's minor leagues. He

(14:51):
missed part of the year with another injury. That's part
of what his prospect. Career with the Astros was riddled with,
but didn't cost you a tremendous amount. Honestly, I think
the pirates of the team that was happiest with the return,
and certainly after the fact, they absolutely are the happiest
with the return because nobody else has gotten anything on
their return. Mike Burrows is now pitching in the minor

(15:12):
leagues for the Houston Astros. Nate Pearson was signed with
the intent of having him compete for a spot in
the rotation. He had an off season elbow procedure which
slowed his progress and essentially took him out of that race,
but ultimately when he was able to rehab and return
to the team, he visited with us on the Astros
Player Show just this week on Tuesday. Great interview with

(15:32):
Nate and got into some of those things with him.
If you missed it, you can catch it via our
podcast right there on our show page. Or via the
iHeartRadio app. Because you subscribe to the show, you probably
got a notification already listened to it, but if you haven't,
it is there for you. He's been a part of
the Astros bullpen the last several weeks, probably near the
back end of it, meaning the last option or if

(15:54):
a move has to be made, is Nate Pearson a
consideration to be the spot they're taking. One of the
other acquisitions for the Astros this off season, the Ryan
Weiss acquisition, is really where I'm going here now because
of yesterday's game, Ryan Weiss and tatsu Emi major League
Baseball finding players elsewhere, not just college, not just high school,

(16:19):
but internationally and now far east. Internationally, it's been a
very popular thing to do. The Dodgers have spent a
boatload of money in that regard and have well. They've
made out tremendously well. I think they were also shopping
at the most expensive end with the least likelihood for
lack of success. Sake and Yamamoto have both pitched incredibly well.

(16:43):
Last off season, five pitchers were signed from overseas, essentially
the NPB, and the Astros signed two of them. I
don't know what to make of what the Blue Jays did.
They signed Cody Ponce three years, thirty million. He was
very successful overseas, he got hurt in his first start.
A little unfair to grade that one out as a

(17:03):
poor signing. Obviously not a good signing for this season,
and that that's the only appearance he has made, and
the Blue Jays need to still pay him the remaining
twenty million after this year and everything that's left this year,
and they've gotten absolutely nothing from him because of injury.
Anthony Kay was signed this offseason. Chicago White Sox gave
him six million dollars a season for two seasons, a

(17:25):
two year, twelve million dollar deal. He's been a little
bit out of the bullpen, but mostly a starter for
them and carries you in the mid to low force.
Has been very helpful, serviceable, nothing great. I don't think
they signed it to be much more than he has been,
but he's been a useful part of a team that
is battling for a division title. I could tell you
about what Ryan Weiss and tatsu Emai have done. You

(17:48):
already know. Weiss is making the start tonight in sugar
Land for the Space Cowboys. He was DFA by the
Astros because of an extreme lack of success here, and
quite honestly and unfortunately, he has not enjoyed much success
in TRIPLEA. Obviously, no other team wanted to take him
from the Astros when he was DFA, so he accepted
the assignment to go ahead and resume his Astro's career,

(18:09):
but now no longer on the forty men roster and
em I just pitched two days ago. He had another
start that left a lot to be desired, less than
four innings worth of work. He's only made thirteen starts
for the Astros. He's barely given them over fifty innings
through more than half of a season, very very far
below expectations and by far the most money spent. The

(18:29):
Astros made it look like they were spending on the
more expensive side the unlikely nature of this pitcher being unsuccessful.
A Scott Boris client, and I was right there with him.
If you look at who was signed this off season,
not just the international signings in free agency, but any
pitcher signings in free agency. Fifth most expensive pitcher signed.

(18:52):
Starting pitcher signed this offseason was taught to EMI fifty
four million, eighteen million per season there are options for
or after year one and after year two, so it
could ultimately turn into a one year, eighteen million dollar
deal or sixteen in change. I think is how it
is split up over the three years. But Dylan Ceas
rangers Juarez fromber Michael King the only other four starting

(19:14):
pitchers signed four more Now why it relates to yesterday's game.
The other starting pitcher is Foster Griffin, also back from
three years in Japan this passed off season. He made
his major league debut back in twenty twenty. Didn't have
a whole lot of opportunities or very much experience. It
only made six of major league appearances, pitched well enough

(19:36):
over there to draw the interest of the Washington Nationals
one year, five and a half million dollars. I told
you yesterday during the show and during the on Deck
show the kind of season he was having, and then
he showed the Astros the kind of season he is having.
The work that he put in yesterday lowered is era
eight to two to seventy seven. He is a ten

(19:59):
win pitch now, that's second most in the National League.
He's ten and two. He's given him one hundred and
ten plus innings. This year. He went into the game
leading the Nationals in strikeouts per nine innings, a one
h two whip, a two to ten batting average against.
All of those numbers are in the top ten in

(20:20):
the National League. He absolutely should be yelling at Zach
Wheeler to get out of the way of Hey, I
should have been an All Star selection. Both of them
make very good cases. The real story is there have
been a lot of good National League starters this year.
And to say that and note that Foster Griffin fits
right there with them, It's not an exact science. Should

(20:43):
be closer to an exact science than the high school
and college players you're drafting who are years away. These
are all free agent signings in an offseason, not major
league products, not minor league players, but players who've played
professionally that you expect to come over here and help.
You know, Ryan Weiss, A two point six million for
one year not the end of the world. But again,

(21:05):
these pitchers weren't expected to even struggle. They were expected
to solidify things and then maybe a numbers game would
push them out or have you not, with the opportunity
to see them just didn't happen, and so extremely just
didn't happen. It does not look good. As you move forward,
you know the results of the Major league team will

(21:26):
almost assuredly dictate the future for both Jo Espada and
Dana Brown, not necessarily this particular move or that particular
signing or that particular trade, but not to mention, he's
probably got a few more to make as we get
to the deadline on August third. But that just doesn't
look very good. It really looks awful, unfortunately, And that
you took two shots with players coming over from Japan

(21:49):
and both have been bad. To be as nice as possible,
two of the five that were signed overall in Major
League Baseball, I've done their job, with Griffin only doing
his job. But if the Nationals are going to be
in the postseason this year, and they're absolutely in the
wildcard race in the National League, I mean there's three
people that are at the forefront. The two players that

(22:10):
were raking against the Astros that they got in the
won Soto deal years ago, James Wood and CJ. Abrams,
and Foster Griffin. Foster Griffin is a game one, postseason
starter caliber pitcher that cost five and a half million
in the offseason for the Washington Nationals, who are now
two games above five hundred since they took two of

(22:30):
three from Houston. The Best of X halfway through hour
number one. As always, that's next here on the eight team.
It is time for the Best of X, and lucky
for everybody out there, Well, I had a couple of
things lined up. I have something new just down the
path about within the last hour. And I'm not sure

(22:52):
how many people expected this versus how many people thought, well, duh,
of course this was gonna happen, and we get the
reaction actions to it. Our friends overseas that have the
loan excuse me up North, not overseas, they're still attached
to us. But the one team in Canada that helped
out the Western Conference this off season, we think, well,

(23:17):
maybe we should slow our role on that a little bit.
Toronto Raptors very busy offseason. They've had Kyle Lowry Day
to celebrate. He had his press conference the other day.
Interesting suggestion from his representation when he announced his retirement
in their post on social media, which I probably could

(23:38):
pull into today's edition of Best of X. Congratulations on
the lengthy and successful career to our client Kyle Lowry,
da da da da da. See you in the Hall
of Fame. They didn't specify what Hall of Fame they
were talking about. I can't imagine he's going to Springfield
unless he's invited there by someone who's in or buys tickets.

(23:59):
But no, I kept that on the back burner for
a couple days because we like Kyle Lowry. Kyle Lowry
spent some time here in Houston the very onset of
his career and became partly because of the work he
put in here a very very very very good and
helpful NBA player, not to mention an NBA champion. Teammates
with Fred Van Vliet and others in Toronto when they

(24:20):
won the title, teammates with Kawhi Leonard. Kawhi Leonard was
at the Lowry press availability and spent some time there
and talked about what a good friend he is and
you see what he means to me, the fact that
he's here, and this, that and the other about Kawhi Leonard.
This from the Raptors about half an hour ago. As

(24:42):
you know, their way of helping the Western Conference was
taking Kawhi Leonard out of it and bringing him over
to the Eastern Conference. But regarding our planned trade with
the LA Clippers for Kawhi Leonard, the NBA League Office
informed us that as a result of the ongoing investigation
involving the Clippers, we the Raptors, would assume the risk

(25:06):
of any potential outcome of the investigation impacting Kawhi. You
now know that because the League office told you. You
didn't know that before. Do you think the way to
get out of NBA punishment for a player is just
to change teams? Are you new?

Speaker 3 (25:27):
Here?

Speaker 1 (25:28):
They go on? In light of this, will wait out.
We will wait until the league's investigation is complete. We
remain eager to bring Kawhi back to Toronto and look forward
to a swift resolution for our players, or organization and
our fans. Clearly this impacts the Clippers' plans also. I

(25:51):
talk about this almost every day since the moratorium was lifted.
Every team has a specific order of moves they are
going to make to utilize all the parameters of the
salary cap structure and the exceptions in their cap space
and their mL and trade accept everything they can to

(26:12):
maximize their ability to maximize their spending and their roster
based on their own constraints. So now the Clippers are
just sitting there waiting for this deal to be completed.
Why this is not new and nobody thinks this deal
isn't gonna happen, right. Some of the comments to that

(26:34):
post from one of the beat writers there of the
Raptors goes to that very point, did anyone really think
this deal was going through? Nullify it so he can
at least get Brandon Ingram and Grady back until that
fiasco with the Clippers is settled. Brandon Ingram's not coming back,

(26:54):
Grady Dick. I don't know why you'd want him back.
Not a good NBA player, terrible lottery pick. Brandon Inger's
not going to play for the Raptors. If this trade
is nullified, he would technically be back. Well, it's not
even needing to be nullified. It's not official, it's never
been made, but he would be moved. He's not going

(27:16):
to come back there and just reassume his position on
the Raptors. I know it's happened before for medical reasons
here in Houston thirty plus years ago with Shawn Elliott,
Robert Rory, Matt Bullard trade. So I'm not saying it's impossible,
but that was a little bit different or a lot different.
There's no new news here unless the League office has

(27:37):
been in constant communication with the Raptors saying we're investigating
as you know, and we're progressing as you know, and
we're going to have a decision very soon, like before
you agree to any deals this offseason. There's no way
that ever happened. I don't think the Raptors are doing
something wrong. But did they think this was settled? Did

(27:59):
they not know that they would be on the hook
for any kind of individual punishment? And there should be.
This can't be just a Clippers management problem. If you
circumvent the salary cap, well, both parties are at fault,
the player and his agency. The agency should obviously, I think,
be hit with something. I don't know how impactful that
would be, and clearly the player and clearly the organization,

(28:20):
and that's going to happen. Well, so Kawhi Leonard's going
to have to serve whatever punishment that is. It's going
to be some kind of minimal suspension or some kind
of financial considerations. It's not going to be out of
any great consequence to the player. There's only so much
you're going to be able to do he got a
financial benefit, well, then you're probably just going to take
some sort of financial benefit away. And even if it

(28:41):
is some massive amount of money, I don't know how
impactful that is to the Raptors. And maybe I'm shortsighted
on that it's not coming out of their pockets. He's
not going to be ineligible for the NBA moving forward,
He's going to play. This is not some sort of
signal of well, I hope you like Kawhi Leonard as
an NBA player because those days are over. Nothing like that,

(29:04):
But that's what the Raptors have decided to do. The
NBA's investigation, which has long been underway, is not complete,
and while the Raptors statement makes it sound like they
are going to be giving them a swift resolution for it,
but there's really no reason to think that. The Clippers

(29:27):
claim that they've done everything that's been asked and cooperated
with everything, but the trade that centers on this is
apparently according to the Raptors, it's just gonna sit on
the shelf until they have a resolution for this. Steve
Balmer is having quite the impact on the NBA. The
Raptors and Clippers sit there standing by by the way,
the Clippers in the Western Conference, they'll matter on the

(29:49):
nights you play them, they don't matter in the postseason race.
That is not a playoff outfit, no matter what the
worldwide leader wants to tell you. And I've had that
in the holster for days. So we'll say that for
another segment here on the A Team. On the A Team,
we continue our conversations a little bit more on the

(30:12):
story between the Clippers Raptors revolving around the investigation of
Kawhi Leonard and the Clippers, and wanted to add that
to it. Also want to get you updated on a
few things Major League Baseball related today. Even with the
Astros taking the day off, it's a long way from
Washington to Arlington. They've made it there. They will play
the Rangers beginning tomorrow. Rangers have not announced their probables

(30:35):
for that series, but they probably will not see Native Valdi.
He'll make the start tonight against Redebtmer's Rangers were laughably
blown out of their building last night by the Angels,
leaving them at forty six and forty six. The results
last night in the American League, including the Astros lost,
left them just where they were the day before. No

(30:57):
teams in the American League with more than one win
more than Houston other than the Yankees and Race, who
happened to be playing one another. The Guardians are at
forty seven, the White Sox are at forty seven. Obviously
the teams in their own division at forty seven and
forty six, Mariners at forty seven, Astros and Rangers at
forty six. Twins victory yesterday put them in an even

(31:17):
better position from a wild card standpoint, But they're at
forty six and forty seven, so one game ahead of Houston,
but the same number of wins they're playing right now,
and we'll need to come back in the ninth inning
in order to gain victory. Later tonight, Mariners will try
to win a game against the Marlins. They've been unable
to do that so far this week mentioned the Angels
and the Rangers. Mentioned earlier that from ber Valdez pitching

(31:41):
for the Tigers who are trying to get in the
wildcard race, and there are only four wins behind the
Houston Astros. One other thing from a triple crown perspective,
with Jordan Alvarez not doing anything after he won player
of the week. He has the home run lead in
the Triple Crown Race, but both of his closest competitors

(32:02):
have gotten closer to him. This afternoon. Junior Cameronaro hit
number twenty seven and Ben Rice hit number twenty seven
and number twenty eight. This afternoon, the Yankees are throttling
the race twelve four. Both of those two individuals are
among the five confirmed participants in Monday's home Run Derby.
There were two of the early commitments, so Ben Rice

(32:24):
and Junior Cameron Aro will have dedicated themselves to ruining
their swings the second part of the season. Cameron and
Arrow's probably got it figured out. He was the runner
up of the derby last year, and everything seems fine.
Two more additions made today Jordan Walker of the Cardinals
and Wilson Contreras of the Red Sox, who also found
out that his suspension of seven games will turn into

(32:46):
a suspension of five games. And Jack Caglioni of the
Kansas City Royals, one of their young talents, left handed,
power hitting outfielder until he becomes a first baseman later
in his career. Those are the five so far that
I've committed to perform their home run hitting prowess. Again,

(33:07):
Jordon Alvarez will not be participating in the home run Derby,
and that is perfect. Jordon's sitting on twenty nine home
runs and over the last couple of weeks. It's obviously
pretty noteworthy that he wins Player of the Week. It's
clear that he is leading the MVP race, but his
numbers over the last three weeks I think stand out

(33:27):
quite a bit. The other day I pointed out, actually
was this morning. I pointed out the up and down
recency from Jordon Alvarez and what he's done over the
last couple of weeks, and it's pretty amazing, not necessarily
in a good way. The four games he's played over
the last four games includes all three games against Washington

(33:50):
and then the day before the game on Sunday, he's
won for eighteen. He reached base one time in his
last four games because he did not draw any walks either.
In those eighteen at bats, he struck out six times,
no homers, no runs batted. In the four games prior
to that, It's why he won Player of the Week.
He had ten hits in sixteen at bats, four of

(34:14):
the one over the fence, one of them was a
two run walk off homer. Eleven runs batted in over
that four game stretch, only struck out twice over those
seventeen played appearances, walked once, and in the immediate five
games preceding that incredible hot streak, he had no hits

(34:34):
zero for sixteen, followed by ten for sixteen, followed by
one for eighteen, and he's in that one for eighteen
as they start play with the Rangers tomorrow. Now. I
posted that, like I said on the X platform earlier today,
and Greg was nice enough to point out that since
Walker rubbed the bat all over himself, well that that's

(34:58):
technically true. The last of those four war games during
the hot stretch was July fourth, the last swing he
took with that bat and then he chucked it aside
as he rounded the bases, winning the game for the Astros.
It was about halfway up the first baseline, kind of
close to the coach's box, and Christian Walker picked it
up and he decided that he would rub it overall.
Rubbed it on his arms, his back, his backside, everywhere,

(35:20):
and he joked about it after the game, saying, yeah,
I mean I forgot I even did that but you
know you can just follow yord On around and you
know there's certain that some of those hits will rub
off on you. Well, none of the hits have come
other than one for yord On since then. So I
asked Greg, did he also rub it all over himself
before the previous five game cold streak? He didn't take

(35:42):
This is not like you know, Thor's hammer that's been
taken away, or it's not like you cut his hair
and his power goes away. It's not like somebody else
touched his magic piece of lumber and now he has
no power. He was doing the exact same thing ten
days ago. He's not having an up and down season.

