Astros & Imai at it Again, Trade Interest for AJ Blubaugh, NBA FA/Trades

Thursday on The A-Team, Adam Clanton and Adam Wexler react to another disappointing outing from Astros starter Tatsuya Imai, preview this weekend’s series against the Rays, discuss the reported trade interest in AJ Blubaugh, and break down all the wild action from around the NBA.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's a Thursday edition of the A Team Sports Talk
seven ninety, the final four hours of the week before
a holiday Tomorrow, I'm Adam Clanton, Josh Jordan along for
the ride.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Who are you sou Wex here? He's back, Baby, Wex
is back.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
He's back.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
All the time away from you guys.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
If you guys have been with me for the many
decades I've been doing radio here, especially here at this station,
you know when I usually take the family vacation and
I try to do my absolute, very very very best
for my co host, knowing that when I'm gone, so
much stuff is gonna happen.

Speaker 4 (00:41):
He can make it. You nail it every time.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
So many I feel like, I know there's a lot
to talk about from just yesterday and today. Jalen Brown
has said hello and goodbye via social media to Boston
and Philadelphia respectively, or vice versa. But there's so much
stuff I have not had a chance to talk everybody about,
other than on social media briefly during my time away

(01:04):
let alone. I know everybody wants to know what I
did on vacation, and we'll get to that, yes, But
my goodness, the NBA never disappoints It's not usually regarded
as the as the best time of year in the NBA,
because clearly the games are kind of cool, and championship
being crowned is kind of nice. In the postseason and
everything that builds up to it is great. But the

(01:24):
activity as soon as the parades are done, the draft,
the moratorium which we are in now, free agency trades,
salary cap figures, aprons.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Such good stuff. Your Rockets are are involved.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
The Western Conference has been involved, but the Eastern Conference
has definitely been at the forefront of all this. So
I cannot wait to discuss all of those things. It
was a a, in my opinion, a turtle like effort
to the top for the Astros. Hey they want another
series by a game. Hey they want to know series.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
By a game.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Then they won another series by a game. They're getting
closer and they're absolutely in it. And it's not just
because of the math anymore. But every day they lose
a game, and they win a game, and then they
lose to and then tatsu Emi pitches that was yesterday.
So we certainly will get into that in great detail.
As the Astros and everybody else pushing past the halfway

(02:24):
point and pushing towards the All Star break. Three more
series remain for the Astros until the break today. Is
there a day off on Thursday, we'll see a ton
of those moving forward. I know there's not been a
ton of discussion about it, nor does there need to be,
but I do think, as I had the opportunity to
be in several different places around our country over the

(02:44):
last week's time, people are pretty excited about what's happening
on the pitch, and I was in the airport yesterday
as the latest Team USA victory went into the books.
I was at several different watering holes as some of
the the penalty kicked portions of some of the Round
of thirty two games were taking place. There are a

(03:05):
lot of people that are in on this, and we'll
be right back out as soon it's sober in two weeks.
But it's fun in that it is there currently all
of this leading up to America two fifty just two
days from now, which also means, as you were over
there last Friday afternoon, our friend's over at Top Dog Fireworks.
If you haven't already gotten yourselves ready, go ahead and
make sure to do that, because you can plenty of locations,

(03:26):
a top dog for you to take care of all
your celebration needs. And uh, we're also I've been out
since the twenty third. Today is the second of July.
We have zero more months before NFL training camp.

Speaker 4 (03:43):
Speaking, it starts this month.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
It starts this month.

Speaker 4 (03:46):
We still don't know the day.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
I know the day.

Speaker 4 (03:49):
What is it?

Speaker 1 (03:49):
Reeel it now I'd have to look, Oh, man, is
it the twenty ninth? It's always the twenty nine? There was,
you know, going back to what you originally started talking about,
there was approximately fifty seven times during the time that
you were gone there.

Speaker 4 (04:02):
I was like, this has got to be killing WEX
right now.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
It is so many times, and you could tell a
little bit on social media.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
I couldn't even help myself.

Speaker 4 (04:10):
Of course, you couldn't.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
Like the second Marcus Smart opted out of his Lakers deal.

Speaker 4 (04:17):
He took a long time to sign with the Rockets,
like a two whole days.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
It did seem like there might be a marriage there,
and unofficially there has been again where a couple of
days away from the deals becoming official. I was just
having this conversation yesterday when we were driving for eight
hours yesterday. Sounds great, well, I did zero minutes of
the driving.

Speaker 4 (04:36):
It was fine, man.

Speaker 2 (04:37):
I was handling snacks and I was a pretty bad navigator,
but our better navigators sitting behind me, and so he
took care of everything. Nonetheless, I was describing last off season.
You know, the Rockets traded for Kevin Durant, but there's
several days before it becomes official, and they were also
looking to sign Clint Capella. And when it was made official,

(04:58):
there were seven teams involved. Yeah, those are all the
things that are getting worked on all across the league today.
There are going to be a bunch of little additions here,
trade exceptions there, second round picks here that get added
and made. The Rockets have not spent a lot of money.
Fred took a lot of their money by opting in,
but the two players that are on their way in

(05:18):
unofficially aren't taking a tremendous amount of the Rockets money
moving forward. But definitely want to hear your thoughts on
how you think it played out with myself at AC's
he's had a chance to weigh in and plenty of
other options on what could be happening for this team
in the immediate future, because, as mentioned, most of the
activity on the trade front, on the major NBA Stars

(05:39):
with new addresses front, Well, it's taking place in the
Eastern Conference. The biggest name to still be playing in
the West that was traded, biggest name plays in Portland now,
John Morant, Kawhi Leonard isn't in La anymore. He was
the biggest America that was traded, but he was traded

(06:02):
to the Eastern Conference. So it's an interesting scenario for
the Spurs, Thunder, Rockets, Lakers, Nuggets, Wolves, and everybody else
that fancies themselves as well. Look what happened this year.
The Knicks just won the title. Shouldn't we be going
for it too? Shouldn't we consider ourselves if luck is

(06:23):
on our side, if injuries fall our way, couldn't we
be next in line?

Speaker 1 (06:27):
Well, I would argue that of all of the things
that you could say emphatically, at least in the Eastern Conference,
going into this upcoming NBA season later on this fall,
I think the Knicks probably could realistically justifiably say our
chances to repeat got better.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
Yeah, they have a couple of changes to the roster,
Mitchell Robinson probably currently being the most significant one, but
clearly the Jalen Brown trade the fact that he is
currently going to be teammates parring any other moves with
a big flop with Tyrese Maxi, with VJ.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
Edgecomb with Joe l Embiid.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
And earlier today it looks like with Anthony Simon's another
free agent expected to inc a deal with Philadelphia, that's
an awfully good roster. The two sides of Jalen Brown
is this or no, actually he is that good and bad.
A lot of people weighing in on what they actually
think this player is. But he was like Kevin Durant,

(07:29):
a member of the NBA's All Second Team All NBA's
Second Team this year. And with the other thing I mentioned.
Rockets wise, they have gotten much older, very very quickly
with the moves they've made over the last two off seasons.
But it's not necessarily oh my god, what are they doing?
But rather if these players can help the young players

(07:50):
Jabari alprin Amen win, maybe Tari, then that's why they're here.

Speaker 4 (07:56):
Tari's coming back.

Speaker 1 (07:57):
All the people that could give him the money to
make him leave, they've all given it to other people.

Speaker 2 (08:01):
And the Rockets probably have positioned themselves to be able
to match.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
If some team did hard position the Rockets to match
because he didn't play well this season.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
Well, I mean yeah, but that doesn't preclude some team
from saying, well, I know you're Walker Kessler, but could
we give you thirty two and a half million dollars
this year, next year and the year after and the
year after that.

Speaker 4 (08:23):
Wow, the Lakers are really really not good.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
Nobody has changed more than them in the last you know,
several days.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
And it has nothing to do with the color of
the skin of their starters Stephen A.

Speaker 4 (08:36):
Smith.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
It's just they're just not I mean, I get it.
They have Luka Doncic and they have Austin Reeves, and.

Speaker 2 (08:41):
I think they're Honestly, I really think this, as we
sit here today, not knowing the final product, I think
they're pretty much the same. I don't think they're there.
I don't think they're significantly either direction. They're definitely not
significantly better.

Speaker 1 (08:54):
Well, it's hard to say that about a team that
loses Lebron James, even at the age of forty one.
But and that's a that's a whole other thing. I've
gotta take my time, agent. Yeah, I'm gonna take my time.
According to my camp. You can't take your time because
there's not gonna be any money left from If he
doesn't want any, he can sign wherever. That's Hey, Listen,

(09:14):
the next time an NBA player says it's not about
the money and then it's actually not about the money
will be the first.

Speaker 2 (09:19):
I have seen a bunch of other much much lesser
players signed some very strange low money deals already. Again,
they're not agreed upon, they're only agreed upon in principle.
But there's some interesting players just taking what I would
think is a lot less than they probably could get,
not even necessarily for great situations. But how this all
impacts Houston With we mentioned Marcus Smart, Bogdan Bognanovich, and

(09:42):
Fred Van Vliet along with Tara Easton, these are probably
the foremost important figures thus far here in the twenty
six twenty seven off season. As we head into the
next season for the Rockets, where with who they still
have on the roster, KD being at the forefront of it,
and several young, very talented players on it, they should
be trying to maximize this, maybe unlike they did between

(10:04):
September and April of last year, with who they had
on the roster, but I'm fired up the second half
of the year here on the A team. Technically for
me begins today. Yeah, listen, I've got We'll pick.

Speaker 1 (10:19):
It back up again on the fourteenth. Yes, I have
less than four hours until vacation. Can you tell I'm anxious.
It's been a long time coming. We got Like you said,
we got four hours here and again. Longtime listeners of
the show will not need this explanation or comparison, but
we'll let you hear. The difference between a Clanton family

(10:40):
vacation and a Wesley family vacation. There so different. The
first difference is that it's not a family vacation this time,
and two people on your family will be there.

Speaker 3 (10:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:50):
Well, two people in our family are very excited about
that aspect.

Speaker 4 (10:53):
That's good.

Speaker 1 (10:53):
The other two or they've got their own things going on.
So yeah, we'll get into that. We'll get into the
astros conversation coming up next. Usually it's one step forward,
two steps back. I put two steps forward, one step back.
In the I'm trying to be nice, I twitched it well,
I put you I was about to say, I thought
that's what I originally put, but no, it's not.

Speaker 2 (11:11):
The Astros are what they are, and they're trying to
tell you over and over and over again. The good
news is, so is everybody else step up in competition
on the way? Can this group handle it? Starting tomorrow?
That's next here on the end, X and AC back
together for a day. I hope you guys are in.
I hope you guys are already enjoying your holiday weekend.

(11:34):
What do you do, It's Thursday at two o'clock. It's
it's already the holiday weekend. Get out of there. Yeah,
July fourth, dropping in on a Saturday, most no, though,
that means you got to get Friday off. And for
those of us here, we'll be done soon enough. I'll
actually be with you tomorrow. I'll have pre and post
duties for the Astros opening up a series against well,
a very good baseball team, rather surprising, very good baseball team.

(11:57):
Tampa has been doing it all year, so it's not
like it's coming from out of nowhere at this point
in the season, but arguably it did upon the season's beginning.
Probably not a very popular pick to be setting the
pace in their division. They've had a little bit of
a roller coaster to their season. I think it's very
fair to say, considering some of the runs they've been on.
At a stretch of twenty six games where they won

(12:18):
twenty two of them, follow that up by losing I
believe it was fourteen out of eighteen, and then back
on the right side of things, which has them in
a very good spot in their division and in the
American League, considering how pretty much everybody else is roughly
a five hundred baseball team. Couple games above, couple games below.
Three with Tampa visiting Friday, Saturday Sunday, so July fourth

(12:42):
here in Houston for the Astros and the Rays, then
their final six games before they break for the All
Star Game, and for the Astros that will mean everybody
will break except for Jordon Alvarez. This team is going
to win this division and go to the playoffs and
actually only deserve one All Star.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
Yeah, that is there is nothing inaccurate or wrong about
that statement, and he has been I mean, we played
it yesterday. We played the Minnesota Twins broadcast play by play,
basically trying everything to not speak it into existence, like
trying the reverse jinks as he was at the plate

(13:26):
with the bass juice the other night against Joe Ryan.
It didn't work. It just and it was just an
absolute nuke. He was due, if you can believe it.
It had been like a week since he had hit
a home.

Speaker 2 (13:38):
Run, and he went over for sixteen and then he
basically couldn't be retired again. Multiple three hit games, back
to back three hit games, the obvious final four runs
coming on his swing of the bat in that six
run inning that flipped that deficit into a lead which
they obviously held onto and won. Not a great series, unfortunately,
and the Twins has actually won the season series with

(14:00):
the Astros, and it might matter if the Astros are
not the division champion. The Twins are just like Houston.
They're one of the other teams in the division, probably
not going to win their division in the Central, but
by no means out of it, roughly the same record
as Houston. All these teams are looking like they're gonna
be in that same spot.