(36:03):
But there was a stretch of games after about the
first five weeks where the same thing happened. Also that
lasted a lot longer. He was hitting about three sixty.
He was you couldn't get him out for about a month,
and he spent about three or four weeks where he
just wasn't quite at that level. His numbers still stayed
above thousand ops. Everything was still fine, the season was
still going great, and then he got hotter again and

(36:24):
he's pretty much stayed there the whole season. But not
without some peaks and valleys, and these are pretty extreme,
although all three of them are brief. He's eleven for fifty,
still hitting two twenty ops a little under eight hundred
during that stretch that is opened by an oh for
sixteen and closed by a one for eighteen, and in

(36:44):
between he was the best hitter in the American League.
He'll be just fine. He's got plenty of power, plenty
of hits, plenty of homers left in that lumber, and
I wouldn't be surprised at all if home run number
two hundred comes this weekend. I already guaranteed he would
hit it on this road trip. Well, getting one hit
in Washington means he's only got three games left to

(37:06):
do it. But playing in Arlington might be a nice place,
might be a really nice place for Jose Altuve, who's
enjoyed some great success there. And as I brought up
at the beginning of the show, the team has enjoyed
great success against the Rangers this year and that has
to continue. They can win the season series with the Rangers,
which obviously at this point in time, mathematically could play
a role in a tiebreaker. They won five of the

(37:26):
seven games If they get to seven wins, they've won
the season series. They only play thirteen times, so two
wins this weekend would do it. Would love to see three,
and we still don't yet know exactly what the Astros
have in store for the Rangers to start the game
on Sunday. We'll reset the show when we get to
the top. Welcome in the television audience via SCCHN. We'll

(37:47):
jump in on the Texans a little bit, not only
in what the upcoming season has in store for us,
but the fact that they've now told us officially when
training camp begins and when you guys can go out
and see Them'll do that.

Speaker 2 (38:00):
Next the A team on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 1 (38:06):
This is the A team for Thursday afternoon. O Astros
Baseball to kick us aside today, as has been the
case the last three days, so we got you for
the full ride up until six o'clock this evening, take
you into the night cap, and get you on about
your merry weekend. It is the weekend, after all, last
weekend a holiday weekend, so go ahead and get started
early and make it a long weekend beginning this Thursday.

(38:28):
Lots of activity in Major League Baseball all of the
teams the Astros are likely to be fighting with for
playoff positioning the rest of the season. Our action today
except for them, and we'll give you an update on
how those play out and totally down. As the Astros
are approaching their hundredth game played, they'll be at ninety
eight when the All Star Break gets here. Of scoreboard
watching absolutely be a part of the show the next

(38:49):
several months, because I think the Astros will be in
the race for all of them. As I've said many times,
I think the Astros are going to ultimately win this division.
I do think they will be buyers and I do
think that they will find somebody at all of the
spots that they need, and starting pitching is at the forefront. Now,
if you had not noticed over the last couple of games,
very very poor performance from the three starting pitchers that

(39:11):
they got on the hill against the Nationals. Granted, they
will only face the best offense in baseball once and
that was the last three days. Yes, statistically speaking, somebody
else could pass them, but you get my point, and
the Nationals looked like it. They scored twenty three times
and twenty five innings, and more than half of those
runs came while the Astros starters were on the mound.

(39:31):
Not more than half of them, how about almost all
of them. Twenty of the twenty three runs scored came
during the twelve innings that they got from their starters.
More than half of the other innings were eaten by
their bullpen. The bullpen gave up three runs, but they
only win once they win the day. Again. As wild
as this has been this season, tatsuy E Mais made

(39:54):
thirteen starts. The Astros are three games under five hundred.
As a team, they're three games over five hundred when
he starts. He's arguably the least successful starting pitcher in
the American League among pitchers with at least ten starts.
His ERA is over six. He's got a handful of

(40:17):
nice starts. Clearly, he threw a no hitter combined, the
only no hitter in baseball this year thanks to me yesterday,
I guess never said the word no hitter, but I
did point out that Dylan Cee said a lot only
three walks as he was going to head back out
for the ninth inning trying to complete his second career
no hitter, and he had a ten to nothing lead,

(40:38):
to work with. He'd already thrown one hundred and fifteen pitches.
He threw only three more before being lifted because Alio
Ramos single to center field, a clean single, and the
bid for a no hitter number two of this major
league season was over. It's actually side note major League Baseball.
It's pretty entertaining week as no hitters or perfect games go.

(40:59):
Dylan Ceeese, who who never pitches that deep into games
because his pitch count is always out of control. He
throws a lot of pitches, but he usually doesn't pitch
that deep into games because just like I said, he
was able to do that. He and his manager decided
in year one of his seven year, two hundred and
ten million dollar contract, they would actually try to have
some fun and treat the fans that were watching, listening,

(41:20):
and in attendance at home to some Major League Baseball history,
which the manager of the Pirates and has previously discussed.
The manager of the Marlins decided not to do. It
was within the week that Uri Perez had gone seven
perfect innings and thrown ninety two pitches, but was met
in the dugout after that and said that's it for

(41:42):
you today. Three games back off the il four appearances
because he had a reab start and two years removed
from Tommy John surgery. The Marlins wanted to protect their
young pitcher, protect their investment, and hope for more excellent outings.
Because they got that seven innings runs, that's an excellent outing.
They want more of that, and they felt like pitch

(42:03):
number ninety three through whatever would be detrimental to his future. Yesterday,
Jared Jones faced eighteen batters for the Pirates and he
retired all eighteen of them. And I can appreciate what
he did after he came back to the dugout. If
you missed the video of this, he came into the
dugout front of the dugout where the manager, pitching coach,

(42:24):
and everybody else hangs out. He went straight down the
steps into the dugout and then tried to keep going
straight down the steps into the clubhouse to avoid what
was clearly going to be a meeting with manager Don Kelly.
And they were laughing about it because Kelly obviously realized
what he was trying to do. He's trying to get
away from the manager so the manager couldn't take him
out of the game. Which he did. He also has

(42:46):
injury history. He's less far removed from his Tommy John surgery.
He has been on a very strict pitch count throughout
the season and would have flown past it had he
gone out there for the remaining three innings. He hadn't
had trouble in any of his innings. He'd thrown fifteen
or fewer pitches in all six of his innings. He
only took nine pitches to get out of the sixth inning.

(43:08):
But his day was done. History be darned. It's not
happening on my watch. However, they still had the opportunity
to have the first ever combined perfect game that lasted
one more out. He had nineteen batters up and nineteen
batters down, and then a single, and then they lost.
They weren't even winning the game. When Jones came out.

(43:30):
It was nothing, nothing, and ultimately they didn't score any runs,
so they did not win. Fun have some fun, you know.
Happened to hear from one national voice, Harold Reynolds, about this.
He wanted some data. He wanted some data on what
happens to pitchers once they throw that one hundred and
tenth pitch, that one hundred and fifteenth pitch, one hundred
and eighteenth pitch the time, and when no pitchers are

(43:51):
allowed to pitch anymore, because we're not ever gonna know
because nobody ever does it anymore. We have seen a
rash of pitching injuries over the last two seasons. There's
no debating the facts because it has happened. But the
cause of it, that's where the debate comes up. Is
it because of the development of pitchers, is because of
the velocity that more pitchers are throwing, and also there

(44:13):
should be a little asterisk on that. In my belief,
is the miles per hour we're getting from these pitchers
in twenty twenty six and probably twenty twenty five relatable
to what it was four and five years ago. And
I say that to me, are they actually measuring it
the same way? Because you got to call me a
little skeptical, you gotta call me a realist. Also, how

(44:37):
did we have hundreds more than one hundred years of
baseball and one hundred one hundred and one? Oh my god,
I cannot believe this guy got to one oh one.
That's crazy. And Misowski's just going out there every day
and throwing one hundred and five. Do we really think
that's possible. We think one pitcher has thrown the two
hundred and fifty fastest pitches this year because nobody's doing

(45:00):
what he's doing, they're measuring it differently if you hadn't noticed.
And I'm a little bit miffed that hasn't been more reported,
because it's quite obvious he's really, really good, and he
is the hardest thrower. I don't not taking that from him,
but to the levels that all of a sudden, from
the same distance, from the same lift on the mound,
throwing the same baseball, I guess who knows if it's

(45:22):
the same baseball, They change that without any regard and
have zero controls over that, which is embarrassing. But yeah,
I don't think we're going to see a four to
five mile an hour increase on the hardest thrower in
baseball overnight, which is essentially what happened. Nonetheless, pitchclock development,
all these things, I do think play into it. So

(45:44):
I don't really blame the teams for trying to protect
their players, obviously their future, heck, their own jobs, but
it does seem like at times it is overkill. It's
unnecessary and they don't have definite I mean, sure pitcher's
not gonna get hit if he doesn't throw an additional pitch.
If he's currently healthy, well, he's not gonna get hurt
if you don't allow him to go out there. And

(46:04):
I talk about that in the NBA all the time,
because the NBA's postseason is like one hundred percent dictated
on health. If your players are healthy in the playoffs,
then you're going to win if you're a good team,
and when they're not, the other teams advance. Almost every
time it happened this year, it happens every year. It
happened right here in Houston. It really didn't matter that
Kevin Durant was healthy enough to play in really every

(46:26):
game this season. During the regular season. Essentially the only
games he missed were for personal reasons. For Game eighty two,
because they didn't need anybody out there and because it
was a regular season game. They once had him stay
on the sidelines because of a minor ankle tweak, and
then he played one time in their postseason because it
got hurt in between the regular season and the playoffs,

(46:47):
and then got hurt again in the game that he
played during the playoffs. I described it just after the
season here in studio with AC as horrible injury luck
with Durant. Not good injury luck because he played seventy
seven regular season game, but horrible injury luck because he
wasn't there when it mattered most. Chris Paul's been in
that situation countless times in his career, where he's ended

(47:07):
up getting hurt in the playoffs. I don't really have
much of an issue with NBA teams wanting their players
to be healthy for the playoffs and in doing so
telling them not to play. It's bad for the fans,
and I'm glad there's some controls on how often you
can do it and how many games we want them
out there, and the regular season does matter, but man,
you just you can't win if those players aren't playing,

(47:29):
and many of them probably aren't physically ready or capable
of playing at a certain level for that many games
on end. And now the playoffs are, also, by the way,
not like they used to be. If you're gonna win
the NBA Championship, you gotta win sixteen times. That's been
around for a few years, clearly, but it definitely did
not used to be like that. So I don't really
want to hear about, well, these players did that, and

(47:51):
those players did that when they were playing a mini series,
when they were playing a five game series. Yeah, maybe,
And even this year you had all these sweeps. It's
barely played any basketball in the playoffs. They had a
six game series to open, then a pair of four
game series and boom, they're in the finals. They played
all the fourteen games to get to the finals and
won twelve of them. Then they won four more against
the Spurs. They managed to get through it. By the way,

(48:15):
Jalen Brunson was playing with an injury that just required
surgery to his wrist or his left hand, an he
won MVP of the finals. But fun in baseball. As
this entire conversation started, I wouldn't mind at all if
they let guys go out there a little longer. The
Astros obviously have done it countless times more combined no
hitters than it seems like anybody, since they have more

(48:35):
ho hitters than anybody. And this year they did it again,
needing nine outs from Steven Okert and Olive Bersonta after
Emai and his pitch count could only get the first
six no hit innings. Nonetheless, pretty small story get us
through this opening segment of this hour, and then I
got to tell you about your Houston Rockets. What happened

(48:56):
in the last few hours days that put the Rockets
in the news. Nothing. They did announce the signing of
Bogdan Bogdanovic yesterday, yet to announce the signing of Marcus Smart,
who was his free agent exception rights. Were among those
Lakers let go yesterday, him and Carmelo and Lebron and

(49:16):
Dwight Howard and Avery Bradley, et cetera. But one former Rocket.
He delivered some serious hate to the Houston Rockets. But
like I said, you're not gonna feel bad after I
tell you who said it and why about the Rockets
catching any hate, I'll tell you about that next. If
you've listened to the show long enough, especially during NBA

(49:39):
season and seasons, you probably have a pretty good idea
of what NBA players might make a list of. Who
are players that WEX thinks and doesn't understand. Why the
NBA teams like this player, Why NBA teams signed this player,
y NBA teams acquire this player. Oh, there's a handful

(50:00):
of guys you could probably rattle off immediately, and you'd
be dead on. Because I talk about him as often
as they come up in the news. I certainly hit
him with I don't get it. I don't understand what
NBA teams see in them. And one such player decided
that he had something to say one asked again, he
was asked about this, so he decided to share it.
There's podcasts out there, there's streamers out there, there's kickstreamers

(50:23):
out there. I'm not a big viewer of the kickstreams
that are out there, or Detroit streams or most other
YouTube type influencers. That's another thing I really don't get.
But nonetheless, I guess one of our own Neon he's
got a kickstream from Sugarland fancies himself is a very

(50:44):
popular influencer. And he's right, got a lot of followers,
got a lot of traction, got a lot of views,
got a lot of people that apparently want to be
a part of whatever it is that he is doing.
And one such NBA player had a styly long session
live stream with him and he had a question for him.

(51:05):
And this former Rockets player spent a very little time here,
and it's been all around the NBA, and I'll get
to all the particulars of who he is and how
he fits into this certain category and what he's really
talking about. My standpoint on the perspective that he shared
right here when you hear from him, gets asked a
very important question. A well traveled NBA player that played

(51:26):
for the Houston Rockets. I have a good question, bro.
You don't have to answer if you don't want to.
But what what what teams you have the worst experience with?

Speaker 2 (51:35):
How was with Houston for two months? So that's how
you don't like us?

Speaker 1 (51:39):
No, I don't have no no bad blood, but really
it was really tough. What was what was the problem there?
They had no structure, no real GM who you know like?
Emphasizes what is like professionals now? But they're good now,
They are good now. They did have a GM he

(52:00):
was early in his career. It's the same GM they
have now. And to describe the situation first of all,
that of course is very well known. Fifteen game Rocket
Dennis Schroeder. He got traded to the Rockets in the
twenty one to twenty two season. He was on their

(52:21):
roster for the final twenty seven games of that year.
He played in fifteen of them. They won four of them.
They won five of the twenty seven games that remained.
They were fifteen and forty, were talentless, going nowhere on
their way to winning twenty games, coached by Steven Silas
during the years where they were definitively in disarray. That's accurate,

(52:47):
that's fair. The comment that he made saying it was
the toughest time he had or the worst place he went,
I don't doubt it from his perspective. I'm speaking truth.
I don't know he's given you what he thought. I
don't it for a second description to the organization. He
didn't get too far into it. And then it turned
into a conversation about Neon not knowing as much as

(53:08):
he thinks he does about NBA basketball when Dennis pressed
him on it, because he didn't even remember that he
was a Rocket less than five years ago. Nonetheless, the
Rockets catching strays from Dennis not a thing, doesn't matter.
Not sure if it gains any traction on social media.
But Dennis is like the captain of the I don't

(53:29):
know why NBA teams want him on their roster. I
really really don't. And the NBA teams are kind of
siding with me, while random gms keep bringing him aboard
the next one. I don't know if he's played for
more than one GM in any of his stops, but
unless it was Atlanta, I doubt it because he doesn't
stay anywhere. Next team he plays for, if there is one,

(53:50):
after he finished last year with the Eastern Conference finalist
Cleveland Cavaliers, will be team number twelve. He played over
three three hundred fifty games with his first team, the Hawks,
five seasons there. Oklahoma City brought him aboard I'm sure
Rockets fans remember, and he's stuck there for two years.
He went to the Lakers, where he is essentsarily famously

(54:13):
decided a massive extension that was going to be the
worst mistake of that general manager's career. He turned it
down and turned it into a very very very small
contract because they watched him play more and he's not
good brings us to the Rockets portion. He's played for
another seven teams for less than fifty five games each,

(54:36):
including just the fifteen for Houston, not so ironically the
fewest games he's played for any NBA team in his career,
and at the time twenty twenty one to twenty two season.
He came to Houston, and in those fifteen games, four
of which he started, he shot thirty nine percent. He
shot thirty three percent from three point land. The thirty
nine percent he shot overall the worst of his career.

(55:00):
He was terrible, and only worst of his career by
a little because he's surpassed that twice since then. Point
guard who shoots as often as he does, and it's
not he's not a high volume shooter by any means,
basically ten to eleven shots per game player. But he
can't do that. He can't put the ball in the basket.
He's awful at that. And he's not so good at

(55:20):
anything else other than dribbling. He's not a great playmaker,
he's not a great facilitator, he's not great at setting up.
He's just a veteran guard. I'd look at all these
gms for Brooklyn and Toronto and Detroit and Sacramento, in Cleveland,
in LA and Boston. There's nobody else on your roster

(55:42):
twenty five years old, twenty three years old, twenty eight
years old, elsewhere in free agency, the end of somebody
else's roster that can do what he does, but better clearly,
and if you at all remember well we covered the
time he was here in Houston, the only time we
knew him a little bit better than anywhere else he's been.
He doesn't provide anything else to the team. This is

(56:04):
not a well they're bringing in a veteran point guard
who can help this team with some leadership, help some
of the younger players, help them in the locker room.
A good locker room guy. I'm not saying he's a
bad locker room guy, but it's more likely he's that
than the other I know. He's not a good, positive
locker room guy. He just might be a guy who's
in the locker room. But that's why people he knows

(56:25):
better than I do. And I can't deny that during
that stretch of Rockets basketball, it was bad. He was
traded from the Celtics to the Rockets. The Rockets where
a at the time. You know, whether you want to
call him a bad organization, maybe is not accurate, but
they had players in that locker room, as we know
as the transition from the Steven Silas era to the

(56:45):
Ema Udoka era and the transition to the front side
of their top draft picks over and over. It slowly
but surely became well. There's fewer malcontents and fewer players
who clearly have skill but do nothing to help you win,
like Christian Wood and Kevin Porter Drew while he was here,
in two players that could help you win. Jalen's a
couple of years into his gree Dennis Schroeder was on

(57:05):
the team with Jalen Green. That's how recently, relatively speaking,
he was here. But Jalen Green gets a year older,
and obviously the same for Jabari Smith, Junior, Alpern Shingoon,
Amn Thompson, and on and on and on. So some
of these same pieces were starting to be put in place,
but they weren't winning. They were bad, and they were
landing at the top of the draft even after the lottery,

(57:26):
not the very highest part of the draft, but high
enough to try to build a foundation. Several of those pieces,
obviously are who they're still building around, and Amn Thompson,
who still likely is going to get in my opinion,
the max, that's who they're building around. Definitively, I think
I can say that with extreme confidence. He's not just

(57:49):
on the team as part of the team that they
hope to win with they're building around him. He needs
to be a better player in order for that to
have any chance to work. You know, twenty points a game,
ten boards again, two steals a game, all defensive team, repeatedly,
and shooting at least forty five to fifty percent from

(58:10):
not at the rim when he's more than three feet
away from the basket. He's got to shoot at that percentage.
He's got a knock down twelve footer, he's got a
knock down fifteen footers. He's got to be very good
with his floater game in the lane, but not at
the rim. I don't really even care what he does
from three point land, anything he does from here on
out there. If he gets to thirty five percent, I'd
be floored, shocked and ecstatic, but I don't expect it.

(58:31):
I think he's a low percentage three point shooter whose
value will never be as a floor spacer, and he
will never be a high even a reasonable volume three
point shooter. And that's fine. You can have players like
that on your team. The Bucks won a championship with
a player like that on their team. Granted, I don't
see him Men Thompson winning MVP or scoring twenty nine
thirty points per game like Giannis did. But he's a

(58:52):
miserable three point shooter. He is not a floor spacer.
Russell Westbrook won an MVP. Again, I'm talking about the
best players in the league, and that's not what a
Men Thompson is yet. Terrible floor spacer, awful decision maker,
and miserable jump shooter beyond seventeen feet won an MVP's
played in the finals. Teams were built around him. He

(59:14):
had some really good teammates. It absolutely can be done
with a men Thompson, especially when one of his teammates
is Kevin Durant. Maybe since one of his teammates is
also Alpera and Shangoon, if he also makes more, much
more progress than he's made, and i'd i'd probably if
I were a writer, and I'll write from time to time,
but I'm not gonna call myself a writer. I'm probably

(59:34):
gonna stop saying if their young core continues to improve,
how many years into the league do these players have
to be before that goes away. It's not year three
for alper and it's not year four either, and the
same for Men now going into year four hopefully they
do those things so they can also get rid of

(59:54):
that as well. There are a couple of other NBA
items specific to one free agent we will get to
as we continue here on the show. But the info
that you have to have from an NBA's perspective, I'm
gonna give that to you. Next. Which NBA fan base
is the most foul mouthed and where do your Houston
Rockets stand? That's next the a on sports Talk Sports

(01:00:18):
Talk seven nine, and of course we a simulcast on
SCHN no baseball tonight for your Stros. Get back at
it tomorrow with the Texas Rangers. Rangers for three and
then it's All Star break time for the Astros. So
some discussion on that throughout the afternoon and specifically at
five o'clock when Chandler Rome of the Athletic joins us
for his weekly visit. We'll do that here today and

(01:00:39):
get him on his weekend's worth of activity. So looking
forward to that conversation. Did mention I was going to
get into a interesting analysis of NBA fan bases, But
I did have one more note on Dennis Dennis Shrewder,
because if he's going to land on a I don't
get it list for me, then I might as well
drive it home with some interesting statistics beyond just his

(01:01:03):
terrible thirty nine percent shooting with the Rockets. Happen to
look up and check on a list of the lowest
effective field goal percentage for shooters with at least two
thousand attempts active players. One disturbing note on that list,
which of course he's on, is of the nine worst

(01:01:23):
nine lowest effective field goal percentages one, two, three, four,
and soon five. Of those nine players we'll have put
on a Houston Rockets uniform, He's one of them. He's
the fifth worst. He's at forty eight point four percent.
Phoenix Sun's elite scorer Dylan Brooks is another. He's at

(01:01:48):
forty nine point three. Some of his years in Memphis
did not leave a super high effective field goal percentage,
just gone up since then and did here in Houston.
He's ninth on that of those nine that I meant, so,
Schroeder's fifth each of the top three Rockets. Josha Kogi
was a Rocket this past year after he was one

(01:02:08):
of their very good free agent acquisitions, and he's ultimately
signed a two year deal elsewhere This free agent period.
He's third lowest at forty seven point eight. Not a
great three point shooter and a little bit undersized on
the interior, so not a real good pocket for his offense.
Soon to be Rocket unofficially headed to the Rockets Marcus Smart.

(01:02:29):
He's at forty seven point six, second worst among active
players that have launched at least two thousand shots. Technically
the Rockets. Sometime in the next few days, I would
imagine number one on the list producing an effective field
goal percentage of forty seven point two on his twenty
two thousand, two hundred and thirty nine shots from the field.

(01:02:53):
A player I mentioned last segment, Russell Westbrook, worst among
active players, bad three point shooter, bad decision maker, high
volume shooter, and headed to the Basketball Hall of Fame, undoubtedly.
So that's hop That's who's on the list. And of
course Dennis didn't like his time in Houston. But again

(01:03:15):
I don't know how any of the other teams could
have liked his team liked Dennis being there, considering that's
what he produces. And some of the players on that list,
Hectamar de Rozen's on that list, they have value elsewhere
he doesn't. He can dribble the ball. Cleveland somehow found
some value in him. I know he helped beat the
Rockets with Sacramento recently, so maybe that adds to the disgust.

(01:03:36):
So our friends, with some data analysis over the Action
Network produced this little piece of research. They used some
subreddits of thirty NBA fandoms over the last year's time,
the last twelve months and pooled together better than a
million and a half fan comments and then ran him

(01:03:59):
through there their data analysts and try to figure out
who likes their team, who hates their team, who's more
foul mouthed about their team. The categories were most foul
mouth fandoms, most polite fandoms. That's basically the same list,
just who's at the opposite ends of it, The most
negative fandom, the most positive fandom, same thing one end

(01:04:22):
of the list and the other. And then the most
ridiculous category the most popular swear words per fandom. Now,
they did pluralize the word words because there were more
than one swear words on this list of the most
popular swear words per fandom. Yeah, there were two. I'm

(01:04:45):
pretty sure you can guess what two of them showed
up on some of the one point six million fan
followed views on the subreddit list that they checked over.
I'm not going to say them, but you only need
four letters to spell each. We'll get into the foul
mouth fandom because the Rockets, surprisingly, not surprisingly, that's your call.

(01:05:12):
The most foul mouthed fandoms one, two and three. Philly
was number one. That seems unsurprising. Atlanta was number three.
I'm only surprised that there were that many people there.
Although this is a percentage. They cared about Atlanta Hawk's
basketball enough to swear about them, and the Rockets are
nestled in right there in between the second most foul

(01:05:36):
mouth fandom in the NBA thirty one point three five
percent of their comments. Rockets fans carried a negative tone.
Eight point eight nine percent of their comments included swear words.
Foul mouthed. That's what they come up with here. Do

(01:05:57):
you care who's the most polite, because now that you
know it's not here, you swear words. They have negative
comments about their team. Shockingly, it's the Utah Jazz, not
a tremendous number of comments, unsurprisingly, but also with the
lowest percentage. The Jazz, the Wizards, and the Nets three
of the worst teams in the NBA had the most

(01:06:19):
polite fandoms based on their subreddits. I wonder, why, what's
there to complain about? What's there to scream about? The
competitive nature of their basketball team? Isn't there? You might say, Hey,
the Jazz aren't very good. Hey I went to a
game and they lost. You know where they are. They're
not trying to win yet. Maybe next year is different

(01:06:40):
with the recent draft, with some of the moves they've made,
with not spending one hundred and thirty million over the
next four years on Walker Kestler, because they have a
bunch of other bigs they can put in there and
maybe get just about the same done. Maybe you'll see
a less polite fan base in Utah moving forward. I
was a little bit surprised that the LA teams didn't
rate a little bit higher here just my own personal

(01:07:00):
thought about how they are. Neither of them landing in
the top ten on either side. They're not super nice,
but they're not super mean Knicks fans. They won the title.
And I know this was a twelve month study, so
maybe only the last three months were without swear words.
And I don't know if the analysis could differentiate between
a positive message with a swear word and a negative
message with a swear word, because you could say these

(01:07:22):
bleep and knicks are awesome, and it might be analyzed improperly.
I would never do such a thing, but just an
interesting way for them to look at fandom. A lot
of people put out research projects like this. They'll gather
up all the X posts revolving around a certain team

(01:07:43):
by saying all X posts with this particular team related hashtag,
whether it's hashtag sixers or hashtag whatever is their season
long hashtag might have been, and then tell you what
that who's you know, what was said most by this
team and what was pretty inaccurate piction of a fandom
If you asked me so, you can say, well, then

(01:08:04):
why did you share this information? I just found it interesting,
so I thought I would share it with you that
the Rockets landed very, very high as one of the
most negative NBA fan bases, almost a third of their
comments carrying a negative tone. So appreciate them to come
up with the ability to figure out what a negative

(01:08:24):
tone was and their research. And they're also very foul
mouthed and I can bleep and get on board with
that Rockets fans a little baseball conversation somewhat off the field,
but obviously in activities during the game. Wanted to get
into here. As we get close to the top of
the four o'clock hour here and continue to watch one
of the quarterfinal matches for the World Cup, somebody will

(01:08:46):
probably score, and if not, they'll go to penalty kicks
and hopefully this time it'll go in the net. As
one penalty kick already taken during this match did not
find a home, so it's nothing nothing. Morocco hasn't scored,
France hasn't scored. Somebody will advance. It's a knockout game.
We'll make sure to keep you updated on that. If
you were paying attention to the season this year on

(01:09:06):
the major League Baseball side, and I know you have been,
you know that they have introduced the ABS, the Automated
ball Strike Challenge system put in place in the minor
league several seasons ago, tested on occasion spring training games,
not all of them, but nearly all of them. When
the electronics and technology was available, teams got a chance
to see what it was all about, and then it's

(01:09:27):
been implemented for this baseball season. Presumably teams were ready
for it, some more than others, and early in the season.
I'm not really sure why it was perceived that the
Astros were among the teams that weren't ready for it.
Data is all there. This is pretty simple stuff. You challenge,
either you win or lose, and we can easily compute
whether your team or your players individually are ready for

(01:09:50):
it or not yet. Really two groups, because there should
not be a third group. The players this should be
challenging pitches are catchers and hitters. Pitchers should never challenge ever, ever, ever, ever.
The Astros have done it a couple times this year,
and they have lost all of them. I believe it
rod Munno's challenge of pitch Brian Bray, who did the same.