Speaker 1 (14:16):
We've got a month. The deadline for trades is the
third of August, and.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
You could probably make the case for just about anybody
to do just about anything. The Rays included, are they
actually gonna be buyers because of the situation that they're in.
The Astros have games against the Nationals and Rangers to
close out the pre All Star Break portion of their schedule.
The Nationals are two games over five hundred, the Rangers,
at a game over five hundred, lead this division. They
just finished off playing Flight Black yesterday at a couple

(14:45):
of people in Tajas Jerseys and an Arlington Rangers ball cap,
and we were coming out of Cleveland. So one of
the flight attendants said, oh, you guys keep winning, he
goes n Guardian's got us today. Finally, the Rangers went
on a long, week long winning streak to put them
in front of this division.

Speaker 1 (15:05):
Yeah, that was weird, and it continues to be weird.
And then, of course the Astros couldn't make up any
more ground after they got within two, and they hadn't
been doing themselves any more favors. I hate the fact
that the Minnesota Twins as crappy as they are this year,
and by crappy, I mean they're.

Speaker 4 (15:22):
Basically just like the Astros.

Speaker 1 (15:24):
YEP, took four out of six from your team and
kind of I wouldn't say it's decidedly. We didn't get
a chance to talk about what happened on Monday night.
I know it's the rule. It's a stupid rule.

Speaker 4 (15:35):
He should be able to challenge that.

Speaker 2 (15:37):
Uh, yeah, I don't. I'm not sure what's stupid about it,
I think. And it was brought up that it was
the same umpire in an Astros game that had thrown
out Taylor Walls of the Rays because he faked he
tapped his helmet before the rule was in place last year.

Speaker 1 (15:52):
It's respectful, Well, it's in the rules.

Speaker 2 (15:54):
He says, you can't do it. It's it's so simple,
and it is. It wasn't intentional on Walker's part. I
think by now everybody knows what we're talking about and
his scene, and if we.

Speaker 1 (16:02):
I think it was so obvious, Well he did think
it was so obvious, but he clearly did look into
the Astros dugout, especially because they were yelling at him.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
But it wasn't his. He wasn't doing it. Oh, they're right,
I should. He just didn't in the time it took
for him to start taking his base to then realize
what he needs to do to seeing the dugout and
looking in the dugout, it's felt like it was less
of a timing mechanism, even though that's come into playing
a couple of other games this year, not with Houston,

(16:31):
but it was much more about, you know, your dugouts
over there. You're a right handed hitter and you happen
to be looking into it, and then you decide we
just can't let that's just part.

Speaker 1 (16:40):
Of the rule. Part of me thinks that major League
Baseball will see situations like that one and they're gonna
have to happen enough.

Speaker 4 (16:48):
So that's the first thing.

Speaker 2 (16:48):
How come it's different than what jose Al Tuve did
before the ord on Homer. It was a three to
two pitch, right, he knew it was a ball and
it wasn't called a ball, so he.

Speaker 1 (16:57):
Immediately challenged it. W Walker immediately challenge it. I honestly,
it's it's that kind of pitch, right, Yeah, no, I
think it mean, but that's the part I think needs
to be changed if it's and that's the thing. The difference,
The main difference is where the pitch was located. I
think Christian Walker was like, Snowy's gonna call that a strike,
and then he does, and then you know, you saw

(17:19):
what happened. JOSEL. Tuve was borderline, you know, legit borderline
and the thing about all that we're saying. I hope
there are some people listening on the app. I hope
there's some people listening in their car. I hope there's
some people listening at their desk and watching the clocks
and get me out of here and thinking, why are
you blaming the players for the umpire's clear and obvious mistake.

(17:43):
That's what the rule was put in place to do.
But it takes some of the pressure and drops it
on the player. That's what this does. It's now on
the player to fix the mistake.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
And if they don't do it under the parameters of
how this abs system is, then you lose, for lack
of a better word, and the Astros lost an opportunity
to add that additional base runner. We know Taylor tremmeell Homer.
After that, we know they scored and got it into
a one run game.

Speaker 1 (18:11):
After that.

Speaker 2 (18:12):
We don't know that everything plays out the same way,
but it puts the pressure on the players to do
their part correctly when they haven't done anything wrong to
necessitate that. It all gets set in emotion by what
is a mistake by the umpire behind home plate, and
both of these pitchers were talking about were mistakes, they
were called poorly, they were inaccurate. They were balls called strikes.

(18:32):
One player who's the best in baseball at doing it,
Jose al Tuve, the worst base runner in baseball, is
the best abs challenger in baseball. The guy who said
he was to do it, the guy said he wouldn't
do it, has done it twenty one times and gotten
fifteen fifteen times. Yeah, he's told the umpire uh uh
and been correct. And I do go and look at
the box scores now, and the way it's laid out,

(18:54):
it's really easy to tell what kind of day an
umpire has if that first column, after all those nonumbers
in the box score and the pitcher's line and everything,
if it's small like they challenge this, and it was overturned,
and they challenged that, but it was confirmed, and that
was the day's work for the home played umpire.

Speaker 4 (19:10):
They probably called a good game.

Speaker 2 (19:11):
If there's six players listed and a three next to
the catcher and a four listed by the other catcher
and overturned, overturned, overturned, overturned, overturned.

Speaker 1 (19:21):
That's the kind of day the umpire had. And it's
the same kind of days.

Speaker 2 (19:23):
They were happening before ABS challenges were put into place,
and it's why it's there. But after games like that
and many others this year, it's the same question we
asked before they gave teams challenges. It's nice that it's
unlimited if you get them right, yep, But it could
be unlimited if you don't even need them at all.

(19:44):
Every pitch is tracked, every pitch is evaluated. Why not
take it out of both of their hands and say,
here's what we ad we can see it clearly. Why
can't every pitch go under the ABS system?

Speaker 1 (19:57):
Well, and what I was gonna get to is the
fact that if they do talk about Major League Baseball,
decide to tweak this thing or change it all together,
i e.

Speaker 4 (20:06):
Get rid of the guy behind the plate so this
doesn't happen.

Speaker 2 (20:08):
So what's your mechanism for letting the pitcher, runners, and
batter know what the pitch is?

Speaker 1 (20:15):
Uh, that is interesting. There'd have to be some sort
of visual display, I mean, just like the pitch clock
for pitchers.

Speaker 4 (20:24):
Yeah, something of that nature.

Speaker 2 (20:25):
Is you don't even want a guy back there who
immediately gets the signal in his ear and then makes
the call. So everybody can see and hear it. You'd
rather go humiliating for that guy, right, Well, he's just
there to to share the information with everybody.

Speaker 1 (20:38):
He's now the conduit. Yes, he's no longer an umpire,
He's just a messenger.

Speaker 3 (20:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:42):
That was definitely one of the main things that did
happen during these last handful of days I wasn't here for.
It was a pretty big deal and it definitely changes
the complexion of things. The Astros basically before Josh Hader's
return had like none of the games. Since his return
six four, five, four, seven, five, eight, six two one,
three to one, extra innings nine to seven, four to

(21:03):
two two one, they're playing nothing but highly entertaining, super intense,
full of drama baseball games. And he's been on the
collecting saves side of it all the time, even with
the one hiccup that I missed when he walked one,
two three to load the bases. But guys, a bad night,
His bad night was a converted save. Yeah, one, they one,

(21:27):
all right, we will get to the best of X.
It's been very eclectic of late with WEX out of
the fold, but he's back into it.

Speaker 1 (21:34):
I've been paying attention for ver far so it's gonna
remain eclectic. Yeah, well this one will be interesting because huh.
I wouldn't call Wex a gamer, but I do know
that he is. Uh, he's he's more aware of this
kind of stuff than you would think.

Speaker 4 (21:48):
And this is a big deal.

Speaker 1 (21:49):
I don't know if anybody's talking about it in the
sports world as much as maybe this show's about two
for a segment, but it is something that's gotten a
lot of people's attention, and it's kind of outside the
box for a Thursday edition pre holiday edition of the
Best of X.

Speaker 4 (22:04):
That's next the.

Speaker 1 (22:05):
Best of X, a little outside the box on a
day like today. But when I saw this news, I
really didn't immediately think of the implications until a little
bit later. I was just like, that's interesting, and then
it took me a little like five minutes. I'm like, oh,
that's that's not good at all. That's not good because
at the end of the day, if you're a gamer,

(22:27):
if you like watching movies, anything that takes physical media,
something you can actually tangibly hold in your hands, that
is there's something to be said for that. Like everything
that we listen to at this point, is a file

(22:47):
or a stream. It's not you know, gone are the
days of I mean they're here, but CDs, records, cassettes,
eight tracks, carts.

Speaker 2 (22:57):
Yeah, everything that we're going to talk about here, X
I can relate to a part of my vacation.

Speaker 1 (23:03):
Really, yeah, how do you relate eight tracks to your vacation?
So the last one of the last places we went
Connor Prairie and they went through this. It looked like
a kind of a rainforest cafe exhibit in there, but
they had all these landry's property.

Speaker 2 (23:18):
Yeah, they had all these old things that are no
longer kind of around, kind of plastered into this wall.
Cassette tapes were among them. So men at work, I
just told my kids I have that at the house now,
I'll show you when we get there. And then they
had a radio. It jammed into this this is basically
the side of a mountain. So I tuned in it's

(23:39):
not more operational, and I tuned it into seven ninety
and left it there so everybody could see it. I'm
sure I don't think I sent you the picture of.

Speaker 4 (23:46):
No, where's that? That sounds like something you would post.

Speaker 2 (23:49):
And then what you're talking about is this physical copy.
We went to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. So
all there's a display of pretty much everything. Clearly this
happened in the hit stor football, including all the Super Bowls,
including the two three games here in Houston. And so
one of the displays was the ticket, the physical ticket

(24:09):
from the Super Bowls from the game in two games
that currently called Houston Stadium, in the game at Rice Stadium.
So there's a physical commemorative ticket. If you went to
the game, you bought a ticket, you probably have your
commemorative ticket. Same thing potentially with concerts, World Series tickets,
all Star Game tickets, NBA Finals tickets, the physical first

(24:31):
ticket in Houston Texans history in two thousand and two.
People have those on display. They are keepsakes, they're collectibles,
they're memorabilia. But if you go ahead and get tickets
to a game coming up in a couple weeks on
a Sunday, well they'll just send it to you via
your digital wallet.

Speaker 1 (24:49):
Yeah, let's say the Textans somehow, some way finagled a
new stadium out of this city. But if that just
so happened, you probably wouldn't have commemorative tickets.

Speaker 2 (25:00):
Game commemorative tickets is one thing I think a lot
of our country and abroad are looking forward to November nineteenth.

Speaker 1 (25:10):
Yeah, well, Grand Theft Auto is not, I repeat, not
going to have a physical disc, so it is digital.

Speaker 2 (25:18):
Yes, there is no physical disc, and I don't know
that it's as important to everybody, but it is to some.
But it does beg the question as they posted about this. Okay, yeah,
it's coming out on November nineteenth. There's no digital there's
no actual physical copy, so digital downloads will be available.

Speaker 1 (25:35):
On pre order.

Speaker 4 (25:36):
They don't run out of those.

Speaker 2 (25:37):
And here is your information to do that. And someone
very astutely on social media Best of X asked why.

Speaker 1 (25:45):
Because as PlayStation then released at seven am yesterday, in
response to shifting trends in consumer preference, new games will
be released on the PlayStation Store and at retailers in
digital formats only. They're doing away with discs. You can't
have them anymore. They're coasters.

Speaker 2 (26:03):
Like if you preorder the plastic box with the case
and with the physical game that you put into the machine,
whatever machine we're talking about PlayStation a disc, Okay, pre
ordering it so it can get sent to you. This
physical thing makes sense when you got to pre order
a digital Well, what are you pre ordering? Here's I'm

(26:27):
going to send it to you the day it's released.
Here's your email, right, here's your QR code, here's your link.

Speaker 1 (26:32):
You're not going to run out of it? Why do
I have to pre order it? Are you going to
run out of the link?

Speaker 2 (26:37):
Is it gonna be less likely to crash the site
because you've pre ordered?

Speaker 1 (26:41):
Or do you actually get it early?

Speaker 5 (26:42):
Well?

Speaker 1 (26:43):
No, but of course not. What's interesting is that when
you start talking about movies when this first started, this
is a big deal in my house, and you're I
don't know if you.

Speaker 4 (26:54):
Specifically are aware of this.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
Others at seven ninety, both present and past employees, I
e ones that would say, maybe stay at my apartment
while I was on a week long work trip to
New York City for the Super Bowl. He was looking
forward to staying there because he knew I had two
closets in that apartment and I was living by myself,
so I could do something like this. One of them

(27:16):
had all my clothes and shoes and boots and all that,
and the other one had all seven hundred and fifty
plus DVDs Blu rays. This setup Yeah, it was awesome
and he was like, I'm gonna catch up on watching me.

Speaker 4 (27:29):
It was like Blockbuster for him. For those of you
who don't know what Blockbuster.

Speaker 2 (27:32):
Is, now, this is a PlayStation related best of X. Yeah,
physical discs for new games, digital downloads, all the information
you could ever need for your future of using your PlayStation.

Speaker 1 (27:46):
So Domino's Pizza got involved, you know why, As they
said in response to the gaming industry, as of the
first of April twenty twenty seven, Domino's UK, by the way,
we'll seize production of physical pizza and shift production of
digital pizzas only consumers will be able to download our
full range of delicious pizza codes and, using the power

(28:08):
of the imagination, enjoy them in an entirely virtual sense.
That now has four hundred and seven thousand likes in
nine point four million views. That was at three forty
five this morning.

Speaker 2 (28:21):
And prior to me seeing that today, I didn't realize
what at Domino's Pizza Underscore UK was all about. Even
though they're trying to tell you with their bio information,
posting about pizza is boring, so they take it up.
They kick it up a notch. They tell you that
this is a series of posts they've had recently. Ketchup

(28:44):
is not a dip. They are very very much into
the World Cup. They're very very much into gaming. They
said about this physical copy going away, they took Blockbuster
from us. Now the gaming aisle, Yeah, they're not having it. Well,
I mean game stop is going to go away it really.
I mean, like, I don't know unless you want to

(29:06):
have some sort of retro gaming activity that that's where
you buy it. I don't know how places like that
and mom and pop shops and that kind of stuff
are going to survive, but it sucks to say it.
That's where a lot of this stuff has been going
for a long time. And looking go into a like
a best Buy today versus even ten years ago, it's

(29:30):
completely different. Alliances, stereos, that's all stuff that's still there.

Speaker 4 (29:37):
But there's no DVD section. I mean there is, but
it's much smaller.

Speaker 1 (29:41):
It's usually the two ninety nine version, the discount ben
every is everything.

Speaker 2 (29:45):
Yeah, and like I said, very very in tune with
the with the World Cup. As they said a couple
days ago, just tried to deliver to the German football team,
but they've gone out then, they quote posted themselves and
said with the Netherlands, maybe England is obviously still playing.

Speaker 3 (30:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (30:00):
Yeah, it's sad in a lot of ways, but that
is the way things are going.

Speaker 4 (30:05):
And uh, it looks like you.

Speaker 1 (30:08):
I haven't bought a physical copy of a game in
a long time, so I can't.

Speaker 4 (30:12):
You're there there to play it.

Speaker 2 (30:14):
You're not there to collect it, to look at it,
to have it own it in a physical sense. You're
there you want the game because you want to play
the game, which you can still do.

Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah, as we go to break a little peak behind
the curtain about that vacation day I took off that's
so infamous on November nineteenth.

Speaker 4 (30:28):
I don't know if it's confirmed yet. I think it's
just a rumor at this point.

Speaker 1 (30:31):
The rumor is that you're not only you're not gonna
be able to play the online version of GTA six
on that first day.

Speaker 4 (30:36):
It's gonna be missions only. I'm not gonna lie to you.

Speaker 1 (30:39):
That kind of makes me like question my vacation day,
Like you might have a co host that day after all?

Speaker 4 (30:44):
Oh goody, Yeah, we'll see all right.

Speaker 1 (30:46):
When we come back. Yannis Kawhi and now Jalen Brown traded,
and it's the Jalen trade that has the NBA and
its fans freaking out.

Speaker 4 (30:57):
Still going since yesterday's report. That's next.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
Back here on the eighteen full boat, wax Ay c
Josh All here with you this afternoon. First and foremost,
thank you to the most high, even in the midst
of adversity. I'm here with gratitude. That's how Jalen Brown
addressed everybody via social media just before we hit the
airwaves this afternoon, and saying both that he's excited and

(31:23):
disappointed at the same time, as he continued, I'm still
processing how all of this went down. I'm excited and
disappointed at the same time. I earned my respect from
this city. Never asked for shortcuts or special treatment. I
simply showed up every day, put my head down and
accepted every challenge. I'm big on respect as it continues,

(31:44):
and actions speak louder than words to the people of Boston.
Thank you to the community I build here. I love you,
and we are locked in for life. As one chapter closes,
another one begins, and then he goes into the I'm
a sixer now part of his Goodbye to Boston and
Hello to Philadelphia. The Philadelphia seventy six Ers land Jalen Brown,

(32:07):
a an NBA champion and NBA Finals MVP, a member
of the most recently elected Second Team for All NBA
this past season, a season played for the majority of
time without Jason Tatum, but with a team that I
called the favorites in the East as the playoffs began.

(32:28):
It obviously did not work out that way, and part
of that lend led to where we are today. It
definitely seemed like this was inevitable this offseason, but the
deal that they constructed and accepted with the Philadelphia seventy
six Ers to send him down the road, to send
him to a fellow contender.

Speaker 1 (32:47):
The divisions matter again now, No but the Eastern Conference.
They've made an Eastern Conference team that went healthy. If
they care about defense, can be very good, and they
made it arguably significantly better. He's certainly no matter what
the analytics, and this has turned into a huge analytics discussion.

(33:07):
The argument against the eye test, the argument for we'll
look at their record when he's not out there and
look at what displayer does when he's not sucking shots
away from him. The Sixers aren't known much for defense,
and I'm not sure how his being on the court
will impact super talent Tyrese Maxi, super talent, MVP, Joe
l Embiid, super talent VJ Edge come, but they are

(33:31):
super talented now offensively, if nothing else. As the East
retakes its shape for this upcoming season. You obviously had
the news come down as you were discussing things and
reacted to it as everybody else did. Seeing him being
moved very very unsurprising, right with how the last several
days and even weeks have played out, for what they

(33:54):
got in return, much more surprise.

Speaker 4 (33:57):
It's insane.

Speaker 1 (33:58):
I don't know that I have seen something like this
since the Luca deal.

Speaker 4 (34:03):
I mean, I never thought I'd be able to say.

Speaker 1 (34:05):
That, And look, it's different in that it's actually worse.
I really do think this is worse than the Luca deal,
if for no other reason than at least with the
Dallas trade, they got Anthony Davis for what a season?

Speaker 2 (34:19):
Yeah, the player that was moved for Luca. When healthy matters,
Anthony Davis could be a part of an awesome team,
a championship contender. I think that's fair to say, even
at this point in his career.

Speaker 1 (34:32):
I don't.

Speaker 2 (34:33):
Paul George was involved in this deal simply because he
makes a lot of money.

Speaker 4 (34:37):
That's all the reason.

Speaker 2 (34:38):
So then we turned to the picks, which clearly were
lackluster in the Luca trade. They are similarly lackluster, if
not worse, in this trade. No matter how many of them,
they could turn into beyond belief nothingness like literally the
netthaul for this several years, many years down the road,
when we look back on it, like we do with
all trades involved Paul George over and over and over again. Yeah,

(35:05):
I don't think we're gonna look at what the Celtics
got in return as much of anything. And they still
believe Jason Tatum's back, elevated roles for other players, the
addition of NBA champion Mitchell Robinson, and we're in it.

Speaker 1 (35:20):
They're not going to have home court advantage in the
first round. With what they do with their record this year,
they could still have a winning record. I'm not saying
Jason Tatum's a bum, But do you even know what
Jayson Tatum is right now?

Speaker 2 (35:30):
If you're them, No, you had one and not the
other last year. Yeah, now you have one and not
the other this year.

Speaker 1 (35:35):
Well, the guy you just traded was the one that
kept you a fifty win team and got you a
respectable seed, and you know, kept the team afloat when
you actually people were writing the Celtics off when Jason
Tatum ripped up his achilles.

Speaker 2 (35:47):
The beginning of the season. The Celtics weren't afterthought. As
the season played out and they kept on winning and
then winning and winning and winning, it changed and then
he came back. And so, like I said, from my standpoint,
my seat right here, I did think they were the
best team in the East as the playoffs began, I
did think they would beat whoever was in front of them,
whether it was beating the number two and the number
one seed or the three in the one.

Speaker 1 (36:07):
Well, however it worked out.

Speaker 2 (36:08):
Obviously they were sitting there in two and it didn't
play out that way. A first round pick in twenty
twenty eight, a first round pick in twenty thirty one,
a pair of seconds along with Paul George. That's what
the return is for Jalen Brown. And as many have
pointed out in their belief and in talking to people
around the league, they do believe that there wasn't a

(36:28):
better deal out there today or yesterday? So then why
pull the trigger? Was it so bad internally? Did he
have to get moved because burned relationships and bad vibes?
Or could they have said this deal isn't good enough
for us to take and we can get a better one,

(36:49):
because they obviously say no, we don't.

Speaker 4 (36:52):
There's so well take it.

Speaker 1 (36:53):
Yeah, there are some aspects of this that I want
to carry over into the three o'clock hour, just because
for no other reason. A. I love Ryan Scalabrini because
if you've ever had a chance to just listen to
the guy, let alone talk to him in person, it's fantastic.
He's great and he had thoughts on this. I love
the fact that Bill Simmons is in absolute hell right

(37:13):
now from a basketball fans standpoint, especially after he called
the Rockets a quote disaster this last year. You know, rockets,
What are you guys talking about? Rapping on the Rockets,
whether they had Darryl Morios their GM or whether the
current iteration. He just has always something negative to say
about them, So enjoy that. So we'll get to that,
plus a little bit more. Astro's conversation is they have

(37:35):
the day off, but they got the Rays coming to town,
and h that's a bad thing for this pitching staff.
No matter who's out there, astros are on a turtle
like pace to get to the top. Can they meet
the challenge of increased competition with Camonaro and others coming
to town tomorrow?

Speaker 4 (37:53):
That's next.

Speaker 1 (37:55):
It looks good in here. Just to keep it consistent,
our number two of the A team. We are not
on Space City Home Network today, but we will be
again before you know it, wex will be. I'm going
to take some vacation time after today's show, but in
the meantime, we've got you until six o'clock gets you
into that holiday weekend hopefully. Now that it's three o'clock,
we said this in the two o'clock hour, I'm really

(38:16):
gonna say it now. And by the time we get
to four o'clock, if you're not out of your office
or place of work yet, I don't know what to
tell you. Maybe you're you got a bad boss or
something like that. But get on the road, get out
the door. It is the two hundred and fiftieth birthday
of our great nation. Cannot wait to start celebrating that,

(38:37):
and we've got a lot to get you into that weekend.
In the meantime, talked about the fact that we would
get into some Astros conversation here, and we will with
the Rays coming to town, Astros losing two out of
three to the Twins, including last night's rubber game.

Speaker 4 (38:53):
You know, tatsu.

Speaker 1 (38:54):
Emi, we got to a point where it was like,
all right, this guy's got it figured out, but you
have to go more than an inning and a third
for me to continue to believe that.

Speaker 4 (39:05):
And he didn't do that last night.

Speaker 2 (39:07):
Yeah, put a little some thought while it was away,
how I would approach things. I spent a lot of
time in between six o'clock PM one day and two
o'clock PM the next day and got all this data, information, opinions,
things I want to bring to the show, and then
the show ends the next day. I'm like, I never
said that, all right, never posted it, or we never
got into that discussion. So I'm gonna try to do

(39:27):
a little bit better job of that again. The back
half of twenty twenty six here on the A team
is gonna be awesome.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
And by the way, since it's the back half, can
you go ahead and wake up the Wexler research team.

Speaker 4 (39:38):
They've been slacking all twenty six.

Speaker 2 (39:40):
As as I mentioned during my holiday, they were working
on Marcus Smart. Yeah, so we'll share some of that
with You saw some of that, but they were working
on tatsu Emi also, and you said, well, it looked
like he's kind of figured things out. Okay, So let's
take the Astros pitching staff this year. The starter's basically
the guy who guys who have made the most starts,
Hunter Brown, Lance, McCullers, Junior Kaiwai Tank, Peter Lambert, and

(40:04):
Mike Burrows, Spencer Aragedty. Those six pitchers combined all of
the starts that they've made all of them. Lambert has
had one, Arigetty has had one, Burrows has had one.
One game each where they've gotten fifteen swings and misses
from their opponents during their time on the mound. Burrows
has done that once, Righetty did it once, Lambert did

(40:27):
it once, Brown, Lance, and Kaiwai Tank they didn't do
it in any of their starts all year, three times combined.
From those six pitchers who've taken almost every other start
this year. Cody Bolton has a couple. Christian Xavier, who
we will talk about, has had a couple and there's
sprinkled in a few others there. Those are the majority
of the starts this year that haven't been tatsu Emi starts,

(40:49):
three of them, three of them. Of the he's made
twelve starts. All the other starts combined, they've had three
pitchers get fifteen whiffs in a game or more. He's
done it five times. Five of his twelve starts, he's
generated fifteen swings and misses.

Speaker 1 (41:08):
Do you guys know what that means?

Speaker 2 (41:10):
His stuff is good enough to get major league hitters
off balance, hit themselves into outs via the strikeout, or
not make a strong contact because they aren't not going
to hit his pitches when he's doing things right.

Speaker 1 (41:25):
That's the positive side. That's the I think he's figured
it out.

Speaker 2 (41:28):
That's the He's the only starting pitcher in Major League
Baseball this year to start a game that did not
have any hits for the other team. There's been a
no hitter this year. He started that game. He threw
six no hit in innings. Now he's also had three
outings where he's gotten one, two, and four outs. Twenty
five percent of his starts have resulted in him leaving

(41:52):
in the first or second innings. It's impossible to do that,
not because of injury only, he strictly because we can't
have you out of here throwing more pitches. And the
worst of all that I could come up with to
deliver today, he has three games this year. The rest
of the starters don't have any. Zero games this year.