(01:10:10):
They were wrong in both cases, and in neither case
was the pitch particularly close to being a strike. Clearly
they challenged a ball and wanted it to be overturned
to a strike. We saw it in yesterday's game. Curtis
Mead on a pitch that was out of the zone
that he thought would send him to first base was
called a strike, and being that he's a right handed batter,

(01:10:33):
and the Washington Nationals dugout is right in front of him,
and he makes his way to it, or makes his
way to first base. He did not immediately challenge, and
essentially he's facing the dugout. So when he eventually turned
and it was still pretty quick to the home plate
umpire and tapped his helmet like, oh, well, of course
that was a ball. I need to challenge that. What
was too late? And I think the perception that he

(01:10:54):
was looking into the dugout was enough for the umpire
in my mind, to correctly did his challenge. Happened to
Christian Walker a couple of weeks ago at Dykin Park.
First base and the Astros dugout, they're right next to
each other. When you're in the batter's box as a
right handed hitter, you're staring into your own dugout, and
he definitely was. I don't mean that's why he challenged,
But you don't have the option to explain it to

(01:11:16):
the umpire. Either you challenge immediately or you don't. And
it's even worse when you are looking into your dugout
because then the perception is you've used their information, which
you're not allowed to do. So we see challenges all
the time. More often than not, the players are still
getting them right. They're better than a fifty percent clip
the Astros with the latest update. If you're an Astros hitter,

(01:11:37):
we commend you. As a unit. Nobody does it better.
The Astros' ability as a hitting group is awesome. It's
awesome enough to be rated right at the top of
the list the batter success rate for the Houston Astros
on challenges this year. It's number one, led by jose
Al Tuo, Vanny socc Paratis, drowned out a little bit

(01:12:01):
by the likes of Cam Smith, but nobody does it better.
That makes me feel like either the individual players are
very good at discerning the strike zone or some combination
of that and the Astros making sure players had a
good handle on it. Not only the strike zone, but
challenging only when you should challenge A when you're going
to get it right, and probably B when it is

(01:12:23):
of greater significance, so you've saved a challenge, so when
the miss has happened from the home played umpire, you
have the challenge to do so. Sixty two percent roughly
sixty one point eight percent. Number one in baseball, the
worst team in Baseball is the Atlanta Braves at thirty
five point nine, and that has a massive discrepancy. I'm
almost shocked to see any team at that lowest success rate,

(01:12:44):
But kudos to the Astros' hitters for knowing the strike zone.
Al Tuve has successfully challenged more pitches than everybody in
the American League this year fifteen times. He's been successful
on his twenty one challenges. Sal Stewart's challenged thirty seven
times a rookie for Cincinnati, and he leads the majors

(01:13:04):
and most successful challenges. A little bit lower success rate
than al twovease seventy one percent, but he's gotten twenty
three right. That's the most in baseball. There is one
player in baseball that's gotten a challenge right every single
time he's asked for it. That is a hitter that
has done so at least ten times. He's the Astros
third baseman Isak Peretis eleven challenges, eleven successful challenges. He

(01:13:25):
even had two to one at bat during this series
with the Nationals, and then guys like Cam Smith are
a little under fifty percent. He's asked for a challenge
twenty times, eleven times he has been wrong want the
other side of the story. The other side of the
story is the Astros catchers. The Astros catchers are almost
the worst in baseball. They're twenty eighth less than half

(01:13:48):
the time, less than forty eight percent of the time
they get it right. And among the twenty five catchers
that have had at least twenty seven successful challenges, Christian
Vasquez twenty fourth success rate. Not good at it, not
good at it at all. Believe janardy As is slightly worse,

(01:14:09):
just hasn't been out there as often, but it does matter,
and to be that far down the list is a
little bit disturbing. I'm impressed at the Astros hitters. And
we always talk about players with good eye, players that
know the strike zone, players that understand where the strike
zone should be, regardless of who the umpire is. They
know it and they've shown it here in Houston. Catchers

(01:14:31):
are probably still in the frame this pitch, steal, that
pitch that was a strike last year pitch, and the
Astros catchers are the ones who have the furthest to
go basically in order to get there. You got guys
like j T reil Muto that are at seventy nine percent.
Tyler Stevenson in Cincinnati, who might be traded at seventy
three percent. Salve who can't hit it all this year

(01:14:53):
for some reason, he's at seventy one percent. Astros catchers
not very good under fifty percent. Much more importantly than
all that stuff, hopefully the umpires are better at doing this,
better at calling balls and strikes. That's the only real
true advantage that I think maybe baseball has. It's I
think impacted the way people hit, it's impacted number of

(01:15:14):
walks that are issued. I don't think the Astros pitching
staff just all of a sudden, for god, how to
throw strikes, even though they have all these new arms
in it, because they're still at the bottom of the league,
more walks than anybody in baseball, and it is absolutely
killing them. But I think they were treated to more
strikes than they deserved over the past handful of years,
maybe more so than any other team in baseball. We

(01:15:34):
didn't talk about this earlier this week, and it's definitely important.
Seven umpires are done with Major League Baseball after this year.

Speaker 2 (01:15:41):
C B.

Speaker 1 (01:15:41):
Buckner, Las Diaz and five others are all going to
accept their retirement and move along and c. B. Buckner's
been out most of the year because of a concussion
early in the year, and the other umpires, while some
of them are extremely well liked, look at the names
on that list and I mentioned a couple of them,
and then compare it to where they rank. There's ninety

(01:16:01):
one umpires in Major League Baseball this year. A lot
of them are at the bottom of the list behind
the plate. A little unfair to hit CB with that,
even though I think he's terrible, He's only been back
there for a handful of games, so his total number
of pitches called is very small. But he does rank
ninety first. Lance Barksdale is going to call it a
career this year. He ranks eighty first out of ninety one.

(01:16:25):
I know you'll be very surprised that last dis ranks
seventy fourth out of ninety one. Those are just a
handful of the umpires that will no longer be making mistakes, big,
huge mistakes that now no longer can be corrected because
teams are out of challenges in games that matter, and
that's all of them, games of the regular season and
games of the postseason. So I think we'll be happy

(01:16:47):
when those that I mentioned among others. Move along four
o'clock hour. Next here on the A Team, the biggest
free agent in the history of the NBA. Arguably he's
a free agent again. Lebron watches on gonna have fun
with that?

Speaker 2 (01:17:02):
Next the A Team on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 1 (01:17:09):
Two hours in and two hours to go. On this
wonderful Thursday afternoon. I don't know if it is or not.
I can't see outside. I assume it's a nice day.
Maybe it's raining, maybe it's not, maybe it's hot, maybe
it's not. Stuck here in the studio, but happy to
be here with you seven one three two one two five,
seven ninety or via social media at Adam Jay Wexler.
You can always find me there twenty four to seven.

(01:17:29):
Many of you have, and I appreciate that, and always
good conversation we had there. Oftentimes when we talk there
so to speak outside of show hours, end up bringing
it to the show because I think there's a lot
of interesting things that get said there, both in conversations
with myself and just in general. If it doesn't find
its way to Best of X, it might actually be
worthwhile information we share here during the show. No Astros

(01:17:52):
tonight as you well know they will have three games
remaining before they get to take four days off for
the All Star break. I'll come back to Houston many
of them after their games at Arlington this weekend, and
they'd be back on the field in Houston for Friday, Saturday,
and Sunday games against the Orioles. I would assume, although
the Astros have not said as much, that the starters
Tomorrow night and Saturday night will start the games next

(01:18:14):
Friday and Saturday. Give your team an opportunity to get
more games from the best that you have and give
more time away from the fields to those that aren't.
Tatsu Emi starts on Tuesday, presumably he doesn't start again
until at least next Sunday, not this coming Sunday, but
the Sunday after that. Mike Burrows is down at Triple A,

(01:18:36):
presumably starting a game during the Space Cowboys series ongoing
with Albuquerque, and then we'll see where things go from there.
They haven't announced a starter for this Sunday's game, although
Christian Xavier seems like the likely pitcher for it. He
threw on Saturday, his first appearance out of the bullpen,
gave the team two innings, then he threw last night
in the eighth inning of a six run game. They

(01:18:58):
were down eight two, and he got the final three out,
though it took him thirty pitches to get there, and
as a pitching in between starts type of routine, even
though he hasn't made any in months at the major
league level, understanding why he might be out there, was
not very surprised. I actually thought he might pitch in
Tuesday's game, But pitching on Wednesday, certainly nothing has changed.

(01:19:18):
I wouldn't think from his availability if that's who they
want to use on Sunday, I would assume that decision
has already been made. We just don't know what it is.
And Renel Blanco obviously also pitched this week. He and
Lance McCullers Junior, both on the injured list, both rehabbing
right now, both with the Space Cowboys. Start for Lance
he went four innings seventy seven pitches. Relief appearance for Renel,

(01:19:41):
he threw twenty seven pitches and went six up, six
down in a weather shortened game. Both would need to
be put on the roster in order to get there. Obviously,
no additional move for Lance because he's on the forty man.
He's on the fifteen day IL, but there would be
some sort of fort roster move needed with a full
forty man and Renel on the sixty day. I l

(01:20:01):
they got a couple of pitchers in that situation, with
Bennett Sussa, who also made a rehab appearance yesterday, got
his second inning of work. He is approaching a potential return,
and Hayden was Nesky, who Sunday made his second rehab
appearance in his schedule to make another one over the weekend.
At some point he on the sixty day AIL could
make his way back to the roster. So the roster

(01:20:23):
crush will be there, but we don't know how healthy
the pitchers on the active roster will be between now
and when any of those pitchers might be available. We
don't know if any of them will pitch their way
into making it an easy decision. They got Onlin Bursonta
back on the roster earlier this week because they needed
to send Mike Burrows to Triple A and needed him
to try to figure things out there rather than not

(01:20:45):
figuring things out with the astros. And I say that
not to be mean, but he clearly didn't and the
team didn't, and Josh Miller and the rest of the
pitching staff and the catchers and Mike Burrows, they obviously
did not find answers at the major league level over
his eighteen starts in nineteen appearances, and at some point
it became more than the Astros were finally willing to

(01:21:06):
deal with because they do not have a sixty win team,
they don't have a fifty win team. They're not in
a good position. They're in a reasonable competitive position for
the postseason, but without winning games, there's no postseason. They're
not in the playoff picture as it sits today, and
they're not nearly as good enough of a team around
him to continue to support that. And they finally made

(01:21:27):
that decision. It seemed like an easy one. It's a
tough one because this is a player you specifically targeted,
not just because he had many years of club control
in front of him, which is nice. You don't really
need a lot of club control over player if you
don't want him on the team. And at this point,
in his first full season as a major league starting pitcher,
the Astros aside him for the time being, we don't
want him on the team. Seven wins in the eighteen

(01:21:50):
starts that he made and allowing four runs or more
just far too often. It wasn't just this blow up
start here, and clearly his last start was one to
touch start start, but it was just so often they
really didn't have much of a chance. Ten of his
eighteen starts he allowed four runs or more the Astros.
They lost eight of those games. You're going to lose

(01:22:11):
no matter how good the offense is, even with the
Nationals offense. The Nationals offense best in baseball, there's no
way they should be hovering around five hundred. But they
only have one Foster Griffin. He pitched yesterday. They gave
up two runs. They won easily. If they had five
Foster Griffins, they'd be ahead of the Dodgers. They have
a terrible pitching staff outside of him and maybe Kaide Cavali.

(01:22:32):
Not much to look at there, and the Astros need
to This is far from their only problem. Having Mike
Burrows and Triple A doesn't do really anything to solve
the Astros starting pitching problems. They had two games since
he started, and they got seven and two thirds of
outs from their two starters, and Emi and Spencer the
last two days and the two of them gave up
ten runs. They don't have a lot of answers. They

(01:22:53):
have a lot of options, they don't have a lot
of answers, and they absolutely can't deal with any other
starting pitchers that can't get it done. And you can't
dismiss Spencer Arraghetti from that list because it was nice
that he opened July with a good start, and it's
even nicer that he won May Pitcher of the Month,
but that doesn't matter anymore when these are the starts

(01:23:13):
you continue to get from him. He gave up eight
runs yesterday in four innings. He had a nine ERA
for the entire month of June, and they're going to
continue putting him out there. I have no doubt, because
I don't think they like their other options. They have them,
but I don't think they like them. And tomorrow's starting pitcher.
It's a little bit unfair considering how his season was
shortened due to injury. He's only made a handful of starts.

(01:23:35):
It's absolutely insane that the Astros are this close to
the division lead, this close to the wild card lead.
They have one fewer win than the division leading Mariners,
and Hunter Brown has one win this year. Hunter Brown's
record this year, and we're about to see the Astros play,
you know, their ninety sixth game. He's one to zero.

(01:24:00):
Iano Brown has one decision this year and they've almost
played one hundred games. Obviously it's because he missed so
much time, but he hasn't pitched well enough even in
the team's record to be overwhelming, and it has to
be the ace of this particular staff has to be
overwhelmingly good. If he made thirty starts this year, they
needed twenty wins. If he ends up making nineteen starts

(01:24:21):
this year, they need fourteen wins. And it's when he
very hard to come by considering how things have started.
That's the kind of pitching rotation that they currently have.
I told you earlier this day, this last hour. It's
an absolute remarkable statistic that they've managed to win eight
of Emai's thirteen starts. Virtually impossible with what he's given them,
but the offensive bailed him out more often than not,

(01:24:42):
and they've scored a lot of runs in his outings,
and in the few outings where he's pitched well, he
has a few a very few number of outings where
he's given them six innings. He has four quality starts
this year and thirteen appearances. That's a miserably low rate,
but it's worse because the nine starts that aren't quality
starts aren't even you have a chance to win that
day because of him. You have a chance to win

(01:25:04):
every day no matter what happens, but your starting pitcher
should at least be able to give you that statement
you have a chance to win today's game. If he
leaves after only giving up three runs, you probably have
a chance to win that game. If you pitch two innings,
not so much. If he got four outs, same story.
If you got two outs or one out, which has
happened both of those things have happened with Emi, then

(01:25:26):
obviously disregard. But if you get a pitcher to go
out there and give up three runs or fewer, and
I still think it's wild that that's called a quality
start when you give him six, But the point is
they've pitched you into the seventh inning, they've only allowed
three runs, and while that era is not sparkling, it's
not even good at four point fifty. But your team
has a chance to win because that's basically the cutoff

(01:25:47):
in Major League baseball, three runs versus four runs. Teams
record when they score three runs or fewer isn't very good.
Most teams teams record when they score four runs or
more is almost always very good. And it's true for
the teams Like I said, it's true for almost every
team heading into yesterday, where you can add another game
that they lost when scoring three runs are fewer, they're

(01:26:08):
ten and thirty four. Forty four times they've scored three
runs are fewer. They've won ten times, fifty one times
they've scored four runs or more, and they're thirty six
and fifteen. That's all you're asking your starting pitcher and
then obviously everybody else to do. Just give up three
runs with this bullpen pitching the way it is, if
they only needed nine outs more games than not, instead

(01:26:30):
of needing sixteen outs like they did an Emis start,
and fifteen outs now twelve because you lost in Spencer's
start yesterday. It changes everything. It changes the math on everything,
It changes their effectiveness. These pitchers, Steven Oker and Brian King,
and even Brian a brave and clearly Josh hater, their
effectiveness is going to go down if they have to
continue to be used as often as they have. So

(01:26:52):
all of this comes down to starting pitching, and we'll
see a change in the starting pitching names starting Sunday,
whether it's Xavier making his first start of the season
or if it's not that day, soon after, it's gonna
be Renel Blanco making his first start of the season.
And you'll see some other options. Not Colton Gordon, I hope,
Not Jason Alexander, I hope. And I'm pretty skeptical that
we're ever going to see the return in twenty twenty

(01:27:13):
six of Mike Burrows to the starting rotation. What about football,
I'm sorry, what what about blue ball as a starter?
Not in twenty twenty six.

Speaker 2 (01:27:24):
I just I would give him a shot.

Speaker 1 (01:27:26):
In twenty twenty six. You want to have one of
your young arm I mean, obviously you have the option
of using him as somewhat of an opener and being
careful with the leash on him exactly. Just my personal
opinion is don't I wouldn't want to do that to him.
He might help the team, but I don't want to
do that to him because of what they've asked him
to do this year and most of his outings. While

(01:27:49):
sometimes his pitch count reaches fifty. Rarely he gets you
six outs, maybe seven. Now you're gonna ask him to
get twelve or fifteen in season to make that switch.
I know they just did it this year with Kaiwai Tang,
and I think I can use that as an example
of why not too? Is that right?

Speaker 2 (01:28:10):
You can't?

Speaker 4 (01:28:11):
I just look at Look what you'd probably get from
Christian Xavier maybe three innings.

Speaker 1 (01:28:15):
I know that's the worst part about it, you're saying.
I'm saying I don't want to do it to AJ
blue Ball because he can only give you this much,
and quite frankly, you don't know that you're getting much
more from any of these options. You know, how far
along can Lance get out of what he's been doing
as a major leaguer of the last couple of years.
We don't know. Can Renel Blanco consistently? We don't know.
I do think that is certain. They're probably having internal

(01:28:35):
conversations about AJ blue Ball as part of their starting rotation.
Quite frankly, they should be. I'm not in them, so
they don't have to listen to what I say. But
that would probably be more of an extreme measure if
I turned to AJ blue ball, but you're probably right.
It's something they absolutely have to consider with what's going on.
I had so much fun talking about Lebron's free agency

(01:28:58):
that I didn't talk at all about Lebron's free agency.
How about that?

Speaker 3 (01:29:01):
Next?

Speaker 1 (01:29:04):
Several very important items to get to this afternoon, including
our interview with Channel Rome coming up at five pm
in the place of football at five, A bunch of
other things that maybe aren't quite as important, like where
will certain players end up and how will things play
out on the NBA side mentioned earlier in the day.
One Los Angeles team embroiled in I guess it's a

(01:29:26):
controversy with the Toronto Raptors putting out the statement saying, well,
we're not quite ready to finalize our deal for Kawhi
Leonard because we've been informed by the league that whatever
punishment financially speaking, that does on Kawhi if and when
the NBA's investigation concludes, what's going to be our responsibility? Duh,

(01:29:48):
he's on your team. Guess whose responsibility it is. I'm
sure the Clippers will be hit with something of greater significance,
and probably both a fine and draft pick losses, and
probably more if they are found to have operated in
the manner that is suggested by the fact that there's
even an investigation before you get to the other story

(01:30:10):
that's no longer in LA, but obviously it starts from LA,
which is the team that Lebron James last played for.
I didn't mention that the Clippers actually put a statement
out over to our friends over at to ESPN. The
Clippers at the very very end of the statement, after
they note how cooperative they've been for the past ten

(01:30:33):
months during this investigation, dozens of interviews, thousands and thousands
of documents, access to our staff. We've reached an agreement
on a deal with Kawhi Leonard being traded to the Raptors,
but we've since been informed the trade can only be
finalized if Raptors ownership assumes the risk of penalties related

(01:30:55):
to Kawhi's contract. They could theoretically result theoretically theoretically result
from the ongoing investigation, expected to be finalized soon. End
of the statement reads this, We remain confident that when
the facts are evaluated fairly and thoroughly, the NBA will
confirm exactly what we have said from the beginning. We

(01:31:15):
have not done what we are accused of doing. Did
I skip over the part where they call themselves the victims? Yeah,
I did, because they get into the Joe Sandberg aspiration,
that company and that individual fraud. He's been convicted. He
is in prison, sentenced to fourteen years. That's all that

(01:31:36):
happened here. We got involved with the wrong guy. Probably
not enough to absolve them from the blame, which is
why the investigation is ongoing, exists at all, and will
likely come with penalties for the Clippse, Kawhi Leonard and
the Toronto Raptors, because Kawhi Leonard will still be a Raptor.

(01:31:57):
But if you remember last year's postseason, it did not
go well for the Rockets, and it was partial because
of Number twenty three doing things like this.

Speaker 2 (01:32:11):
Cross court pass intercepted.

Speaker 5 (01:32:14):
Lebron took it away, fifty turnover nine for Kevin Durant,
minute remaining in the Rockets down five smart dribbles of
basketball bounce past Lebron to a flush mod of the lane.
Seven point games twenty six for Lebron.

Speaker 1 (01:32:34):
He was very good and certainly helped the Lakers close
out the Houston Rockets. Far from finished in his NBA career,
but as people in LA have written, he got out
of the relationship so they couldn't get out of it first.
He said, I want out. He broke up with the
Lakers first before they could break up with him. I'll

(01:32:55):
be very interested to see what the future holds for
Bronni James. His contract became guaranteed for this third season
during the offseason, right before publicly Lebron James said he
was no longer going to be a Laker. I don't
really think there was anyone that wanted him to be
a Laker. I don't think he wanted to be a Laker.
I don't think the Lakers wanted him to be a Laker,

(01:33:17):
and so that's where we are. His rights were officially
renounced yesterday by the Lakers. He was already a free agent,
but the technicality of it was taken out of the way.
So a lot of people have opinions on it. I'm
shocked at how many of them are out there, especially
the ones that shouldn't be out there. But there are
a few teams that are interested in his services quite obviously.

(01:33:38):
I truly mean it as much as negativity. He's probably
out there for the remaining years of Lebron's career, he's
definitely still capable of helping a team win games at
a pretty high degree. That's putting it mildly. I do
not think he's into defense, and hasn't been for five years.
And when the rest of the Lakers he was playing
with this year, meaning Luca was out and Marcus Smart

(01:33:59):
was in, and they played a lineup around him that
had players other than Luke Canard that cared about it.
They actually were a very good defensive team against Houston,
and part of it was Houston's fault, but they just
did not get very good shot opportunities, let alone make
any of them. I was a little disappointed that Houston
constantly talked about, yeah, we just got to make shots. Well,
they're asking you, forcing you, compelling you to take low

(01:34:21):
percentage shots. We're gonna miss him and they did, and
unfortunately that helped eliminate them. But in the case of
Lebron James, yes, he's gonna help a team win next year,
and he's probably gonna go to a team that's very
similar to the one he just played on, where he's
not the best player, where he's not the second best player.
He was the third biggest difference maker on the Lakers
last year in my opinion, with Reeves and Doncicch went

(01:34:43):
healthy in front of him, and I think that's the
exact scenario he's going to be in this upcoming year.
Brian Windhorst talking about one of the teams he thinks
could open up a runway as he uses for Lebron's
services cross corporate, I'll get it right here.

Speaker 6 (01:35:01):
What I suspect that is going to be important to
him is that he is going to be able to
get through the regular season without having to go to
extraordinary measures, without having to play thirty eight minutes a game,
without having to take twenty five shots. I think Philly
can make a compelling case that they would not tax
him too much and he could save his body for
the postseason and he can build up for the postseason.

Speaker 2 (01:35:22):
Philly can make a strong case to do that.

Speaker 1 (01:35:26):
A couple things there. He mentioned Philadelphia, and quite obviously
they are loaded. A healthy Philadelphia seventy six ers roster
might relegate Lebron James to the fourth most impactful player.
He might rank third still, but Joel Embiid, Jalen Brown
and Tyrese Maxy, they're all all NBA caliber talents. That
would be an unbelievable roster. If they got to the

(01:35:48):
postseason and stayed healthy throughout the postseason, that'd be an
unbelievable landing spot. Second thing from Windy. He doesn't play
thirty five minutes a game already. That's a couple of
years ago. Last time he played thirty five minutes a game.
Twenty five shots per game. He's never done that, never
even done anything close to that. He had fifteen shots

(01:36:10):
a game last year. So I know the point he's
trying to make, but I also appreciate it's okay to
get a little hyperbole or a little I'm gonna really
put this out there so people really understand what I'm saying.
But he's not a twenty five shot per game player.
Almost nobody in the NBA ever is. He's a fifteen
shot a game player with talent around him. Had talent

(01:36:31):
around him offensively last year he was fifteen shots a game.
Sure it changed in the playoffs, but that's his whole point.
His whole point is he wants to go to a place.
He thinks he wants to go to a place that
is not leaning on him and the Lakers were not
leaning on him last year, not until it mattered in
the playoffs. He only played sixty games. He'd played seventy
plus in the last two years, so that all makes sense.

(01:36:53):
But he does make this other very obvious note as
he continues, Philadelphia can do that, and I'm not even
sure there's seriously pursuing him. But another team can also
do that.

Speaker 2 (01:37:03):
But so can Cleveland.

Speaker 6 (01:37:05):
Cleveland has a build out just as strong as Philly,
and they and they are home so and I mean,
that's what everybody out there is worried about, is they're
trying to make a compelling case. Can anybody make the
compelling case that's more compelling on the roster than Cleveland
and more compelling on the home front than Cleveland. The
teams out there that I've talked to are skeptical. They

(01:37:27):
don't know for sure, but they're skeptical.

Speaker 1 (01:37:30):
He knows, I do. Respect to his reporting, his intel
on this, his relationship with those closest to Lebron and
Lebron himself, I think he's telling you something without reporting it.
It's absolute positive fact, even though he knows it to
be true. The leader right now is the Cavs a
third stint with Cleveland is the most likely scenario, and

(01:37:50):
I think Philadelphia, among the five or six teams that
we're going to continue to hear about, is probably a
little bit further down the list. It doesn't mean he
wouldn't want to go there, because I do. I do
think this. I think everybody thinks this. Why is he
still playing? He's got numbers, counting numbers. Nobody's getting there.
Nobody's gonna challenge the number of points that he's scored,

(01:38:12):
because nobody's gonna play that long and at that level.
That's what's already set him apart. This isn't gonna happen again.
It's not a comparison between him and Jordan, or him
and Kobe, or him and anybody else in the debate
for best player. Ever, what he has done in some areas,
as in the total numbers, specifically points, that's not happening again.
It's never gonna happen again. Nobody's gonna do what he did.

(01:38:33):
Nobody's gonna start their career early enough and play at
a high enough level and then stay in the NBA
long enough to do what he has done. He is
unique in that regard. I do not believe that will
ever happen again, and heck, it might become even more
difficult to repeat that when we have seventy six game seasons.
Maybe in the future. I don't think we're gonna have
more games in the season, but there's a possibility we'd

(01:38:55):
have less. So just something to consider with Lebron. But
the Timberwolves I do think makes sense for all those
same reasons. The Calves make sense for that reason, and
it's almost specifically why the Warriors do not make sense.
And that's probably the team that if you look at
the odds right now, they're probably second on the list
of the Calves. And if Steph Curry was approaching thirty,

(01:39:15):
if Jimmy Butler was almost thirty and not coming off
that injury, sure join those two guys. That'd be unbelievably
fun to watch, even if Lebron was still the age
he currently is. But those players are not only old
and broken down, very injury prone. Also curious to see
where Draymond Green goes only because his act is over
if he's not on an elite, unbelievable team, and we've

(01:39:38):
seen that the last few years. Halfway through this third
hour of the program, a rarity this week, an opportunity
for a signature segment on Thursdays. We asked the question,
what's up with that? That's next signature segment time Thursdays,
we ask what's up with that? Wex and Josh here
with you this afternoon five o'clock. We're going to talk

(01:39:59):
with chan Rome. Right now, we are going back to
baseball for what's up with that? We are within one
month of the Major League Baseball's trade deadline. August third
is when it will hit, and nearly all of the
major league teams are in the playoff chase. There's a
couple teams in both leagues that clearly are sellers. Most
everybody else will have a decision to make. The Astros

(01:40:20):
among a huge group of teams that will have to
decide between being buyers or sellers, and a couple of
teams near the top of the standings will just have
to decide do we want to buy because we're clearly
in position to make the playoffs, but maybe if we buy,
we can be an even bigger threat to win at all.
That's what the Astros have done for years. Obviously during

(01:40:41):
the Elite years, the JV years before last year, the
Astros were already in great position many instances and decided
to get a better position. And so I bring that
to the table as we visit a couple of different
entities and their thoughts on the trade deadline, one from
CBS Sports and the other we'll start with from our
friend Jeff passing over at es PN Astros. On both

(01:41:04):
sides of this, what would make sense for them to
go out and get And interestingly, as I'll start, who
might be taken off their roster that somebody else wants
to get. He's not the first to suggest it, but
I do not think it will happen. Suggest that Jeremy
Pagna can be had. Maybe it's more of a dream

(01:41:28):
for the team, because that's how I wrote the article.
Each team, he goes through them and gives them a
best match for a player to acquire, and then a
dream player for a team to acquire, and that's Jeremy
Payannha for the Tampa Bay Rays. I get it, good
defensive shortstop in place and Taylor walls, but not a

(01:41:48):
very good offensive player. And after you get past the
top couple of hitters in their lineup, depending on any
given day, it's usually three or four players with Randa
Diaz Cameron Arrow. Maybe it's four deep. There's really not
much else. A lot of lineups are dealing with that.
See Houston. When Jeremy Payne returns on Friday, the Astros
lineup is four deep. It's five deep if you include

(01:42:12):
jose Al Tuvey, but it's four deep if you don't
include him. And currently that means their first hitter is
somebody you don't include. But Jeremy PAYNYA to Tampa A.
I'll take Tampa side first. This seems so incredibly unlikely
for Tampa to be adding talent like that, considering where

(01:42:32):
Jeremy Payania is on his career path, his salary, watch,
his agent, and what lies ahead in his future. Jeremy
Payne's known one organization, the Houston Astros. Jeremy Pania has
been a relatively low paid talent. He's making just under
ten million this year and he has one season of
arbitration left. Is that enough for the Rays to send

(01:42:57):
out what is still a very good prospect Leyden team
and several of those would certainly be asked for in
return for the Astros A year and two months of
Jeremy Pagna I don't have any doubt that that would
make them the absolute positive, definitive favorites in the American League,
even if Tarak Schooble went to a different team in
the American League. They're in good position to win already

(01:43:20):
because they have pitching, and they have maybe the second
or third most dynamic offensive player in Camon Arrow, and
each of the two guys that usually bad in front
of him, they're always on base. That's why he's such
a monster this year. But Jeremy Payne the Rays, I
could see it if they really think that it's worthwhile
for that short period of time. The idea that Scott

(01:43:41):
Boris and the Tampa Bay Rays and Jeremy Paynier are
going to come to some sort of agreement on a
long term extension moving forward that I don't see. There
are other players in front of him that they have,
and very few players get long term deals with the Rays,
so I couldn't see him going there. And it's also
the same reason I don't think the Astros are sending
him anywhere. The series with the Rangers and the subsequent

(01:44:03):
opening few series of the post All Star Break would
have to go insanely badly for the Astros, And I
haven't even brought up any injury concerns either the Astros
might have when they want to move him, or that
the Rays might have and that they're hesitant to acquire him.
I don't think they play much of a role in
this scenario other than he would have to pass a physical.

(01:44:24):
I don't think the Astros are going to sell I
can understand that people want them to. Are you clinging
to this window, this twenty twenty six Astros team window?
Why is it going to be better next year? Only
going to be better next year? If they make a
deal that makes it better, they would have to add

(01:44:45):
a player that is an Astro long term that they
can count on to make a difference waybe on twenty
twenty six, And I don't know how they have the
arsenal to do that. So otherwise they're going to trade
for a player that makes this year's team just a
little bit better. Maybe he's under club control for a
few years, maybe he's not. What did it cost you
to get him? Because it's probably coming off the major

(01:45:06):
league roster at certainly the forty man And then what
how is your twenty twenty seven team looking? And I
rolled my eyes for those of you that are on
TV for the very obvious reason, there's not going to
be any baseball in twenty twenty seven. So what does
it mean to your twenty twenty eight team and beyond
that and how that factors in all these deals. I
still haven't figured that out, and I don't think major

(01:45:27):
league teams have either. But I don't see Jeremy Pania
being on the move. And if you'd listen to the
most recent reports, especially the one from Chandler Rome, who
will join us in twenty minutes, Jordan Alvarez, the soon
to be MVP of the American League. He is not
being offered in trade, and he's not going to be traded,
and he might very well sign a second extension with

(01:45:48):
the Astros when this first one is no longer the
one he's playing under. He's under contract for two more
seasons at under twenty seven million each of those seasons.
Now to the other side of it, who the Astros
might be looking for, And this is a name that's
been suggested for the Astros for over a year, same

(01:46:08):
name that was their last trade deadline, although now he's
on a different team and it's outfielder Jake McCarthy makes
total sense. It made total sense last year, and it
would have been a fantastic deal last year because a
bearly would have cost you anything. He was traded this
offseason from Arizona to Colorado for the Rockies' twentieth best

(01:46:29):
pitching prospect who's done nothing in the minors. He's just
another guy. He's got scuffed. Maybe he advanced his but
he's nothing special and an Astro's equivalent. Because their farm
system not rated nearly as high as the Rockies. Maybe
it would have cost them their fourth fifth best pitching
prospect or their tenth or eleventh best player, somebody that
the Rockies GM liked who knows, or the Diamondbacks GM like.