(42:14):
He's got three games where he's thrown more balls than strikes.
Every other pitcher on the staff has done it zero times.
He's done it three times. Again, twenty five percent of
his starts have involved him throwing more balls than strikes.
He's a starting pitcher that's unheard of.

Speaker 1 (42:36):
Well, he's a walking dichotomy because he's also the only
starting pitcher who's been involved in a no hitter this year.

Speaker 4 (42:44):
Like, I don't know what to do with this guy.

Speaker 1 (42:46):
He's the most Jekyl and Hyde guy I've ever seen
pitch for the Astros in the history of the organization.

Speaker 2 (42:51):
And just after I'm sure many of you read Chandler's
piece on him and his you know, relationship with teammates,
and now they're trying to, you know, make him feel
as great as they can, as much of a teammate
as they can, as connected with the team as comfortable
as he can they can for him, as that has
been brought off multiple times. How comfortable is he with
the routine? How comfortable is he with the ball, the mound,

(43:13):
the ballparks, the manner in which they prepare for games,
throwing on six days rest or five days rest, every
possible thing, and then yesterday, as he's done many times before.
I just don't think any of that stuff matters. He
cannot put the ball in the strike zone. These aren't
it goes beyond the balls and strikes. These are non

(43:33):
competitive pitches. These are losing pitches. The guys are going
up there saying, I mean, if he grooves one, I
guess I'll swing at it. But why should I even
take my bat up there For the first couple of pitches.
I'll just sit there. I'll be in a hitters count.
And then he'll let me hit one four hundred and
fifty two.

Speaker 1 (43:51):
Mean that part right there, I'll be in a hitters count.
How about can you not take this from yord On please?
Josh Bell, he hit one over the batter's eye. That's
how bad tatsu Emi is. Josh Bell has what three
of his nine home runs against the Astros, this year.

Speaker 4 (44:07):
That's not good.

Speaker 2 (44:07):
I kept having the Wexler research team look this up,
and I kept being proven wrong. Watching the six games
between the Astros and Twins, I thought, well, surely the
Twins slugging percentage against Houston is better than anybody else
they've played all year. It was a homer fest every
time they played. It seemed like he gave up two
big swings yesterday, the Josh Bell swing and the Cody

(44:27):
Clemens swing. And because yesterday was a poor offensive day,
the game was over already before he'd even left the game,
it was over. And on top of all of that,
nobody gets treated better by the Astros offense than Emi.
Seven times the Astros have scored six or more runs
for him, they haven't even won all.

Speaker 1 (44:46):
Of those games.

Speaker 2 (44:48):
He had the nine run lead before even threw a
pitch against Kansas City and couldn't get out of the
first inning. So all of that, now it's time for
us to analyze what do you?

Speaker 1 (45:00):
What do the Astros do?

Speaker 2 (45:02):
As Lance McCullers Junior made his first rehab start yesterday,
as Renel Blanco made his third rehab start yesterday, as
Hayden Wiznsky made his first rehab appearance earlier this week,
what do you do, as you've already made the decision initially,
when Christian Xavier gets activated before Friday's game, the next

(45:23):
game they will play against Tampa, he will be a
part of the Astros bullpen, they'll obviously have to make
a corresponding move. I if it were me, I'd probably
have to get rid of somebody other than the guy
who has options, Miguel Yola, because all he does is
get guys out so far. I'd like to take that
into the Tampa series if it costs you somebody else,

(45:43):
if it makes you make a decision on Nate Pearson,
because you also have al In Bersonta just sitting there
in Triple A getting Triple A hitters out.

Speaker 4 (45:52):
I hate that he's doing that.

Speaker 1 (45:53):
There there's no spot for him here, and all those
spots are getting smaller and smaller as all these pitchers
presumably are in position to get At some point, you
have thirty days. Yeah, Hobvier's thirty days on a rehab
assignment will end and he will have to be He's
going to be activated, but you also need to get
him back on the roster on the fourth All these
things are in play as a host of pictures could

(46:13):
be coming back. But what's the And I know there's
probably some obvious answers, but in all seriousness, what's the
thinking putting Christian Javier in the bullpen and going out
of your way to saying it's one thing to do
it when he comes back, and then you're gonna ease
him back into it to a starter's role. What's what's
the thinking of a putting him in the in the
bullpen and b going out of your way to make

(46:34):
sure everybody knows that that's what you're doing when that's
like the most expensive bullpen guy ever, and you're having
these struggles with like, if you're willing to put Christian
Hobvier after you've invested all this money in him in
the bullpen, why can't you do that with Tatsuya Emi?

Speaker 2 (46:49):
He makes a little bit more, but both of them
are pretty expensive. I don't know that that is something
they've yet to consider. I mean, think about how many
different ways the nine to nothing game he had to
wait even longer to get into the game. How well
do you think he's gonna handle being in the bullpen
waiting for a phone call to go get loose to
come in, probably only for a clean inning. He's probably

(47:10):
not a guy that they would want to bring in.
Probably the same for Javier. But you know, we've had
this discussion with Mike Burrows. Is the time for him
to go to the bullpen. He had his one appearance
there and then he's gone back to being okay. Difference
between Burrows and Emi, the big difference is EMI's treatment
of his teammates through his pitching is awful. He doesn't

(47:31):
hate his teammates, but he's pitching like he hates his
teammates because they get screwed.

Speaker 1 (47:36):
Every third start.

Speaker 2 (47:38):
He goes out there and they've got to get the
final twenty four outs, so the final twenty five outs
or in this case, all but four outs. Mike Burrows
has pitched at least four and two thirds in all
of his starts. He should have even gone five in
that one. That was the game where he had the
perfect game through the first fourteen batters. Then five straight
guys reached and he couldn't continue. But he's at least

(47:59):
getting the him into the game. They're not having to
scramble and then be screwed for that day. The next
day the next day. That's a big thing for this team.
He's only started twelve games and three times he's gotten
four outs or fewer. That is an untenable situation to
have every time he goes out there and not knowing

(48:20):
what he's gonna give you.

Speaker 1 (48:22):
And this was all coming off of his by far,
his best stretch of starts by far. You know how
happy I am just looking at the schedule that neither
Burrows or Emi are gonna face off against a junior
Camanio because he is on a scorcher six straight games
at the home run he would probably hit three against
Burrows right now.

Speaker 2 (48:41):
Well, hopefully he will hit Dyke and Park Friday with
that streak no longer intact. Astros have the off day,
but the Rays are finishing up with their series with
one of the worst teams in baseball. They're finishing up
with the Royals today and then they will be in
Houston tomorrow. The other games of consequence to the Astros
person to claim a playoff spot. And as we move forward,

(49:03):
it is if it hasn't been already for you, as
the Astros won five consecutive series, they're in it. So
we will be standings watching the rest of the season
with your Houston Astros. Rangers are at home for the Tigers.
I'm not sure who Ac will be pulling for in
this starting pitching matchup fromber Valdez against Native Aldi.

Speaker 4 (49:22):
Well, one of them is a bomb and the other
one's a head case.

Speaker 6 (49:24):
So push, can we agree that bad Emi is a
walk in the bird that bad fromber is a walk
in the park compared to bad Emi, My.

Speaker 1 (49:31):
Lord, yeah, unless it's the playoffs and managers managed like
psychos from Brivaldez wasn't coming out of the game in
the first inning still innings. He did it this year.

Speaker 2 (49:43):
I believe it was a six run first inning he
allowed in one of his starts, and he pitched into
the sixth innings.

Speaker 4 (49:48):
Leave him out there, He's gonna eat more innings.

Speaker 1 (49:50):
Well.

Speaker 2 (49:50):
He also doesn't usually like Emi is being taken out,
partially because they're trying to do right by him. When
he's reached thirty pitches in the inning and thirty five
pitches in thirty seven, they can't just leave him out there,
Lance mc colors, That's what happened to him many times
last year. Angels are at the Mariners the other game
of somewhat importance to the ass and they.

Speaker 4 (50:11):
Get a competitive series this weekend.

Speaker 2 (50:13):
The Angels have beaten some pretty good teams recently, are
some American League average teams that are better than them
and the battle for the Central the White Sox and
the Guardians battling in Cleveland. It's only that they had
started that when I was in Cleveland. I was absolutely
gone to a game. A lot of us sports to
share with you from my little vacation, because even though

(50:34):
I don't really plan any of it, the people in
my life know how awesome sports are. So there are
a lot of sports related things that took care of
during this last vacation. Share a few of those things
as we continue here on the show. But it is
the busiest time of the year in the NBA, so
the latest on what's happening, and two very interesting and
potentially significant changes to the rules in the NBA could

(51:00):
be coming soon. I'll tell you about that next.

Speaker 7 (51:04):
The Age on sports Are You?

Speaker 1 (51:07):
One of the greatest times a year in the NBA, though,
all the money and free agency and signings and trades
going around.

Speaker 4 (51:14):
It's like Christmas in July.

Speaker 2 (51:16):
Yeah, we haven't really weighed in as a duo here
trio on exactly what we think needs to be next
for the Rockets and what we think of the two
moves that have been reported for them to add both
Bodn Bodyanovich and Marcus Smarts. With Tari Eason being currently
a restricted free agent waiting and offer from somebody, the

(51:36):
Rockets not dwilling at this point to negotiate against themselves.
They did offer him a deal prior to the season,
but two sides did not agree on that. Likely a host,
if not almost all of their other free agents will
end up elsewhere, and the Fred van Vliet saga and
I think it has reached saga at this point, but
we'll address that coming up in just a little bit.

(51:57):
One thing for the game itself, I mentioned there could
be something new for the NBA in the near future.
I don't think it could happen for this upcoming season,
but I absolutely think it could be brought to the
NBA for the twenty seven to twenty eight season. If
you've been a fan or paying attention to the G
League for almost half a decade now, they have changed
the free throw rules there, and they will now change

(52:19):
the free throw rules for the NBA for the Summer league.
Summer League starts tomorrow. There's a couple summer leagues out West.
Before they play, everybody goes to Vegas together, and starting
with those games tomorrow and all the way through the
Vegas Summer League games, the free throw rules will be
different in an attempt to increase flow of the game.

(52:41):
Less time standing there wondering if the officials will do
their job and call a lane violation or not on
a free throw because there.

Speaker 1 (52:49):
Won't be as many of them.

Speaker 2 (52:50):
There might be the same number of fouls called, but
they're getting a lot less free throw shot. The way
that the rule works, which has been in effect in
the G League for several years, if you are foul
and you will only shoot the number of free throws
appropriate to that particular foul. If you get fouled on
a shot that you make, you shoot one free throw
and it is for worth one point. If you get

(53:11):
fouled on a shot inside the three point line that
you miss in the act of shooting, well, you get
one shot, but it's worth two points. And if you
get fouled on a three point shot that does not
go in again, you get one free throw if it
goes in your team gets three points. If it doesn't,
you get zero points.

Speaker 1 (53:31):
That's awful.

Speaker 2 (53:31):
And that is what they are going to test with
NBA players and NBA referees, whoever they are in the
Summer League. And again, whoever these NBA players are, keep
in mind, there are very few really really good NBA
players that play in Summer League. The better you are,
the less you play, and obviously it means you're in
your first or second season almost exclusively, and so most

(53:54):
of these players are essentially G League caliber players to
begin with. So I'm not sure what exactly they're going
to learn because they've been watching it for several years.
But you've already given the indication of what your answer is.
Why is this such a bad idea?

Speaker 1 (54:09):
Well, let's just take the NBA Finalsky and mister Clutch himself,
Victor wimbin Yama. He bricked some of the most bright lights,
big stage free throws of anybody in the series, and
it's a big reason why the Knicks won multiple close games.
If he makes one of those, which he did in

(54:30):
a lot of those cases, it doesn't make you he
got two points in that case.

Speaker 2 (54:35):
Well, now you're only left with one shot you have
to make the first Yeah, and does it benefit you
to foul this player in that situation? Is it something
that players are going to hunt If you're a good
free throw shooter, well getting fouled in this, you know,
on a three point shot. If you can also shoot
threes well, which a lot of players can, well, now

(54:55):
all you have to do is make one and there's
your three points.

Speaker 1 (54:58):
It's they value on a three point shot.

Speaker 2 (54:59):
G I do think that aspect does cheap in the
game because there is an element of we all talk
about it like it's a walk in the park. He's
standing at the free throw. No one's just defending him.
This is one of the best players on the planet.
He can't make a fifteen foot set shot over and
over and over Nick Anderson. But that's part of Oh
my god, the Rockets have a chance because Nick Anderson

(55:21):
missed two free throws.

Speaker 1 (55:23):
Yeah, two free throws. Not only two free throws, not
four free throws. Now that in his case this wouldn't
have mattered because he was gonna miss them no matter what,
because he was in his own head.

Speaker 4 (55:32):
But I just think that you know you are this is.

Speaker 1 (55:36):
Like, this is why I get so upset about the
whole baseball thing where they've put in like the gift
Runner for example, because especially with the sport of baseball,
they're so about the you know, romanticizing the history of
the of the league and the numbers, and that's such
a rich part of it and they just threw that
out the window.