(01:46:52):
Because he went from Arizona to Colorado. It would be great,
except for the fact that if you've been watching Jake
McCarthy all this year, he's going to be of a
little bit tougher to acquire. Granted, unfortunately he's a Colorado special.
He has unbelievable numbers at home, and he has incredibly

(01:47:12):
slightly below average numbers elsewhere. But acquiring a player with
an eight fifty six OPS last year and a five
ninety one ops, you would have been adding on the
very very very very cheap. He still has another year
of club control and taking a chance that he can
compete at dyk In Park slightly less than he is
in Colorado at Corsefield, it's probably worth taking and it

(01:47:36):
would cost you more that it might have a year ago.
That is actually something I could absolutely see unfolding. The
Rockies will be sellers, and if the Astros are going
to shoot even higher, then they should be shooting for
his teammate, who also has miserable splits, but he's a
former number one overall pick, also could have been had
for very little earlier last offseason, last deadline, this offseason.

(01:48:00):
Now he's got an OPS in the mid nine hundreds.
But it's all Colorado driven, and that's Mickey Moniac. Two
names you will hear a ton for the next three
weeks associated with the Astros. On that note, as we
return here to the A team, the Rockets made it

(01:48:23):
official what was reported that they had come to an
agreement with restricted free agent Tarry Easton. It is now
official They've re signed Tarr Easton, so he will continue
with the only organization he has known after drafting a
handful of seasons ago. He has played his way into
what they clearly feel is a prominent, important role with
this team. Very a different tale of his season last year,

(01:48:45):
beginning just absolutely on fire from three point distance and
paying huge dividends for this team, which is essentially what
he does all the time. When he shoots threes well
or essentially scores in any particular game, they win. It
is almost that simple. I believe it's thirty six games
over the last two seasons he's scored fifteen or more

(01:49:07):
points or twenty eight to eight in those games. If
the minutes are there for him to do that, then
that's great, and to earn those minutes I think that's
what they're hoping for in the future. I think it
was the proper way to play it. From a management perspective,
restricted free agency is tricky and there is always a
concern that there is a deal out there that a

(01:49:28):
team is specifically putting in place, not necessarily to take
the player, but to make sure you can't match. Usually
works out for the player in terms of financially. You
never know if they're really gonna be happy there, but
you put either a trade kicker in there some other
kind of poison pill in there that makes it almost
impossible with the financial situation that the team he's coming

(01:49:50):
from is in. And while you have to do weight
through the period of restricted free agency from the time
you make the announcement to the league office to the
time the window of matching the deal expired, teams more
often than not end up matching. It's not happening with
Quinton Post because he's not a ten million dollars a
year player, so the Golden State Warriors are happy to
let him play in Memphis for that amount of money.

(01:50:12):
But in the case of Tari Easton, ultimately it came
down to the Rockets and Easton agreeing to a deal
before any other team came to a restricted deal with him.
So while they let him reach restricted free agency, he
and the team negotiated last offseason same they did with
Jabari Smith Junior. Reach an agreement with Jabari, and we're
unable to reach an agreement with Tari basically bet on himself.

(01:50:34):
And again, with the up and down nature of the
season last year, it's tough to say that he won.
It's also tough to say that he lost and that
he just signed an eighty one million dollar contract over
the five seasons, with the last year being a player option.
Trying to read between the lines is what everybody does
on social media today. Tarry Easton posted on the X

(01:50:55):
platform quite simply blessed. I don't think we have to
read between those lines. I think that's probably genuine and
makes a lot of sense. And well, the Rocket says
a group bringing Fred back off the injured list in
whatever capacity plays at this year. Same for Steven Adams
and much of the likely roster from last year's team

(01:51:18):
that was under contract. We'll be back, obviously. Dorian Finney
Smith has been moved on from and he might actually
get moved on from again, with Charlotte potentially buying him
out of the last guaranteed year of his deal. Josh
Koge has moved on signing a free agent deal elsewhere.
That's other than the two signings they've made, and their
roles are to be determined. Marcus Smart and Bogdan Bogdanovich

(01:51:41):
are in. Most of the rest of the group is back,
and that is clearly what their plan is going to be.
There's not some deal out there. I don't think that
lands them anybody that's better than their top six seven
players on the roster. Certainly somebody could be aded that
makes a difference on the other side of the roster,
and certainly one of the rookies could play themselves into

(01:52:02):
a different situation. It's pretty unlikely. I think the players
that they've added the last few years, whether it's j D.
Davison or Isaiah Crawford or Tristan Newton who's on a
two way deal, or Copeland now and Bruce Thornton, pretty
unlikely those players play any kind of reasonable role with
the Rockets this year. But will another player, a veteran player,
be added? Will Jay shn Tate be a part of

(01:52:24):
the team next year? Those questions at least still remain unanswered.
Fred Van Vliet, Reed Shepherd, Amen Thompson, Marcus Smart, Bogdanovich.
Those five players make up your back court, with obviously
Amen Thompson splitting some time there, and in the front court,
Kevin Durant, Tarry Easton, Jabari Smith, Steven Adams, Alpa and Shingoon.

(01:52:45):
That's your front court. That's your roster for twenty twenty six,
twenty seven. That's the team that's going to win in
the first round. For the first time as a group,
and obviously the group got Kevin Durant last year and
didn't win, And the year before they had Fred and
didn't have Durant and did not win, losing to Golden
State two years ago, losing to the Lakers last year.
Do you think that's reality? Do they think it's reality?

(01:53:07):
They must, And some of it still goes into what
else is in the West, You know, when you Jokic
Nikola Jokic with the Nuggets, there's a lot of chatter
about his future there. He has said quite clearly, I
intend to play here. I intend to sign here. He
has the opportunity to sign right now, much like Donovan
Mitchell did, but he could also wait and get a

(01:53:28):
bigger payday from the same team when he's eligible for
that later on down the road in a year. So
some people are questioning whether or not he really truly
is gonna want to be there, if that's reality, all
that stuff, But if he's on your team, you obviously
have a chance to win, but you're also still in
the Western Conference. Like if this Rockets roster was playing
Eastern Conference basketball last year, they would have been a

(01:53:49):
top four seed. They could have easily knocked off any
of the teams they were playing. Not saying they would have,
not calling them better than the Pistons or the Knicks,
or the Celtics or the Sixers or anybody, or the Calves,
but they absolutely could have beaten any of those teams.
Much more likely that they would have beaten any one
of them than Denver, than San Antonio, than Oklahoma City.

(01:54:13):
That's what the Rockets are truly competing with. To win
an NBA title, you have to beat one Eastern Conference team,
gotta be three in the West. Last year likely would
have been the Lakers, the Thunder, and the Spurs. They
didn't even beat the Lakers, let alone have a chance
to compete against the Spurs or Thunder. Don't really see
a non injury reason why either of those two teams
would be worse. I don't think there are any veteran

(01:54:36):
additions headed to Oklahoma City that will make much of
a difference. Tobias Harris is a veteran addition to the Spurs.
They should make a difference, especially if they got Tobias
Harris' playoff edition from this year. He was pretty mediocre
during the regular season. Nice veteran presence, good, a locker
room guy, helpful player, but they didn't count on him
to score a lot and he didn't. Then in the

(01:54:56):
playoffs because Jalen Duran was awful, they did count on
him score a lot, and he did. They're much more
in flux overall with all the things that have happened
to do Detroit and Dura included. But back to the
Western Conference, it's not like that for San Antonio. For Harris,
they have everybody that's on the court with him, basically

(01:55:17):
as a better offensive weapon, Castle, better offensive player, Harper
better offensive player, Wemby obviously better offensive player. I mean,
Champagne's a three point specialist. Terrible defensive player, but a
three point specialist, Devin Vassel saying thing three points they
have plenty of that. He's basically a better Harrison Barnes,

(01:55:37):
who also re signed with them. So they definitely, barring injury,
they're not worse, and sadly, they're three best players. Harper
just played his first season, Castle just played his second season,
Wemby just played his third season. If I was talking
to you earlier about when are we moving on from
calling the Rockets young core young, especially since much that

(01:56:00):
isn't even here anymore. You're nowhere near saying that about
San Antono. That's the difference. Dylan Harper's second season next year,
it's not gonna be worse than his first season. It's
gonna be better. Stefan Castle's third season, it's not gonna
be worse than last year. It's gonna be better. And
he was playing in the finals last year, and they
were in the finals partially because of his play in

(01:56:21):
the postseason. It's unfortunate. And Denver, Houston, La, Minnesota, Golden State,
anybody else, they're all facing the same thing. Of those
two teams, I do think are head and shoulders above
the others. But in a seven game series, as we
see every year, and with injuries as a part of it,
anything can still happen. Roster for roster. Probably not on

(01:56:42):
the same page, not in the same book. We'll talk
Astros Baseball top of the hour, five o'clock, our visit
five minutes out with Chandler Rome.

Speaker 3 (01:56:49):
It's next.

Speaker 2 (01:56:52):
The eighteen one sport.

Speaker 1 (01:56:53):
A weekly guests. Chandler Ome normally joins us on Friday,
is set to join us right now. Astros will off
day today, three more games before the All Star break.
They are in Arlington for the Rangers Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
The Rangers are actually playing this evening before we get there,
but Chandler joins us now. As the Astros went through
Washington and ended up losing their second series of their

(01:57:16):
last three, They're starting pitching left a lot to be desired.
They only left town with two of the three starting
pitchers from that series. It seemed a long time coming Chandler,
but the decision finally made to see if Mike Burrows
can figure things out while he's not hurting the major
league team. What do you think is truly next over
the next couple of weeks for Mike Burrows.

Speaker 3 (01:57:38):
Yeah, it'll be interesting.

Speaker 7 (01:57:39):
He's gonna slide into the triple A rotation, so it's
not as if they're sending into the bullpen or this
is like a reset sort of thing, like he's gonna
keep pitching. He's gonna keep pitching as a starter. I
think it just got to a point where there was
so much that they are trying to work on to
get him right that it almost became impossible to do

(01:57:59):
it on a major league schedule. On trying to do
it while being a competitive starter for the major league team. So,
you know, the one thing that Mike Burrows has done
and did for his entire you know stent up here,
was he gave them length. Right, I think he went
six innings and at least fifteen of seventeen starts. But

(01:58:21):
he wasn't able to do that on Monday in Washington
after being staked to a five run lead that didn't
help the cause. And then just the pure fact that
they they they were going to need an extra arm,
and I think they wanted an extra arm because they
weren't gonna need that spot in the rotation.

Speaker 3 (01:58:37):
Again, Like, I think it made sense.

Speaker 7 (01:58:40):
To do it when they did it, just to give
him a full break, give him a full kind of reset,
and see where they go. But it's pretty clear he's
gonna have to pitch better. He's gonna have to pitch
better in triple A. I'm not sure they're gonna look
solely at results, but they're gonna want to see a
lot of the changes that they've been trying to make
with him kind of translate into a little less pressure
sure environment, but yeah, not the outcome that Dana Brown

(01:59:04):
or the Astros wanted for this thing.

Speaker 3 (01:59:06):
To go this way.

Speaker 1 (01:59:07):
He goes four and a third, followed by three and
two thirds from Emai, followed by four innings from Spencer Araghetty,
with the potential for other options being available, whether it's
Avier Blanco, McCullers junior or not long after maybe Hayden
was Nesky. Are those similar questions that have been asked
and now answered about Burrows needing to be asked and

(01:59:27):
potentially answered about Imai and Araghetty. Obviously they're both in
very different situations.

Speaker 7 (01:59:34):
Yeah, I mean, look, if tess Emi wasn't making eighteen
million dollars and wasn't on a dyke In commercial that
airs before every game at dyke In Park, and we
probably would be having a more serious conversation, right, Like
I think, if you look at his body of work,
he's probably more worthy of a minor league option of
getting him out of the rotation in some capacity. Because

(01:59:57):
the thing with Mike Burrows that you could like, and
I mentioned earlier, the thing that you could rely on
with him was that he would get you deep into games.
He would get you into the fifth or sixth inning.
Now he may allow three or four runs in the process,
but eating innings is valuable.

Speaker 3 (02:00:10):
Tetsuya Emi just just cannot do that.

Speaker 7 (02:00:13):
Like you have no there is no semblance of consistency
with him in any fashion. You know, it's it's laborious
at best and it's terrible at worst. And you know, again,
if he wasn't on the contract he's on, if there
wasn't other extenuating circumstances, I think you'd be having a
pretty serious conversation about whether he should truly continue to

(02:00:38):
be in this rotation because he I know, Mike Burns
has the era that's unsightly, and I know he's thrown
more innings, but Tatsuya Imai is the clear cut weakest
link of this rotation, and it's not really close, you know,
with Spencer Arighetti. You know, he obviously, as everyone knows,
he started the year in triple A, and I think

(02:00:58):
you're starting to see why. I think you know a
lot of people that were very irate that he started
in triple A to begin the year. I think you're
kind of starting to see some of the things they
wanted to work on him with, Like they wanted to
get him more in zone, they wanted to make his
misses more competitive, They wanted to make his off speed
stuff just generate more chase, generate more, you know, miss

(02:01:19):
more bats that way.

Speaker 3 (02:01:20):
And the Spencer stuff is so good.

Speaker 7 (02:01:24):
But when it's when he's missing as much as he
is command wise, guys just aren't going to swing at it.
So look, this is all stuff they're gonna have to
reassess after the All Star War break or Journey All
Star break, I should say that's am I and Spencer
Arighetti are not scheduled to pitch in Arlington, so.

Speaker 3 (02:01:40):
Their first halfs are over.

Speaker 7 (02:01:42):
So you know, these are things that they're gonna have
to really look at coming out of the break. You know,
how do they want to line this up? Where does
it benefit these guys? The most to be is Ronel Blanco?
Ready can Hayden was Nesky? Is Ethan Peco at Triple A?
Is that a guy that they want to you know,
roll ice on see if they can catch lightning in

(02:02:02):
a bottle with him. He's been pitching very well down there.
They have a lot of questions to ask about this rotation,
and I'm not sure that they had any answers right now.

Speaker 1 (02:02:10):
Chandler Rome of the Athletic Governing the Astros and Major
League Baseball joining us here as he does each and
every week, wrote a nice piece on Jordon Alvarez. For
those that haven't seen it, definitely check it out and
you can find it via Chandler's handle right there on
social media or via the Athletic itself at Chandler Underscore
Rome a little bit more about him rather than Jord

(02:02:33):
on the baseball player, tell us a little bit about it.

Speaker 7 (02:02:36):
Yeah, And I mean that was the whole goal going
into it, because I really don't think anyone knows anything
about this guy. I think everyone knows kind of how
they got him, right, like the trade with the Dodgers
and the Dodgers thinking they were asking for another Alvarez
and things like that. But I don't think anybody really
knows much about the guy. And I'm not sitting here
saying that I got his entire life story and I

(02:02:58):
poked and prodded and got all of his ent some
hobbies and what he does. But it's pretty clear that
he's a pretty simple guy and that he's a guy
that really doesn't really enjoy the spotlight he's almost And
I didn't write it this way because I thought it
would not come across well in print, but he's almost
an uncomfortable kind of superstar. Like it's almost like he

(02:03:18):
doesn't really want this. He doesn't want the spotlight, he
doesn't want the cameras on him. He doesn't want to
be the center of attention. He would rather that be
his teammates. He would rather that kind of be the
team itself. And that's a noble thing. And as Josh
Hater said in that story, I was a lost art
just in this day and age, where you know, everyone's
bat flipping, everyone's got big chains, everyone's got a big personality.

(02:03:40):
You know, Jordan doesn't have that. He's he likes to fish,
he likes to hunt. He's just a very simple guy.
And I think that's, you know, something that kind of
peeling a layer back on him that not a lot
of people have seen. So that was the intention going in.
I'm glad it's gotten received a little bit, but but yeah,
that was the main, you know, rationale behind it was
just kind of figure out who this guy is so

(02:04:01):
and then within it, obviously he said he would like
to stay with the Ashers for the rest of his career,
which I.

Speaker 3 (02:04:05):
Think is what everyone is drawn to.

Speaker 7 (02:04:07):
And and that you know he I thought it was
very interesting that he said he himself approached team officials
in the front office when all the trade stuff was
going on to basically say like, you're not trading me,
are you? And I think that gives more validity to
the thought that he does want to be here.

Speaker 3 (02:04:23):
He wants to be here for a very long time.

Speaker 7 (02:04:25):
And obviously he's got two more years left on this
extension on this contract he's playing under, which given his production,
that contract he's playing on right now is highway robbery
and it's one of the more team friendly deals in
the league. His next contract will not be that. His
next con especially if he wins MVP this year, especially
if he keeps doing this his contract, his next contract

(02:04:46):
will be the largest if if it is done with
the Astros, it will be the largest deal that Jim
Crane's ever given out in his ownership tenure. And it's
gonna be another test for Jim Crane because this is
another guy another he's not homegrown, but he's a another
guy that they have developed and a guy that has
gone out and said I want to stay here for
my whole career. Carlos Korea did it and they didn't

(02:05:07):
give him that money. Obviously they have him back now
and it's going to end up that way. But there's
been other guys that have said this that they have
not ponied up for. And I wonder if you or
on An Alvarez will be the guy that changes that.

Speaker 1 (02:05:18):
With it being two years out, because he's still under contract,
with the looming twenty ten twenty seven work stoppage, and
with all these unknowns there, could you even hazard a
guess at what an Astro's contract extension would look like.

Speaker 7 (02:05:35):
I mean, I think we can all be adults here
and say it's gonna have to start with the two,
right like if the if the the largest contract in
franchise history is Josel two bays and it was six
years for one.

Speaker 3 (02:05:46):
Hundred and fifty one million dollars, I think he's gonna
have to start with the two.

Speaker 7 (02:05:50):
And look they've I mean, if I think they have
offered something like that in the past to other players
and they just hasn't they hadn't taken it, But I
think it will have to start with that. You know,
jord On just turned twenty nine. He is in the
prime of his career. This is the prime of his
career and if he wins MVP this year, or I
mean even if he doesn't win the award, if he
just keeps going on this pace, and let's say he

(02:06:10):
finished his second or whatever, like it's gonna have to
start with a two. You would think if it's something
that he wants to keep for the rest of his career,
if you want to stay for the rest of his career,
you would think it's gonna be somewhere in the six
seven year range. And but again then you get into timing, right,
do they do it next year during the season when

(02:06:31):
there's one year left on the contract? Do they wait
and let him get the free agency when everyone can
bit on him. I think it's worth noting that he
is not represented by Scott Boris. I think this all
it always comes into play when you talk about extensions
and you talk about guys getting the free agency, everyone asks.

Speaker 3 (02:06:47):
Like, is Boris involved? He is not.

Speaker 7 (02:06:49):
Jordan is not a Scott bors client, so you don't
have to worry about that per se. But look, I
don't think this is a situation where he's just gonna
take the first thing they offer him. I think it's
gonna have to be com measure it with his value
because wex I mean, you're a smart guy, like you
look at his you look at his contract right now,
like I mean, it's highway robbery that he is on
a one hundred and fifteen million dollar contract right now.

Speaker 1 (02:07:10):
I'm given the production that he's put up unbelievably. So
got a little over minute here if you could try
in that amount of time your thoughts about working with
or dealing with and covering Justin Verlander during his time
here in Houston, as he has announced this will be
his last year of Major League Baseball.

Speaker 3 (02:07:28):
I really enjoyed my time covering Justin.

Speaker 7 (02:07:30):
He treated and this is very inside baseball, but he
treated the traveling beat writers to three the three outlets
that travel that cover the ashers. He treated us extremely well,
and I'll forever be indebted to him for that. Was
always accessible, was always thoughtful. You know, I don't I
don't think a lot of people kind of saw that

(02:07:51):
side of him. He's very thoughtful guy when you got
him and when you talk to him, very very cerebral,
very pragmatic, really an intelligent guy about the game. And
then just watching him pitch, I mean watching what he
did in twenty twenty two, coming back from Tommy John
to do what he did, it was one of the
more incredible things I've ever witnessed, just first hand. And

(02:08:11):
it was one of those reasons why I kind of
I mean, I knew this day was gonna come right,
that he was going to retire, but you just I
never kind of made myself think it was going to happen,
just because he defied odds, defied Father time, defied age
for so long, and after you watched him did what
he did in twenty twenty two, in twenty twenty three,
he just kind of thought, this guy's gonna pitch forever

(02:08:33):
and just not the case. Father time always wins. So
a hell of a career for Justin Berlander. A first
ballot Hall of Famer without a shadow.

Speaker 3 (02:08:41):
Of a doubt.

Speaker 7 (02:08:42):
And you know, if you want my opinion, I think
he is a unanimous first ballot Hall of Famer.

Speaker 1 (02:08:47):
We will find out in a handful of seasons if
the voters all of them agree, and see if we
get there. Chandler, always appreciate the time. Enjoy your weekend,
all right, thanks, we got it. Channeler Rome joining us
here on Sports Talk seven to ninety has mentioned definitely
worthwhile checking out that piece on yord On Alvarez. A
couple other things I wanted to note about JV and

(02:09:07):
the conversations he has had with some of the people
in Detroit, his future obviously Hall of Fame, and we'll
get into a few other things. So we have not
yet gotten to this hour, not only in a case
you missed it, but when we come back next.

Speaker 2 (02:09:20):
The Age on Sports Talk seven.

Speaker 1 (02:09:22):
Ninety, appreciate the visit from Chandler Rome. And before you
get into a completely totally different topic, a couple of
things on JV. Since I was talking about Lebron James
earlier on the show, and without comparing him to say
some of the other greats that he's always debated about,
I did say, statistically speaking, especially the counting statistics, especially points,

(02:09:46):
there's no nobody's going to do what he did. Not Ever, again,
he's done something that nobody in the history of the
game has done. In JV's case, you can't exactly say
that there have been triple Crown winners. There have been
multiple times young winners, they have been multiple times no
hitters for individual pitchers. He's thrown a handful of those.
He's won a handful of cy Young's. He's won a

(02:10:08):
pair of World Series titles, that Triple Crown season in
twenty eleven, he won the MVP also in addition to
winning the cy Young. Those have happened before and they
could happen again. But he also has two hundred and
sixty six wins. That's seventy three wins here with Houston,
ten elsewhere, and one hundred eighty three wins with the Tigers.

(02:10:31):
Max Scherzer is forty four wins behind him. Garrett Cole
is one hundred and thirteen wins behind him. Those are
the two who rank closest to him in wins currently
active baseball players. He was ahead of Clayton Kershaw as
well by a couple seasons worth of wins. When Kershaw

(02:10:53):
retired this past offseason, JV thought he was going to
be able to get there. He really wanted to win
three hundred games. I think part of the motivation of
leaving Houston and going to New York to the Mets.
Money was the big one, but odds were they were
going to win, and they were going to be in contention,
and they were going to give him a chance to

(02:11:15):
pitch well and win games, pick up ten twelve wins
and other ten twelve wins over the life of that deal,
and all of a sudden he's maybe a season or
two away from getting there. Didn't work out that way.
He was hurt for a little bit of his time there.
He didn't even last a full year there and they
were awful. So they traded him to Houston, where he
just simply did not pitch as well and did not
have the opportunity to win as much, mostly because of

(02:11:36):
the way he pitched. Team wasn't overwhelming, but they were
a winning team during his last stint here. And he's
still sitting at two hundred and sixty six wins, and
his time in San Francisco very hard to didn't want
to get two hundred sixty six wins just yet, but
hard to come by wins in San Francisco, and he
didn't get any wins thus far. In Detroit, he's barely pitched.

(02:11:58):
He's thrown one time. He will be bad. It looks
like it's just a timetable. Is a little uncertain, he
said yesterday. He is about to start throwing, so I'm
sure he's at least twenty five, thirty five days away
from anything at a major league level, maybe even longer.
But he's not gonna win three hundred games. He's probably
gonna come in just shy of two seventy. He's sitting

(02:12:19):
at two sixty six, and I gave you the totals
for the two closest to him. Tark Schooble is not
gonna be anywhere near that. He's probably the best pitcher
in baseball. Chris sale is a is a Cy Young
Award winner, very similar to career to Garrett Cole in
terms of elite pitching. He's like forty wins back of
Garrett Cole. Two hundred wins is gonna happen, probably probably,

(02:12:43):
but not definitively for anybody in baseball ever. Again, and
three hundred wins used to be not the standard clearly
for the Hall of Fame, but something attainable in Major
League baseball. I do think Jay will be the last
pitcher to win the number of games that he won,

(02:13:04):
just like Lebron will be the last and the only
to amass the total of points that he has scored.
Nobody's gonna win two hundred and sixty six games. Again,
I don't know that anybody's even win to fifty. It's
crazy how the game has changed. Obviously, they pitch more infrequently,
they are taken out of games more frequently, with the
way that bullpens have been trained to be used, just

(02:13:26):
not like it once was. Thirty two starts in a season,
thirty three starts in a season. That's league leading stuff.
Used to be thirty five, used to be thirty six.
Used to pitch in the seventh eighth inning of a
game and put yourself in position to accumulate more individual
wins a little bit more often. So that is something
that is it's gone from baseball. Does it matter, No,
you just have to recalibrate how you view particular players.

(02:13:50):
There's gonna be I don't know. I haven't looked over
the Hall of Fame roster, but how many three hundred
game winners are in there. They all have more wins
than JV. Everybody this's won two seventy. They all have
more wins than him, Don Sutton, Tom sever any of
these pictures that are there that maybe weren't regarded as
the best pictures of all time, but they have more wins.

(02:14:10):
And there's a lot of pictures that are gonna be
in there with more wins than him, but not any
in the future. So you just got to look at
things a little bit differently, especially when, like Chandler said,
I would agree. I'm not sure what it takes except
for people that vote not to be bigger than themselves
and think that way, is this player a Hall of Famer,

(02:14:32):
here's the case for, and here's the case against, and
drop that information on each side of the scale. The
scale for against JV being a Hall of Famer is empty,
So you vote for him. You don't have to send
out a pamphlet to everybody and say, hey, we think
this guy is so awesome, he should be unanimous. And
the same is true on the other side. You cannot

(02:14:54):
have voters that think, well, in the past, this guy
wasn't unanimous, and that guy wasn't and I don't think
he's better than them. So I have to at least
be one of the people who prevents it from happening.
There are gonna be players like JV roll through the
balloting in the years in the future if they're a
Hall of Famer and they're so obviously a Hall of Famer,

(02:15:16):
and there is literally no case against them, and that's
true with JV. Just vote for him. You got ten
spots on your ballot. Check his name off. It's okay
if somebody gets in with one hundred percent of the vote,
it really is. It doesn't make him better than other
people who haven't. It just means the people who are
voting are less bad less bad. I'm trying to be

(02:15:37):
nice here, So JV into the Hall of Fame. Never
got into the discussion here on the air today. We've
had it many times before, and we'll probably have it
again over the next five years about the hat that
he should wear versus the hat that we already know
he will wear. His time in Houston was marked with
the extremes in excellence best winning percentage in this franchise's history.

(02:16:00):
He won seventy three times, and the one hundred and
thirty starts that he made the team won even more
than that, only pulled the loss twenty eight times. In
those starts. He was incredible. Threw another no hitter here,
one another cy Young here, won both of the World
Series titles that he has here, made three more appearances
in the World Series. His teams made it there five times. Overall,

(02:16:23):
but yes, his time here in Houston is marked with
the extreme excellence. He didn't play any years in Houston
where they weren't considered a team that could win the
World Series. The first year he got here, they did
win the World Series, and all of the seasons he
was healthy for, they expected to win the World Series,
and they did one of those times, and they lost
one of those times. He obviously missed some time here

(02:16:44):
with the COVID injury in Game one and then the
subsequent twenty twenty one season that was missed in its entirety,
but long, very outstanding, record setting type of career in
Detroit for almost twice as long. But his time I'm
here in Houston, obviously, sitting in this chair stands out
to such a large degree because there weren't any real

(02:17:07):
true downturns. There's not a down season here. He had
several of those in Detroit. There wasn't a trying to
figure it out. He was just unbelievable here, so successful here,
So it definitely put him I think in a little
bit different stratosphere. I think I've left the proper amount
of time to dedicate to the World Cup conversation for
today we're down to seven teams. We've seen our first

(02:17:30):
quarter final today and Morocca's gone home. Boston the site
for that game. Today, France scored two goals to more
than Morocco's none, and they move on. The United States
story is not quite complete. Their World Cup story on
the field, on the pitch is complete, but when their
best player was absolutely roasted and I'm probably guilty of

(02:17:53):
that as well for his performance, and that's just all
we see. How you're on the field, you're on the pitch,
here's how you performed. The report today indicating he had
a micro fracture and a deep bone bruise and his leg.
So if you want to say he had a fractured
leg that he was playing on, you not really lying
you had a microfracture. He was clearly hurt and he

(02:18:14):
is not going to be competing for at least the
next several weeks, if not a month's according to that report.
Some of the things that were said that almost seemed
a little bit more personal about it, that you could
rest after the tournament, or what kind of performance is that?
And he let everybody down. He's the probably the best
weapon the United States men's soccer team has. But anybody

(02:18:39):
who's having conversations like you watch what Ronaldo's doing. You
watch what Embape is doing. You watch what heck the
guys in the studio chairs and Henri and Bramovich, you
watch what they do. You watch what Messi did and
helping bring Argentina back. You just didn't get that from Polisic,
no kidding. He's the best on the American team. Maybe attack,

(02:19:00):
difference maker, goal scorer, creative player. He's not in their class.
I hope people don't think that he is, and I
hope people weren't expecting that. He wasn't that this year.
He's not going to be that in four years. He's
not going to ever be that. Then most teams, especially
the seven teams that are remaining, they all have a
better best player. Then at another time, if we ever

(02:19:21):
feel like it, maybe in four years, we'll talk about
the United States men's national team extreme deficit as their
keeper group. Bad goaltenders. Good goaltenders like we saw today
make a huge, huge difference. In case you missed, it
is next. Will it be our first real fora into
football in the Houston Texans. It absolutely will be, And

(02:19:44):
it's next oh are the show on that music the
tip that we are heading into. In case you missed
a couple of things for me. First one clarity on
my comments about Polisic, you actually just heard them. It
was an injury suffered in their final match against bell Jium,
So anything that you were mean about to Polistic in
any of the matches they had before that are fine.