Speaker 2 (55:53):
In my opinion, Yeah, the numbers of this box, scores, records,
things like that. This does have an enormous impact on
that SGA.

Speaker 1 (56:01):
Really, you think you hate him now he's getting all
the points. It was just one free throw. He'll never miss.
I mean when he goes five for five, that'll be
worth ten points.

Speaker 4 (56:12):
You know what?

Speaker 1 (56:12):
This eleven maybe twelve. Here's the worst part of this
because much like the ABS system, where they won't just
actually address the problem and put it back there permanently,
the human screwing up is the problem. Would you would
you foul? Would you foul the foulibles? Would you foul
step whatever? Would you foul Mitchell Robbinson? Would you continue

(56:33):
to do that?

Speaker 2 (56:34):
Knowing that yes, you if he misses one, you've they've
had a zero point possession. You don't need to miss
two to get a zero point possession. He's probably a
fifty percent higher. But if he makes one right, well,
now they've got there too. Your points per possession numbers,
everyone's staring at those all the time, and when you're
at just over one, that's great. Well Steven Adams goes

(56:54):
up there and hits the first free throw. You just
gave the Rockets a two point person.

Speaker 1 (56:58):
You're doing them doing the same thing that Major League
Baseball is done with abs. You're addressing the symptom and
not the disease. The disease is that your official suck okay,
and you're trying to take a cold pill for it
instead of getting better officials, Because once you get better
officials that make right calls, you don't have to worry
about this mickey mouse crap you're trying to do with

(57:20):
the rules of the game. Well you think this, do
you think this has?

Speaker 3 (57:22):
Well?

Speaker 1 (57:22):
First of all, I had no doubt whatsoever the word
disease would make its way into today's show, and apparently
you found the cure for it.

Speaker 4 (57:29):
Yeah, we have attained this disease.

Speaker 2 (57:31):
I was thinking more of Marion Cabreti rather than Magic Johnson. No,
I know, is this really a fault of faulty officiating,
Like I don't really think the two are necessarily relater.
They're trying to just say, we're playing basketball games, and
they're gonna be twenty four fouls on this team, they're
gonna be twenty six fouls on that team. And if

(57:52):
eighteen of those are sending someone to the free throw
line and we've got a sixty five free throw game,
well we're gonna be here all night and we don't
want that.

Speaker 1 (57:59):
Yeah, But instead of just saying, okay, we're not going
to keep getting baited by the same thing that sends
SGA to the line for seventeen free throws in a
playoff game and takes the conversation from the game itself
to the free throw line and how many times he
went there, instead of addressing what everyone else in the
arena and on television can see except for the three

(58:20):
people you've hired to do this job.

Speaker 4 (58:21):
We're going to now change the rules to expediate.

Speaker 1 (58:24):
That process because instead of you know, tamping damping down
on how many free throws he's taken because we're not
getting baited into crawd.

Speaker 2 (58:33):
That's what I was trying to figure out, that that's
what you think it is. It's more of a well,
we know this guy's going to go to the line
for eighteen free throws, Well we can make it nine now.

Speaker 4 (58:39):
Well to me, that's what it sounds like. They're totally separate.

Speaker 3 (58:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:42):
I think one thing is, you guys need to be better.

Speaker 2 (58:46):
And we just watched it unfold most of this postseason,
and first of all, the games are totally different. I
mean clearly San Antonio and Oklahoma City and then San
Antonio New York. They were beating each other up much
more so than they would ever allow in a regular
season game. But we're used to it. It's typical of
the postseason, and it's fine. We do it during the
regular season, and Adam is very happy.

Speaker 1 (59:05):
Maybe they would. I do think teams would figure out
how to adapt to that style of officiating.

Speaker 4 (59:10):
If it were four more, then we have.

Speaker 1 (59:11):
Lower scores and the attention span of our customers is
now taken into question again because they can't just deal
with that.

Speaker 2 (59:18):
They could actually all this points to they can do both.
You can demand through accountability better officiating. If you also
think this could speed games up without messing with the integrity,
you could do that too. I think the two of
us sitting here would prefer to figure out a different way.
Bring back handshacks, beat up the game. I'm okay with

(59:39):
the drama of the free throws. It doesn't bother me.
Part of the timing takes gives you a little that's fine.

Speaker 4 (59:45):
How many times did you think?

Speaker 1 (59:47):
And I get it because people hated him for the
same reason they hate SGA. But how many times would
James Harden get two free throws or three? And you
or I and anybody in the arena and anybody watching
on TV that was a Rockets fan.

Speaker 4 (59:59):
Oh, this is he's gonna hit these. You don't have to.

Speaker 1 (01:00:01):
Worry about that because you have an elite foul shooter
no matter how many he's getting. But when you have
a guy like a Shack or a Steven Adams or
somebody like that Chuck Hayes where you it's that's the drama,
and it's like, I get it. I get what they're
trying to do, or at least what I think they're trying.

Speaker 2 (01:00:20):
To Dialing Layden games won't take as much time. You
just shoot the one free throw on the we want
to we need the ball back, so we have to foul.

Speaker 4 (01:00:28):
But that right there.

Speaker 1 (01:00:29):
That's what really kills me is that when you come
down to some of these possessions, you me, anybody who's
not I don't know, two years old is going to
be thinking yeah. But back in the day, like I
just feel like we would be thinking about that more
than any other scenario in an NBA game, but more
than well, back in the day, there wasn't a three
point line there. You know, nobody thinks that, right, but
this is like ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
The player who currently holds the most free throws attempted
and most free throws made in a game will be
safe because that record will never be touched in limiting
the number of free throws attempted in games.

Speaker 1 (01:01:02):
I'm the least surprised that this is happening in Adam
Silver's NBA.

Speaker 2 (01:01:06):
Yeah, this will be in place during the summer league.
They're doing a couple other things. We'll get into it
a little bit, but I don't think it will be
very well received at the NBA level, But there hasn't
been a whole lot of resistance at the G league level,
which also points out the difference in the interest in
both of those levels of play. We will hear from
Brian McTaggart on Your Houston Astros. His thoughts on the

(01:01:27):
saga that has been free agent signing Tatsuya Emi, Astros
starting pitcher.

Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
We will discuss that with him next.

Speaker 7 (01:01:36):
The A team on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 2 (01:01:40):
Interesting what the NBA might try to do to the league.
We'll see how things are taken when they do it
during Summer League. But back to the Astros and the
saga of their team that gets a little bit closer
to the race, but to quite get over the hump
just yet. Almost half a season's worth of games still
to play, and they've got nine more before the All
Star breaks starting Friday with three and the Tampa Ray's

(01:02:00):
coming to town the last homestand of the pre All
Star Break portion of the season. Yesterday's game with tatsu
Emi again struggling to get guys out, struggling to throw strikes,
and struggling to get the Astros to win, they end
up losing the series. Their streak of winning series comes
to an end, and they give up eight runs.

Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
He gets four outs.

Speaker 2 (01:02:18):
Brian McTaggart covers the Astros for Astros dot com, MLB
dot Com and will join me tomorrow for Astros on
deck before that game against Tampa. He joined the Matt
Thomas Show with Ross earlier today his weekly visit there,
and that's the portion of the conversation. We begin with
thoughts on what's going on and where things are headed
with tatsu Emi.

Speaker 8 (01:02:40):
Yeah, and it seems like there's been very few games
where he's been in between. It's either he's going six
innings and striking out ten, striking out eleven, allowing any runs,
or he can't get out of the first or second inning.
I've never seen I've just never seen a pitcher be
all or nothing. I mean, he's had a couple of
starts probably in between there, but he's either on or
he's not. And it was pretty clear last night that

(01:03:00):
he wasn't. I mean, five walks, I think he faced
thirteen hitters, walk five of them, give up seven hits I.

Speaker 9 (01:03:06):
Believe, I mean, just not good enough. And I mean
he knows that.

Speaker 8 (01:03:10):
And he talked after the game something about his feet,
foot positioning. I mean, we've heard, you know a lot
of things you know from Imai about you know, things
he's trying to work on. But uh, just when you
think he's about to get some momentum, get you know,
three solid starts under his belt, he takes a big
step back, so not much they can do but but
work with them and then you know, try to run
him out there again, which which I guess will be

(01:03:32):
in Washington, DC next week, another place he has a
pitch before, another new mound.

Speaker 9 (01:03:36):
So you just you never really know what to expect.

Speaker 10 (01:03:39):
The good news is the Astros are getting healthier on
the pitching front, Brian, but just it's particularly with Emi.
I mean, I know it's obviously hard to predict even
from start to start what it's going to look like
for him, But could could you see a scenario where
he gets shelved to the bullpen and and Javier or
any of these other guys coming back get some cracks
at some starts.

Speaker 9 (01:03:59):
I don't see that yet.

Speaker 8 (01:04:00):
I mean, I just I just find it hard to
believe with all they invested in him, they would they
would move him to the bullpen.

Speaker 9 (01:04:07):
And but like you said, you know, the guys got coming,
they got guys coming back. I mean, the Colors is
what made two rehabs starts.

Speaker 8 (01:04:14):
Now Blanco made his third, so he's both of those
guys will probably be back by the end of the month,
and you know, Hayden west Neski's starting to throw in games.
So I mean that's a good problem to have, is
more pitching depth. You don't know how effective these guys
are going to be, and they don't know what's gonna
happen between now and then.

Speaker 9 (01:04:31):
Somebody else might get hurt.

Speaker 8 (01:04:32):
Trade deadline is coming up, so it's hard to say
what this roster will look like, you know, a month
of a month from now, because I think the trade
deadline is one month from today. So they just have
to hope they can find five healthy starting pictures, some
of them are throwing well, and try to keep this
rotation together.

Speaker 10 (01:04:48):
Figuring out who's in the bullpen, who's in the rotation,
how much of a look everyone gets. It just seems
like Joe Spot and Dana Brown I don't have a
lot of question marks.

Speaker 9 (01:04:56):
Yeah they do. I mean, Raghetti had the great May, but.

Speaker 8 (01:04:59):
I think he had what a ninety r a June,
So he's gonna get the ball tomorrow to try to,
you know, maybe flip of the calendar start fresh. But
it certainly looked like for a while there you're gonna
have Brown and Ari Getty at the top and feel
really good about that. I mean, Lambert, Lambert's a you know,
a fifth starter guy who's.

Speaker 9 (01:05:15):
Done his job. You know, he can't complain about that.

Speaker 8 (01:05:17):
Burrows remains and yeah, give up the runs in the
first inning the other day and he was saying, I
thought it was interesting. He thought that he felt kind
of rushed in the first inning from his pregame bullpen
to the game starting. He just felt that that was
all rushed and he just really never could catch his
breath because after the first inning he was okay.

Speaker 9 (01:05:36):
So maybe there's some timing things that can work on harder,
but it just.

Speaker 8 (01:05:40):
Certainly seems like, you know, there's it's there's this fine
line each of these starters have to walk, and if
everything's not perfect, then it really goes off the rails quickly,
except if you're if you're Hunter Brown, you can count
on him and thankfully for that. So uh but like
I said, they got more guys coming back, They're gonna
have more options. So maybe a couple of these guys
are gonna get healthy and come off the aisle can
provide the.

Speaker 11 (01:06:00):
Boost shortstop whose mobility is everything, having these issues in
the leg quad area and as determining whether or not
does that concern you for a long term conversation about
a contract. What are your general thoughts about Payna's injury
history and whether that goes into the thought of Jim

(01:06:23):
Crane and whoever runs his baseball administration for the first
subo future trying to decide to lock him up long
term or not.

Speaker 8 (01:06:29):
Well, I'll say, I don't think they're gonna I don't
think he'll be locked up long term. I mean, they've
made an offer to him and it's it's not happening
and unless unless Peya changes his stance, I mean, it's
just not gonna happen here. So I just think that's
sort of something that's out the windows. So, uh, you know,
he's going to be a free agent after next year.
But yeah, he certainly is a guy who's had some
soft tissue injuries Dowt the going and now that the

(01:06:51):
cat kind of back to back injuries. But when he's out,
you really see how much he means to this team,
because they.

Speaker 9 (01:06:57):
Are a lot better when he's in the lineup.

Speaker 8 (01:07:00):
I mean, I don't have it in front of me,
but if you look up the record when he's in
the lineup, when he's not, it's pretty drastic. He just
not only defensively, but just what he does at the
top of the order. I mean, he's he's probably their
second or third best offensive play maybe their second best
behind Alvarezquez.

Speaker 9 (01:07:16):
What you know, Walker slept on a bit, so he
lose him.

Speaker 8 (01:07:18):
That's a big hole in a lineup that typically has
three or four even five big holes in it every night.

Speaker 9 (01:07:24):
So his value to this team is clear when he's playing.

Speaker 8 (01:07:27):
But yeah, he you know, he also had the freak
thing in spring training that he kind of didn't play
every day to start the season, So that's and that's
really not his fault. But yeah, a soft tasty injuries,
and and he's a guy who's really prepared. I mean
we've all seen paying. I mean, he's a physical specimen.
I think these things just happen, and I know he's
frustrated by it, but he was already out in the
field yesterday running and fielding some balls. So it certainly

(01:07:50):
looks like he will be back at the end of
the ten days, which would be maybe in about a week.

Speaker 10 (01:07:55):
Would you see a possible move for a leverage lever
as well? And how do you feel state the bullpen obviously,
Josh Hater's been excellent. Now Brian King and ok At
pretty good as well. But do you think they would
try to beef up those cores?

Speaker 9 (01:08:07):
Yeah, I certainly do.

Speaker 8 (01:08:08):
I mean your number one need is left had a
hitting outfielder, I think number two. If you can get
another relief pitcher, you do that. But this bullpen has
pitched really, really well since you know, after probably mid May,
when you know the starting rotation was a wreck and
the bullpen was having to cover seven eight innings, and
which is no no bullpen can really do on a
night in and not out basis. But now that the

(01:08:30):
rotation stabilized somewhat and guys have found their roles. You
know that the Kings, the Olkerts, uh, you know haters
back you mentioned Blue Bomby. This is uh, this is
this is a very very good bullpen. But you can
never have enough bullpen arms. And I think in the
trade deadline, uh, you can go out and find a
reliever pretty easily, certainly a lot cheaper than trying to

(01:08:52):
get a starting pitcher or even a starting position player.

Speaker 1 (01:08:55):
Conna begs the question, how do you make your team better?

Speaker 2 (01:08:57):
Does it take those players off of the roster, the
twenty six man roster in order to do that. Something
you mentioned about Jeremy Paynia very much true. They'll give
you the data on that when we come back on
the other side, Astros and Rays. The Rays are the
Rays the best team in the American League, Well, you

(01:09:18):
can't possibly think it's the Yankees, So the answer is yes,
and they play the Astros. Next things to break down
a little bit of that conversation there with Brian McTaggert
if you were this last segment. He made a visit
to The Matt Thomas Show with Ross earlier today specific
to this team seeing Jeremy Paynia out of action again.

(01:09:38):
The season began with what he discussed the exhibition game
issue during the World Baseball Classic. He's had multiple issues
with his legs and hammy and it's kept him out
of being the player he probably needs to be for
this team to be a whole lot better. And he
mentioned when he's out there, when he's not, the Astros
are a different team in those situations. He's made forty

(01:10:00):
five starts this year, they're twenty five and twenty when
he's out there. That would be the third best record
in the American League if he had played that often
and they had that record to go with it.

Speaker 4 (01:10:13):
Yeah, MT to tell you that happened also while you
were gone.

Speaker 2 (01:10:15):
Yeah, well that's just one of many. Yeah, we didn't
get to the rain Al Delgado injury from yesterday's game
twenty five and twenty with him Okay, well, well what
are they when he doesn't start. It's probably about the same.
They're eighteen and twenty six. When he doesn't start, eighteen
and twenty six would have you right near the bottom
of the league.

Speaker 4 (01:10:34):
You'd basically be the Angels.

Speaker 2 (01:10:36):
That's a pretty big swing in a year where almost
every team is the same. You got the Rays and
the Yankees with fifty and forty eight wins respectively, and
then you got four teams with less than forty wins.
There's nine teams between forty five wins and forty wins,
and the Astros are forty three. A sweep of a
series one of these three remaining series and winning six

(01:10:58):
out of the nine games they have their yes of
the way, they could go to the break with the
third best record, third best record in the American League.
Be a little tough from a logistics and mathematical standpoint,
because the White Sox and Guardians are playing each other
in one of these series as they are today. But
that's how closely packed things are. One. I know they

(01:11:19):
played good baseball. I know they won a bunch of series.
I know they got Hunter Brown back, I know they
got Josh haterback, and they are a completely different team.
As guest forecast predicted right here on this show that
that was going to be the beginning of the real season.
The Astros two point zero. They had opening day back
in March with Hunter Brown. Their real opening day was

(01:11:40):
when he returned. Josh Hater had come back just before that,
and now Hunter Brown made his return. That's the Astros
two point oh and the Astros two point zero basically
are the best team in the American League. Their record
says as much. They've been They've had as many wins
as anybody in the American League for more than a
month now. But they do need to sweep a series
or two here there, otherwise this is going to be

(01:12:02):
the most lengthy trip to the top I've ever seen. Usually,
you go on a run, you do win ten of eleven,
you win fifteen of eighteen, and all of a sudden,
you went from ninth best record to third best record.

Speaker 1 (01:12:13):
The Astros have been playing great, and they made up
a game on the Mariners, and then they caught up
to the A's and passed them, and then they slowly
just every day. It's just such a tractor pull because
that's just not who they are.

Speaker 3 (01:12:25):
This year.

Speaker 2 (01:12:25):
They're good enough to win the division, which I think
they will do, which obviously sends them to the playoffs,
but they are still not whole. And it does seem
like every week one or two players comes back and
another one player leaves. Having know Jeremy Pania and playing
Nick Allen a.

Speaker 1 (01:12:41):
Ton, which is almost now what you have to do
because you don't even have the option of playing del Gatto,
which shortstop you you got significantly worse. Well, it's one
of your least productive hitters. Yeah, well you got significantly
worse when you when Jeremy Penia went down to start with.
But the fact that it doesn't help in this situation,
specifically that by all accounts, that should be a short stint,

(01:13:05):
but it still has to be the stint.

Speaker 4 (01:13:07):
You know, you can't speed up to ten days.

Speaker 2 (01:13:10):
I mean they can say that and they might even
be right, and Jeremy Payne has said as much, even
though he said he was.

Speaker 4 (01:13:17):
Playing through it as it got worse.

Speaker 2 (01:13:20):
You got nine games through Sunday of next week, and
then you have no games on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.

Speaker 1 (01:13:30):
He's not coming. He's not coming back to actually break.
I wouldn't think so. If they're smart, I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:13:34):
You could do it like you did at the beginning
of the season when he was active for opening Day
and then played every other day for the first few games.
They could bring him back on Friday of next week
different then and have him sit Saturday and then play
him again. I mean, I guess, and with how much
these games mean. I know there's plenty of season left,
but clearly in a race like this, a win here,

(01:13:56):
a win there, and that last series of this pre
All Star Break, it's not against the Nationals and it's
not against the Rays. Those are the first two series
before you get to the break. The last series is
against the first place Rangers. That does mean a little
bit more in that case, both from a season series
perspective and a potential tiebreaker, and the fact that you

(01:14:17):
don't have to scoreboard watch. I know the Rangers lost
today because the team I'm on one, so I wouldn't
be shocked if they did bring him back. If what
they're saying is true and they expect it's not gonna
be tough. He doesn't need the full rest, he doesn't
need those extra four days, but that can be a
dangerous proposition versus let's just get him fully or healthy.

Speaker 9 (01:14:38):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:14:38):
Brandon Braden Shoemake made his first rehab appearance yesterday. Lamont
Way Junior, who gives them outfield depth, has been on
his rehab assignment. He will likely be back in the
lineup on Tuesday. These are things that might actually change
how they view those next nine games. They still need
a lot more production out of the outfield. Taylor Tremmeell
clearly has been helpful. He hits had some mo Monster

(01:15:00):
shots while I was away. Cam Smith did the same
while I was away, and the Astros are right back
in the thick of things. They have made it I think,
incredibly interesting despite not being great. They are forty three
and forty six, and they're in as good a position
as anybody because most of that record was produced while
Josh Hater and Hunter Brown were watching. They have the

(01:15:23):
benefit and that no other team in the American League has.
They have the best offensive player and the only player
I think that can make a strong argument to say, Ah,
not so fast. My friend will be playing them starting tomorrow.
You brought them up earlier. Junior Camonaro is an absolute beast. Yeah,
he's at the play.

Speaker 1 (01:15:41):
He's the only guy that can rival Yordon right now. Actually,
he's better than yourdon right now because he's hit six
straight games with a home run. He's better than Yrd
on this year, I mean this week.

Speaker 4 (01:15:51):
Right, this week. That's what That's what we meant to say.

Speaker 1 (01:15:53):
I thought that's why I came across clear right, All right,
four o'clock out.

Speaker 4 (01:15:57):
We're coming up next.

Speaker 1 (01:15:58):
Let's get into decipher an NBA player's social media account.
One of our favorite hobbies here on the A team
is the four o'clock hour gets underway. Four o'clock hour
is underway, which means we are an hour away from
Chandler Roma of the Athletic joining us for his weekly visit. Yeah,

(01:16:19):
we know it's a Thursday, but we don't have a
show tomorrow, so he's gonna come by for his weekly
visit to talk all things Houston Astros, and then we'll
be able to get to the bottom of some of
the things that he's hearing, like, for example, trademarket for
aj Blueball not a sentence.

Speaker 4 (01:16:36):
I thought I'd be uttering today, but here we are.

Speaker 2 (01:16:39):
He wrote a piece about that, so we could definitely
address it with him. My thought initially on that is
this is where the Astros asset pool really comes from.
I'm sure they have prospects that there are other teams
that they like, but I don't know what you're gonna
land in return. I do not think they're trading Kevin Alvarez.
I do not think they're trading Xavier Nine's and both

(01:17:01):
of them, by the way, as the roster is updated today,
will be a part of the MLB Futures Game surrounding
the All Star Game. Both of them are having perfectly
good seasons. Nine season a little bit more productive than Alvarez.
He's also a little bit older, and I think both
of them are going to be players on this Astros team,
maybe as early as next year, most likely a big

(01:17:23):
part of the twenty to twenty eight Astros. And remember
the twenty twenty seven Astros might not produce anything because
there might not be a twenty twenty seven season, but
I don't think they would would be or should be
willing to move those players. We always get into the
prospects over players, and especially in baseball, you never know
what these guys are going to turn into. The Astros

(01:17:44):
hung onto their elite level prospects. Elite level prospects, not
the number one prospect in their system, the number one
prospect widely regarded as elite level around baseball. They did
it over and over and over again for a reason,
because they felt like those guys were going to hit
Kyle Tucker untouchable, Alex Bregman untouchable. Obviously, Carlos Korea was

(01:18:05):
drafted by the Astros and made his debut with the
Astros and was a longtime member of the team. George
Springer drafted and played every player I just mentioned. I
do believe these two players will be treated as such.
Gonna make things pretty difficult. But the reason why he j.
Blueball's name comes up is because he is young. He
looks like he can play whatever, perform whatever duty your

(01:18:26):
team needs, because he's been a starter most of his
professional career and certainly came up through their system. Recently
as a starter. But this is what they needed from him.
They needed somebody to lengthen their bullpen. He's done that
at a tremendously high level. It's not even throw out
the Rockies game from earlier this year when he had
to come in for Christian Javier.

Speaker 1 (01:18:44):
But he's just pitched well. This bottom of the line.

Speaker 2 (01:18:46):
Bottom line is he's had as many multiple inning appearances
as anybody in baseball and he's been extremely successful. He
helps them a great deal. He would help another team
a great deal. Could your bullpen survive without him if
he helps you get a bat in the outfield, presumably
a left handed bat, and I know they actually need

(01:19:07):
bullpen help, so they say. I think the answer is
probably yes. I wouldn't like to lose him because I
do think he can be a big part of this
team's future, bigger than the role he's playing now. But
all good players come at a cost. If they're actually
trying to get a player that can help the team
versus they just needed to find something or give this

(01:19:28):
a try, or you know, find then you have to
give something up. The trade for haes Lu Sanchez is
probably along the lines of what you'd have to give
up for a player. They took a chance that Sanchez
could help him great against right handed pitching until he
got to Houston.

Speaker 4 (01:19:42):
What did it cost.

Speaker 1 (01:19:43):
Him next to nothing.

Speaker 4 (01:19:45):
In my opinion.

Speaker 1 (01:19:47):
Well, I mean, we'll table the Fred van Vliet conversation
for next segment just so we can get into this
a little bit more. We haven't really talked about the decision.
I mean, we talked about a little bit, but like
delve into the decision to put Christian Javier in the
in the bullpen. Is that simply or is that just
as simple as working him back in or I mean,

(01:20:10):
this is a starter who's making big money, well, bigger
money than the usual. They got three options.

Speaker 2 (01:20:17):
You got a guy on the front side of his
career making next to nothing, Mike Burrows hasn't pitched well.
You got a guy who's a rookie and makes eighteen
million a year his first year as a professional in
this league in tatsu Emi. And you got a guy
who's into the meat of his long term contract now
Christian Xavier, who's also been hurt, who hasn't pitched in
a long time. The last time he did pitch was
not very successful. Remember he was on the team. When

(01:20:38):
the year started he was in the rotation, he pitched
very poorly, and last year he also pitched very poorly
coming off of an even bigger injury lapse in time played.
So none of those are good. I don't know what
the best option is. I'm totally fine with this. I
wish that the dates of EMI's start and Javier's return
matched up a little bit better. If they can play

(01:21:00):
this series right, maybe they will. He's in the bullpen,
It doesn't mean he's pitching Friday or Saturday or Sunday.
And if that's the case, then you set yourselves up
to be in a little bit better situation to maybe
see him flip with I hate the idea of a piggyback,
and I don't think they would strictly go with that,

(01:21:20):
but you might end up seeing it because they just
have guys that are starters.