(02:20:07):
The Astros off today. The teams, in my opinion that
matter in the wild card race that have played and
completed their games today, the Orioles gotta win. They're only
three wins back of Houston. The Twins lost to the Guardians.
Twins have the same number of wins as Houston, and
the Red Sox may not be sellers after all, they
won again. They're now forty three and forty eight, three

(02:20:30):
wins behind Houston. They beat the White Sox two to one.
One of the pitchers I was talking about earlier today
and import from overseas in the offseason two years twelve
million dollars for Anthony k signed by the White Sox.
He made the start in that game that they lost
to the Red Sox. Today, he gave up to run
homer in the fourth inning and that's pretty much it.
He pitched very well again actually lowered his ra but

(02:20:52):
they did not win. Rangers will be taking on the
Angels tonight and worth noting that they have activated Wyatt
Langford will be in the lineup tonight for the Rangers.
Presumably he'll be healthy enough to again be in the
lineup the next couple of days. The Rangers are a
very very bad offensive team and why at Langford in
any normal good year is one of their best offensive talents,

(02:21:14):
so that's unfortunate. He and Josh Young are both in
the lineup tonight for the Rangers. We'll see what they
have in store for the Astros over the weekend, no
word definitively and who will be slated to start against
the Astros in those games. And last for me, a
reminder we've not been able to do this throughout the week.
So we've got a host of tickets to go see
the Black Crows and Whiskey Myers their Southern Hospitality Tour.

(02:21:36):
The eighth of August is when they'll be performing at
the Woodlands Pavilion. Final segment of the show, give out
a handful of pair of tickets to that and do
the same again tomorrow. What do we have and in
case you missed it today, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:21:48):
Let's swing over to your Houston Texans have a report here.
Aaron Wilson talking with the Danny Barrett, who's the running
backs coach for the Texans also assistant head coach. He
views David Montgomery as a three down back.

Speaker 2 (02:22:02):
He says he can do it all. It starts with
his mentality.

Speaker 4 (02:22:05):
Now, Montgomery has had up to as many as fifty
four catches in his time with the Bears, and that
also brings me over to Woody Marx where they talk
about how Woody Marx is learning the route tree. Also
Barrett talking about this, he said, last year, we brought
him along a little slower. We wanted to learn the game,
and as he did, he played faster. They think he
can played even faster this year. And his role is

(02:22:26):
going to pick up on third down special teams, going
to be a kickoff return guy.

Speaker 2 (02:22:30):
So I ask you, wex more.

Speaker 4 (02:22:32):
Often than not, who do you think is going to
be on the field for third down for the Texans.

Speaker 1 (02:22:38):
I think it's not going to necessarily work out in
that kind of split. I think the question is a
good one, but I actually think they're both like at
different levels. Calling David Montgomery a three down back is
very accurate, and Danny Barrett said this to Aaron and
some of us at the last day of OTA's when
the assistant coaches were available. The idea that he's a

(02:22:58):
top level three down back is where I wouldfferentiate who
he is. And then I would take it down another
notch and say the same thing about Woody Mars. He
was a catch machine in his college football career at
both USC and Mississippi State. There's no reason for that
not to continue with his NFL career. I think Woody
Mark's profiles as a third down back or three down back,
I should say maybe with a hint towards being more

(02:23:20):
of a third down back, which means they should both
be considered great options in the past game. If there's
a series where okay, it's time to spell Montgomery, well
all three downs, we're gonna have Woody Marks out there.
And if it's time for a David Montgomery drive, all
three drives, he's going to be out there for. But
some of the things that are discussed about this, and
then the particular right up aggregate aggregate right up he

(02:23:43):
had they said, you know, Woody Mars doesn't quite you know,
maybe provide the same thing that Jamiir Gibbs does in Detroit.
Jamiir Gibbs is like one of the five best running
backs in football. Obviously Woody Marks isn't. Neither is David Montgomery.
This is a very very very different one two punch.

(02:24:03):
And the other thing that really I don't really care
who runs the ball they're David Montgomery's not running behind
the Detroit Lions line anymore, and he's not playing alongside
elite offensive talent. And this was only the first year
without Ben Johnson. He's playing in one of the most
elite offenses we've seen in the last ten years. And
I think his production was a factor because of our

(02:24:25):
hit those players, and that offense was a factor in
his production. I think the David Montgomery that joined the
Texans this year is Chicago Bears David Montgomery. And I
don't mean that as a slight I just mean he
was the lead back. He was a number one, he
was a three down back. He was on the field
seventy five eighty percent of the time for the Bears.
Ton of catches, ton of carries, workhorse but at a

(02:24:47):
much lower level of production on a per carry, per
touch basis. That's probably who's here with the twenty fourth
best offensive line, thirtieth best offensive line. It's all I
can do this week to not say here's some new
offensive line rankings that have been a pot out there,
because you're going to hate them. So I'll say it's

(02:25:07):
for Friday.

Speaker 2 (02:25:08):
We appreciate that.

Speaker 1 (02:25:09):
Well.

Speaker 2 (02:25:09):
I want to stay on this j just and I also.

Speaker 1 (02:25:10):
Like what he marks by the way. I think what
he marks is he looks bigger. And I hate to
say that because I always talk negatively about I don't
know what he looked like. I don't know how much
he weighed or what he's trying to do, but I
can't lie he looked significantly bigger this offseason than how
he played last year.

Speaker 4 (02:25:27):
Last week, we played a clip I think you were
on the show with Greg Cosell talking about how Texan's
you know, borrowing from the Rams, but also more from
the Patriots, especially with having CJ, you know, call out
the Mike linebacker kind of like Tom Brady did with
the Patriots. Right, Tom was really good at checking down
to his running backs in that offense. We didn't see
a whole lot of that from CJ. Do you think

(02:25:48):
that picks up this year? I would like to think so.
If they're doing nothing but Patriots football, Coole Popovich, Patriots
ties learned under Dante Scarnekia, they clearly, as you just mentioned,
that they're doing thing the Patriot way and having the
quarterback more involved, basically completely involved in making those checks
at the line rather than the center of the offensive line.

(02:26:09):
Then why not add the James White Kevin Falk angle
to this offense because it was clearly it's a chain mover.
They were running a chain moving offense for almost all
of his years there, all of the non Randy Moss
years for sure. And they stayed on the field, and
it was a quick passing game. It was an accurate passer.

Speaker 1 (02:26:27):
He threw a lot of passes because it was an
extension of their running game, but he was throwing to
these players much closer to the line, and clearly the
guys that they had running the slot receiver routes. You
can point to three different players Welker, Julian Edelman, and
Danny Ammondola all elite at helping you elongate drives by

(02:26:48):
running the underneath routes, the slot receiver routes, the running
back routes. No team that I can think of used
in more than the Patriots. The Texans certainly have not
shown signs of doing that yet.

Speaker 4 (02:27:00):
Mismatch, especially with these quicker than fast guys on linebackers.
I'd like to see them do more of that. Finally, quickly,
before we get out MLB Power Rankings ESPP, it's being
dropped them today, your favorite your Astros up one spot
from eighteen to seventeen. They're kind of middle of the
pack here. I think that's about right for where they
are this season.

Speaker 1 (02:27:18):
Yeah, the record is what it is, and it's probably
something we only focus on the American League so much
for obvious reasons. But the National League's just better. So
while the Astros are well, yesterday they were seventh in
the American League and right behind the last wildcard spot.
Today they're eight. Well, they're not anywhere near that when
you bring in the rest of the league. They're probably

(02:27:41):
properly rated. If that, they might be worse than that,
But the National League just has so many teams that
are playing at a higher level. They just played well,
I mean the Nationals scored at will against Houston for
three days. They're barely over five hundred in the National League,
and they're not inside the playoff picture, and they're further
away from the playoff picture than the Astros are in
the American League. So I think that's probably fine the Astros.

(02:28:03):
Days of being fans of being angry that the Astros
are seventh, that's crazy. They're one of the best teams
in baseball. Now you say the Astros are sixteenth or seventeenth,
and I sit here and say, yeah, they're probably lucky
to be there in the power rank. Is tickets to
give away and some final notes that we haven't gotten
to all the wise here on the program when we

(02:28:24):
come back.

Speaker 2 (02:28:27):
The eighteen on.

Speaker 1 (02:28:30):
Back here with you for the final segment of today's program.
We'll do it all over again tomorrow, so we welcome
in you into your Friday. Here on the A team mention,
we got tickets to give away, so let's do that
right here at the onset of this final segment. Pair
of tickets to be at the Black Crows Whiskey Myers
show their Southern Hospitality Tour August eighth, Woodlands Pavilion. Got

(02:28:52):
a couple pairs of tickets to give away today. If
neil the answer to this very simple question, you can
also find tickets. They're on sale now at Ticketmaster. Should
you not win them here? Seven one three two one
two five seven ninety seven one three two one two
five seven ninety If you can answer this simple question,
you heard about it just last segment, we'll all He's
liked to reward our listeners. You listen to the program,

(02:29:14):
you know the answer to these questions we asked when
we have things to give away. It was last segment
we were talking about the Texans backfield of Woody Marx
and David Montgomery, likely the leaders for this upcoming season,
both of them expected to play roles, and both of
them likely out of the backfield as pass catchers. I
called Woody Marx a pass catching machine during his college days,

(02:29:36):
and I will back that up with my commentary after
I ask you this question, because I told you where
the answers are last segment. Where did Woody Marx catch
his college football passes? That's the question. There are there's
one answer, but it's two schools and I need both
of them. So if you heard me say, you know

(02:29:57):
the answer, where did Woody Marx play as college football?
Which two schools? Or if you don't like the show,
don't listen to the show and only listen in the
final segment to win tickets, feel free to look it up.
Happy to send you over there as well. Where did
Woody Marks play college football? As you heard us discuss
latch segment seven to one, three, two one, two five

(02:30:17):
seven ninety tickets to see the Black Crows and Whiskey Myers.
If they called Woody Marks a pass catching fiend before
he got to the NFL, I'm definitely accurate. I never
ever make mistakes except here on the show two to
six each and every weekday afternoon. He played four years
at his first school in the SEC and finished things
up with his Big ten school, so as I don't

(02:30:40):
give the answer away here, So he did play five
seasons of college football. He played fifty seven games of
college football, and in that time he had two hundred
and sixty one receptions. He played running back throughout his
entire college career, had an eighty three reception season as
a sophomore at the SEC school two hundred and sixty

(02:31:04):
one catches. The top receivers on the Houston Texans this year.
Probably would call the top five pretty simply Nico Collins,
Jayden Higgins, Jalen Knowle, Xavier Hutchinson, and hopefully Tank Dell.
Those are probably your top five. Nico Collins is your

(02:31:27):
number one. He had seventy eight college receptions, less than
a third of the college receptions of Woody Marx, Jaden Higgins.
Iowa State he had one hundred and forty. He only
played two years, one hundred and forty receptions, well below

(02:31:47):
the two hundred and sixty one catches of running back
Woody Marks Jalen Knowle. He was there for a while.
He got four years worth of work at Iowa State,
couple with Jayden Higgins, obviously four full seasons. Only played
six fewer games than Marx did in college, and all

(02:32:08):
of his games were played at wide receiver. He still
finished with sixteen fewer catches than Woody Marx. How about
Xavier Hutchinson also at Iowa State. How about Tank Dell.
Tank Dell led his conference in receptions twice in his career.
Xavier Hutchinson did it in every season of his career

(02:32:28):
at Iowa State in twenty twenty twenty twenty one, in
twenty twenty two, the Big Twelve reception leader was Xavier Hutchinson,
and he also had fewer college receptions than Woody Marx.
He had two fifty four, pretty awesome number, but seven
fewer than Woody and Tank in his two plus years
at U of H. You might be wondering, well, wasn't

(02:32:51):
he in college at the same time as Xavier Hutchinson?
And isn't U of H in the Big twelve? Yes,
and yes, you of H wasn't yet in the Big
Twelve when Tank Tell led the American Conference in receptions
each of his final two college seasons. Had one hundred
and ninety nine catches in his final two college seasons,
but only twenty nine other catches, also less than what

(02:33:14):
he marks. Use him. Danny Barrett, Kole Popovich, Ben McDaniels,
Nick Kyley think they will use him. I think there's
a pretty good chance they will use him. I think
they will split time. I think the split is probably

(02:33:35):
closer to sixty forty. Obviously, injuries play a part in this,
and to what he's credit, even though it seemed like
he was heard on every fifth or sixth snap, he
kept finishing games, He kept coming back he'd go visit
the sidelines or hop inside the injury tent and hop
back out and finish out games. He really, as it
turned out, even with the slow start to his year

(02:33:56):
when he was the number two and Nick Chubb was
the number he ended up playing a lot this year
and seeing the football in his hands a lot. It
was great during the regular season when he never put
the ball on the carpet. Less great at the end
of the season in New England when he for the
first time all year, lost the football, fumbled the football.

(02:34:17):
But for what he was coming into and again playing
behind that same offensive line, everybody was working with the
new OC and all the things that went with it,
played with a different quarterback for three of those games
with Davis Mills coming in. I don't know how you
could look at Woody Mark's season individually as anything but
a success. And while I think they were correct in
trying to find someone to be ahead of him, which

(02:34:40):
David Montgomery quite frankly is, I don't think they've done
anything to sour themselves, and I don't think less of Woody.
There's trying to be better. He might be better this year.
I'd be shocked if he wasn't. Josh also mentioned that
Danny Barrett had mentioned when he spoke that there was
a chance for him to be a part of the
return game. We talked to Frank Ross about that. Also.

(02:35:01):
One thing that they like about what he mark's in
the return game as a kick returner specifically, is he's
a running back. He's a big body, He's not really
afraid of the traffic, and sometimes the way that the
Texans would like their returns to work, They're not necessarily
looking for someone to catch the ball, see where things
are and sprint to the outside. There are spots with

(02:35:23):
their blocking seeing they want them to, so to speak,
run into but really through the traffic a little bit
like Nascar. Sometimes there's been a reck in front of you.
Just drive through it, just drive through the smoke, go high.
They think that's where he can be an asset in
the return game. I don't know that he'll end up
being their primary return man, but as a reserve, which
he likely is this year. Jalen Knowles probably not a

(02:35:46):
reserve this year, probably starting in the slot, probably being
a bigger part of the offense. He's definitely capable of
being a plus return man. I think he already was
last year, but you may be a little bit more
hesitant to use a player like that if that that
is how he's going to be there. If their third
running back is Juwar Jordan this year, there's a chance
he could play a role in their return game, and

(02:36:08):
they'll be continuing to try more and more players out there.
I saw them work through this during their offseason workouts
and it wasn't necessarily limited to those players that I
just mentioned, But that's probably the guys at the front
of the line in their return ideas as they had
to training camp. By the way, last note on the
Texans and training camp. They made that announcement today of

(02:36:29):
when it will begin and when the open practices are
for fans. But by the way, they also opened the
door this morning for fans to secure their tickets free
tickets to go see the open practices, and they were
very very popular. May or may not be available for
the remaining practices. I do not know, but Wednesday is

(02:36:49):
the first practice July twenty ninth, so three weeks from
yesterday they'll have their first practice. Nearly all of them
are nine am practices. One of the open practices on
the eighth is an evening practice at six o'clock on
a Saturday. One of their open practices does coincide with
the Raiders visit to town. That is their joint practice
with the Raiders and that is open to fans on

(02:37:10):
the eighteenth Tuesday, that morning before their preseason game. Most
of their open practices are right at the onset of
training camp, the opening weekend and through that first week Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday,
and the following Monday open practices throughout they will also
have a joint practice on the road when they go

(02:37:32):
see Carolina. It's football season, It's July. Get ready because
it is here. Like I said, we'll do it all
again tomorrow, see how things shake out this evening for
the Mariners and the Rangers, and then we will be
coming back to you tomorrow for a full show, full
four hour ride on the A team. But in this
case it will lead right into Astros and Rangers. Appreciate

(02:37:54):
everybody being part of it. You're welcome for those tickets.
Stick around.

Speaker 2 (02:38:01):
The A team won Sports Talk seven ninety

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