Speaker 1 (01:21:25):
Lancema Colors is no different.

Speaker 2 (01:21:26):
If Javier is not even coming back to be a
part of your starting rotation, two or three rehab starts
from now and Lance through four innings sixty pitches in
his rehab outing this weekend. Is he gonna come back?
How's he come back as a starter?

Speaker 3 (01:21:41):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:21:41):
For who that is the guy that I would think
if you were gonna try something like this, you would
have done it with well.

Speaker 2 (01:21:46):
Javier has pitched out of the bullpen as a major
leaguer right or right, but free injury.

Speaker 1 (01:21:52):
He has not tried to come back from so many
different injury situations.

Speaker 4 (01:21:56):
The way mccullors has.

Speaker 2 (01:21:58):
The way they used him back then was probably how
they're going to use him now. They would like to
see outings where he can run through nine batters, maybe
get him two three innings, and then he's down for
several days. It's an awful way to work a bullpen,
but it's the right way probably to work that pitcher.
And I do think that's what they'll end up doing
with him. He can give them length, he can be
like blue Ball, but I think they'll be even more

(01:22:19):
careful with him. Let's say he comes back and he
is needed Friday night, and he pitches the six seventh,
eighth inning, and things go well. He probably doesn't pitch
again until midway through the Washington series.

Speaker 1 (01:22:31):
Yeah, I mean, there's there's obviously like positives to it.
I just feel like, fundamentally, if you're Jim Crane, how
are you like Oh my gosh, I'm paying this guy
all this money, and.

Speaker 2 (01:22:41):
The alternative is to send a guy making more money
to the bullpen.

Speaker 4 (01:22:46):
Yeah, no, I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:22:46):
That's with the situation they're in. It's and then when
you start factoring in the money they're spending on Emi.

Speaker 2 (01:22:52):
Can you can you eliminate that part of it? Truthfully?
I'm asking for real. They're forty three and forty six,
they're eighty nine into the season, there's seventy three games remaining.

Speaker 1 (01:23:02):
You're trying to win. Our window is always open.

Speaker 2 (01:23:07):
That comes up at the meeting, that comes up when
Crane's talking to Dana, when Dana's talking to Joe, and
Joe's talking to Josh and all those we're.

Speaker 1 (01:23:13):
Trying to win. I don't really look at it.

Speaker 2 (01:23:16):
I'm not putting him in this situation and making him
a starter because he's making sixteen million. I'm not not
sending this guy to the bullpen because he's making eighteen
I'm trying to win. I want these pitchers to help
us win. Your job is to make that happen.

Speaker 1 (01:23:29):
That's like the It's the equivalent of playing a bad
quarterback because you draft him. It drafted him first overall
Texans like, you're just forcing it because you committed this
money to this guy when you just can't look at
it that way.

Speaker 2 (01:23:41):
And that would be the case if he's if that
quarterback was on a good football team, right that you
would be winning if he wasn't out there messing it up.
That's the one big difference and these guys, that's the
other part of it. We know that Mike Burrows is
pitching poorly, we know that tatsu Emi is pitching poorly.
We don't know what Christian Javier is doing yet. We
knew what he did at the beginning of the year,

(01:24:01):
which was pitch poorly. So I think the commitment to
him as a starter went like Hunter Brown. Again, they're
clearly very different, but there was no there's no question
when you have a pitcher on that side of your rotation,
he's on the good side. There's no doubt he's gonna
pitch well. He's gonna have a bad start here and there.
He's had one, yeah, his last one, but you know
he's going to pitch well on the whole.

Speaker 1 (01:24:20):
He is that type of pitcher.

Speaker 2 (01:24:22):
You don't know that with him, You don't you don't
know that with Kaiwai Tang, who if you miss that
is not on a has not been sent to the
minors technically because they had to alter that designation because
they's got a knee injury. So he's actually on the
IL and probably won't start another game for the Astros
this year because when he is healthy, he will probably

(01:24:43):
be a part of their bullpen. And still we have
Renel Blanco, He's almost given to be in the bullpen.
I don't have any issue with their decision on any
of this until they continue doing the wrong thing. And
when did we get to that point with Mike Burrows,
to the point where they did send it to the
bullpen to clear his head?

Speaker 4 (01:25:01):
Where do we get a game?

Speaker 3 (01:25:03):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:25:03):
When do we get to that point with em? We
haven't we already gotten there?

Speaker 2 (01:25:07):
And in Javier's case, how long do how many opportunities
does he get? Does he have a longer rope than
Brian abred you? Does he have a shorter rope than?

Speaker 3 (01:25:14):
That is?

Speaker 1 (01:25:15):
Are you forced to start him if the bullpen gig
doesn't work out? And I think with Emi, the funniest
or I mean not funniest, but the most.

Speaker 2 (01:25:22):
Least funny way of saying this in a funny way. Yes,
this is not making you laugh.

Speaker 1 (01:25:26):
The most interesting part about this is you would never
put him in the bullpen for any reason, because that
would be yet another thing that's messing with his routine.
You're talking about a guy who doesn't like what time
the team eats. You're gonna try and put him in
the bullpen?

Speaker 4 (01:25:40):
Are you kidding me?

Speaker 9 (01:25:42):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:25:42):
I thought this would also be true. He's had three
outings where he's lasted four outs or less, so clearly
he's had bad first innings. But what he's really had
problems with is getting out of the inning, not giving
up a ton of runs. Sometimes that has also clearly happened,
but his pitch count because almost all of the damage.
He's still got a batting average against of under two

(01:26:04):
thirty because they're not hitting him to death, they're getting
walked around the bases, walked around the bases against todtsu Ema.
His numbers in the first inning aren't any different than
his numbers in pretty much every other.

Speaker 1 (01:26:17):
Inning he gets.

Speaker 2 (01:26:19):
He has a lot of trouble harnessing his stuff, whether
he's not standing in the right part of the mountain
in one start, or his release point is off. Whatever
it is, it's it's not possible to have extreme long
term success when you're walking batters. Is often when you're
pitching behind. He gives up hits when it's a two
zero count, when it's a one to zero count. He

(01:26:41):
starts hitters off with a ball all the time. That's
where the numbers really stand out. His performance pitch by pitch,
especially the first batter of the inning, first batter of
the game. I think he's retired the first batter of
the game three times, nine times in twelve starts, the
first batter of the game has reached base. That's disasterball,
and it's been that for him. So it has reached

(01:27:03):
that point that they're probably at a point and I
would definitely advocate for it where his start has to
get skipped if you have the available arms, bodies, et cetera,
whether it's a spot start for blue ball, whether it's
three innings from okhurt if you can, or Christian Javier,
whatever the case may be, and we are not far
away from Lance mc colors or Renelle Blanco being available
barring any other injuries, then I would absolutely say that

(01:27:25):
they can't just say, well, five days from now, Emi
is getting the ball again. We have to force this
to work. They did that for two and a half
months with Brau, and they aren't doing it anymore. They
can't force him into games anymore because they're trying to win.
He pitches when you're not trying to win. Like yesterday,
two innings. He pitches when you're not trying to win.

Speaker 1 (01:27:46):
The game was over.

Speaker 4 (01:27:47):
So yeah, yeah, no, for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:27:49):
All right, we will table that discussion and probably get
back to that and other things. When Chandler Rome joins
us at the top of the hour, mentioned that Fred
van Vliet has been always active on social media, but
what he's all three posts on his Instagram account.

Speaker 4 (01:28:04):
Yeah, three posts. It was more than that once upon
a time.

Speaker 1 (01:28:07):
With that, plus I floated some out there, something out
there on Monday. And by the way, I'm seeing this
a lot everywhere, all of a sudden, in various places
of the NBA stratosphere on social media. When you get
wex's real time reaction to a trade proposal I had
when we come back Doc seven ninety No Space City
Home Network today.

Speaker 2 (01:28:26):
Just missed a post malone show when we were in Cleveland. Okay,
so he was performing the day after we were leaving
right outside Huntington bank Field.

Speaker 4 (01:28:36):
I swear we were going, we're getting to this rocket stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:28:38):
But I do want to hear about the limit.

Speaker 4 (01:28:42):
The state you were in.

Speaker 2 (01:28:43):
I'll let the listeners hear about it while you're gone.
You don't get any of it. Thanks, So Freddy Vee
going to add you to the list today. You know
what I'm talking about. Just made the list, buddy, you
just made a list. Twenty five million dollars. Last year
on the first year of his two year fifty million
dollar deal, he obviously was unable to play.

Speaker 4 (01:29:00):
Due to the knee injuries if you can get it,
and then.

Speaker 2 (01:29:03):
The second year of the fifty million dollar deal at
twenty five million, was a player option. He had that
option like many players do. Over the last couple of
days come up and he decided to pick it up,
dec I will be under contract with the Rockets for
one more season at twenty five million dollars. There was
no declining, there was no extension, there was no anything,

(01:29:25):
and some of the things you know, kind of didn't
go hand in hand. But this is how he and
his agent and the Rockets obviously are playing it.

Speaker 4 (01:29:32):
And now the no trade clause is gone.

Speaker 2 (01:29:34):
Because of that, the no trade clause that was in
the deal becomes a nothing now it does not exist
with him opting in. So that's the situation. He has
a one year contract with the Rockets for twenty.

Speaker 1 (01:29:45):
Five million without a no trade clause, and they have
made the agreements with both Marcus Smart plays a lot
of point guard, and boy On Bogdanovich, who doesn't play
a lot of point guard but is a wing second
guard shooting through Reese, also thirty.

Speaker 4 (01:30:01):
Four and often injured like Smart.

Speaker 1 (01:30:05):
So all of that is to say, would you shop
Fred van Vliet, especially in light of the fact that
his knee exploded his words not ours.

Speaker 2 (01:30:17):
Well, if if all this is to be true, then
you're trading him when his values at its lowest. You're
only trading him because, yes, we want other guys to play.

Speaker 4 (01:30:27):
He's Paul George.

Speaker 2 (01:30:28):
You don't want to pay him twenty five million. He's
Paul George. You're trading him. What entices the other team
to make that deal?

Speaker 1 (01:30:34):
And I'm about to tell you where I would send
him in this in this pretend situation scenario, is that
that money coming off the books and the veteran leadership
and all that kind of stuff, like Fred Van Vliet
was on the bench every single game last year, even
the one that Kevin Durant wasn't on the bench for
Just just kidding, Katie, I'm just I'm playing with you,

(01:30:55):
even though it's true he was on the bench and
you weren't. And then Kevin, you know, played in one
more game in the postseason, and then he did right,
he had that going for him last season. Was not
to take Bill Simmons's gimmick. It was a disaster in
a lot of ways, just from the standpoint. If it
was miserable to watch it all unfold the way we did.

Speaker 2 (01:31:13):
It didn't have to be, and then it did. It
was not going to be a disaster if they did
what they would have done in my opinion, had he played,
if Kevin Durant was not hurt in the opening round
of the playoffs injury before the series, and then again
during the series. I do think they beat the Lakers.
It doesn't mean oh my god, they're out of the
first round.

Speaker 4 (01:31:31):
Whooo yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:31:32):
But I don't know that it would be called a disaster. Well,
those two teams were competing for the honor to be
slaughtered by the Thunder in round two, which would have happened.
Thunder did get slaughtered by somebody else.

Speaker 4 (01:31:42):
Yeah, but that's not in round two, round two.

Speaker 1 (01:31:44):
So the other day I came in here and I
just was like, all right, I'm gonna let it rip,
and I suggested the following, I think the Rockets are
gonna trade for Kyrie Irving. I feel like they're gonna
trade Fred van Vliet and Dorian Finney Smith and maybe
those picks for Kyrie Irving. And if they do, I'm

(01:32:04):
not even all that mad about it, because I can
tell you right now, if the twenty twenty six twenty
seven campaign tips off and it's Kevin Durant and Kyrie
Irving along with Albera and Chingoon still here and a
little bit of pressure is taking off of him, I
am at least, at the very minimum, more intrigued with
that lineup than I am anything with just standing pat

(01:32:26):
and going.

Speaker 2 (01:32:28):
Intriguing was an interesting word to use because it's definitive,
It's very very intriguing. It's exceptionally full of drama. Undoubtedly,
are you locked in on watching one unfolds in Houston?
Both Houstonians and NBA fans alike one hundred percent you are.
It is intriguing, but does it make sense to essentially

(01:32:51):
say what we've done to accumulate other team's draft picks
that are of value, probably greater than our fifty win
team draft picks that we would use ourselves on a
player like Fred coming off of his season where he
did not play any games, and a player who is
in this case it would be the fifth team he's

(01:33:12):
played for. He will be a player who's playing next
season at age thirty four and late in the year
he turned thirty five. That's your future would be over
in terms of manipulating the roster. Essentially, this is it
the last two years of Kevin Durants deal, or with
Kyrie Irving as his point guard, the first two years
of Amen Thompson's extension.

Speaker 1 (01:33:33):
After he signs it. This sich has been done yet.
Would be with Kyrie and KD. But Kyrie's never really
had injury issues before this has he.

Speaker 2 (01:33:42):
I would probably be somewhere in the middle. He's had
a lot of seasons where he wasn't durable, but he
didn't have the catastrophic injury.

Speaker 4 (01:33:49):
The COVID season doesn't count. That was just him not
wanting to take the shot.

Speaker 2 (01:33:53):
He's had two other seasons where he's played less than
thirty games. He's had three other seasons where he's played
five other seasons where he's played less than six games.
But last year's injury or season agos injury that cost
him the year at that age is probably far more
worrisome than that.

Speaker 1 (01:34:10):
He was also hurt at Duke, if you really want
to go back that far, he played eight games his
only year there and then was awesome and was correctly
chosen with the first pick of the draft the last
we saw him playing alongside what the talent level was
in Dallas, especially US fans in this city. People on
the broadcast for the Rockets busted the Rockets.

Speaker 9 (01:34:32):
He is.

Speaker 1 (01:34:35):
Top five clutch fourth quarter playoff caliber performer. You win
games because he's on your team.

Speaker 2 (01:34:42):
You win games because the last five minutes it's his
decision or his shot that's going in.

Speaker 1 (01:34:47):
And then that's my opinion. I don't know that everyone
agrees with that.

Speaker 2 (01:34:49):
I view him as that he's also just like talent
for talent, there might not be five players in the
league that have more talent than him. How does it
translate to winning. How's his involvement on the team. How
are he he and KD going to be his teammates again?
But man, that has a lot to give up for
a player at the end, he is as as much
as he can still play, probably like Kevin can still play. Yeah,

(01:35:12):
probably he's at the end. And you're trading your future
for that you have. But you're trading, when you say future,
your future assets like your ability to Let's say I'm
in Thompson signs an extension and is a career Rocket. Well,
that's an all star caliber player. I think you have
for ten years Sam with Shingoon. So then his new

(01:35:32):
teammate comes from the Brooklyn pick. His great new teammate
I hope comes from.

Speaker 1 (01:35:38):
But you don't know that, you don't And the new
lottery rules certainly make it even less right of a definite.
And that's the thing if you're the Rockets and you
just frankly did not get the type of talent you
should have picking where you did, stupid NBA.

Speaker 4 (01:35:56):
What's the alternative?

Speaker 1 (01:35:58):
Are you supposed to just keep spinning your wheels after
going out and getting Kevin Durant, And whether you want
to admit it or not, you did punt on season
one of him with how you handled the situation with
Fred van Vliet, you just did.

Speaker 4 (01:36:12):
I mean, how can you argue against.

Speaker 2 (01:36:14):
That because what everyone wanted them to do. The names
that keep coming up are not.

Speaker 4 (01:36:19):
They don't matter.

Speaker 1 (01:36:20):
But you're not going to wind yes, compared to.

Speaker 4 (01:36:23):
When you over like it's a disease.

Speaker 1 (01:36:27):
Just to bring up something we've talked about today, it's
an it's an epidemic. Use the word disease. No, no,
somebody else.

Speaker 4 (01:36:33):
True, but it was contagious. It felt like everybody was
doing it.

Speaker 2 (01:36:36):
Yeah, just the the quality of players that everyone thought that,
you know, Kobe White, Jose Alvarado, et cetera. Kobe Wat's
a good player. Jose Alvarado is a clear reserve who
he can make a difference for the minutes that he's
out there, and he is a champion in a New Yorker.

Speaker 4 (01:36:50):
He actually did something to get that ring.

Speaker 2 (01:36:53):
But you're trying you're not trying to beat the Lakers'
You're you're trying to win it all. Yeah, so I
don't know what I think that's their viewpoint of but
they why they did what they did. But you you
did lower your chances of maybe catching a stroke of luck,
maybe running to a team that you did match up
well against, or they ran into injuries, whatever the case
may be. I'd have a hard time saying, no, all
this stuff I've been pushing back out. You're trading your

(01:37:14):
future this But Kyrie Irving a Men Thompson, you're saying,
nobody on the who's on the roster?

Speaker 1 (01:37:21):
That's gone? Just Fred?

Speaker 4 (01:37:22):
Just Fred? That matters.

Speaker 1 (01:37:24):
It doesn't matter. Yes, But what I'm saying is you, okay,
say it doesn't work like you're talking about, and those
would be considered two expiring deals basically from an ABA stand,
Kevin and Kyrie No and Fred. Yeah, that's why Dallas
does it along with a pick and you're building around
Cooper flag and all that.

Speaker 4 (01:37:41):
Yeah, their windows correct in the future.

Speaker 1 (01:37:43):
But if it doesn't work out like you're talking about
for the Rocket side of things, I don't know if
it exactly lines up, but I feel like Kyrie and
Kevin's deals would end relatively at the same time, and
you would still have a Men and Shingoon under contract
with a crap ton of cap space, and you're not Utah.
People want to come and play here. There's worse positions

(01:38:05):
to be in than that, especially given what it looks
like you're going to be going into this season looking
like you don't know what Fred's going to be either,
by the way, just because you don't know what Kyrie is,
you don't know what Fred's going to be. What if
Fred's awful? I don't think he will be, by the way,
But what I mean what if he is?

Speaker 2 (01:38:22):
You mean, like, what if he shoots just under forty
percent from the field and thirty four percent from three
point land like he did?

Speaker 1 (01:38:28):
Yeah, I mean you are improving on Fred right now
with the unknowns. You're improving on unknown Fred with unknown Kyrie.

Speaker 2 (01:38:36):
Interesting to put it out there like that when you're
saying you've got all this cap.

Speaker 1 (01:38:40):
Space to do what with you mean talking about when
Kyrie and KD would be off the books?

Speaker 2 (01:38:45):
Like who are the top two or three free agent
signings this offseason?

Speaker 1 (01:38:53):
Well, one of them hasn't been made yet, even though
he's forty one, Like there's nobody there.

Speaker 4 (01:38:58):
Yeah, Well that's the difference. This CBA is a disaster.

Speaker 2 (01:39:02):
Because like all the movement is coming from trades, trades
players currently under contract who are just seeking extensions.

Speaker 1 (01:39:09):
So they continue to not become free agent. And one
thing we haven't even talked about, and this whole thing
with Jalen Brown, is that the Celtics probably did this
for strictly financial reasons, not analytics or talent or all.

Speaker 4 (01:39:23):
This kind of stuff he's done for them.

Speaker 1 (01:39:25):
It's because, like the thunder who can't shed salary fast enough,
the current CBA does not make it advantageous for you
to homegrow your talent and then win.

Speaker 2 (01:39:36):
So that should bring us into a non standard version
of what's up with that? Or signature segment, because the
look at the Western Conference now is warranted with the
reported moves for the teams that were in the mix
last year and should be in the mix this year,
including the Rockets, We'll ask that question for all of
those teams and the moves that they've made so far reportedly,

(01:39:57):
what's up with that?

Speaker 1 (01:40:00):
Talk about it here on what's up with that?

Speaker 2 (01:40:02):
Our signature segment the NBA's Western Conference, where Kawhi Leonard
is no longer a part of, where Jalen Brown and
Jannisnoto Kompo continue to not be a part of, where
Ja Morant remains a part of, and not a little
bit better team, but only a little bit Utah Jazz.
Do they matter yet? With the moves that they have

(01:40:23):
made more importantly to the teams in the mix and
ahead of the Rockets?

Speaker 1 (01:40:27):
Do they matter? How do we view what they have
done thus far and what do we think is next?

Speaker 4 (01:40:31):
We start at the top.

Speaker 2 (01:40:33):
What's up with the decisions made by the Oklahoma City Thunder.
They found a way to give Isaiah Hartenstein an extension
to the tune of twenty five million dollars a season,
three year seventy five million. They picked up the option
on Lou Dort, which was a mild surprise, I think
to most people at just under eighteen million for the
upcoming season, and they traded a couple of players for

(01:40:55):
more tremendous second round draft capital. But it obviously assists
them a great deal from a cash standpoint and luxury
tax penalty, so to speak standpoint, And saying goodbye to
both Wiggins and Joe, the Thunder are the same team
as a year ago, right, There's no real difference, and
so the difference will be the production and health of

(01:41:17):
their big three. They had two of them last year
and nothing basically from Jalen Williams That's that's all. They
haven't really done anything of consequence, right, Well, Jalen Williams
is healthy. I think they actually could be better.

Speaker 1 (01:41:29):
That's what I mean from the move, just strictly from
the moves that they've made since the season ended. Yeah,
they are doing for what you're talking about. They are
doing a good job of shedding the salary they need
to while not making the team worse in any way.

Speaker 2 (01:41:43):
Yeah, they got three MAX players now and Williams, Chet
and Sga just as they did previous to this offseason
as their extensions all get to kick in and now
they don't have to figure out what is life like
without Isaiah Hartenstein helping them defend bigger, stronger players that
can't defend. And he can just hang out on the
wing and pretend he's not on the team. Okay, that's okay. See,

(01:42:05):
who did.

Speaker 1 (01:42:05):
Not win the West? Remember this year they lost to
San Antonio.

Speaker 2 (01:42:08):
The Spurs had Champenni basically a mutual decision. He opted
out of his deal which would have paid him a
little over three million, so they could give him fifteen
million a season for the next three. They're gonna give
Harrison Barnes another eight million for this upcoming season on
a one year deal, and they're bringing in Tobias Harris
on a little bit over about fifteen and a half

(01:42:29):
million on a two year deal about thirty one million.
You still got almost fifty million per year salary due
to de Aaron Fox. I think Harris gives them a
lot better option as that additional talent. Devin Vessel makes
almost twenty eight million, and then they're really good players
make nowhere near that because Victor is so young in

(01:42:51):
his deal, same with Castle, who's a year behind him,
and same with Dylan Harper who's two years behind him.
The Spurs got better because Harris is in and their
losses of consequence, they really don't have.

Speaker 4 (01:43:04):
Any Tobias Harris. Depending on what version they get.

Speaker 1 (01:43:08):
He was pretty.

Speaker 2 (01:43:12):
Insignificant other than leadership during the regular season and then
all of a sudden looked awesome in the playoffs, just
really well, really productive, right, if.

Speaker 1 (01:43:21):
They get That's what I'm saying, if they get that
version of him as opposed to the regular season version,
like he and Jalen Durham basically swapped for the Pistons
because Duran in the regular season was kicking everybody's backside
and then he completely cratered.

Speaker 4 (01:43:38):
I hope it's screwed.

Speaker 1 (01:43:39):
Like Tobias Harris is not like this, ooh, huge splash.
But I also, to some extent, hope that it screws
up like a good thing, because they did have a
good thing going.

Speaker 4 (01:43:50):
Why would you mess with it? You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (01:43:51):
Now, Dearn Fox, that's a whole other conversation. And I
love the fact that they're stuck with that fifty plus
per that's glorious. Somebody suggested the Rockets should swoop in
and trade for him.

Speaker 4 (01:44:03):
I'm like, swoop in.

Speaker 1 (01:44:04):
Let them eat that contract and everything that comes with
it on the floor.

Speaker 4 (01:44:08):
He's part of the reason they never even got back
into the finals.

Speaker 1 (01:44:11):
Yeah, and Harris's case.

Speaker 2 (01:44:12):
Just for those who weren't paying attention to Detroit in
the playoffs, which is all of our listeners. Somehow, despite
shooting under thirty percent on his five threes per game
in the playoffs, he was incredible every other area, all
of his two point field goals, everything like that. He
scored eighteen points per game in their fourteen playoff games
after scoring just barely thirteen in their regular season. So

(01:44:36):
I think the Spurs got a little bit better. Denver
really hasn't done anything yet. I don't recognize the Marvin
Bagley signing as something of consequence. It did happen, but
I don't think that makes much of a difference for
their team. The Lakers, this was probably going to be
the most fun one to discuss because they've been the
most active. Lebron James elected for a free agency or

(01:44:57):
was told you're not wanting to be back.

Speaker 4 (01:44:59):
That's a you to decide.

Speaker 2 (01:45:01):
Austin Reeves is getting forty six million dollars a season
over the next four years. DeAndre Ayton opted in at
eight point one million dollars.

Speaker 4 (01:45:11):
As he should have. As he should have.

Speaker 2 (01:45:13):
Walker Kessler is at the front side of whatever this
deal turns out to be. But he's gonna get four years,
thirty one hundred and thirty millions thirty two and a
half million a season.

Speaker 1 (01:45:22):
How about Walker Kessler. I don't like how negotiations are
going with the Utah Jazz and then the Lakers are like,
we'll give you all that money, and the Jazz are
like yes.

Speaker 2 (01:45:32):
You remember when Dwight Howard was siding between free agency
with the Rockets or free agency with the Lakers, and
we talked about, well, if he signs here for the Warriors,
well specific to Houston and LA, Yeah, Golden State would
be the same thing because we're talking about California versus
Textas correct, he made way more money with the exact
same contract roughly by signing here because of the taxes.

(01:45:55):
The Kessler situation, if he would have taken twenty eight
million a year to two signed with Utah versus one
hundred and thirty million over whatever, thirty two and a
half million per year, which he's going to get from LA.
The taxes actually say he gets more money with that
twenty eight from Utah because of the tax difference. But
he has an opportunity to play with the Lakers, play

(01:46:16):
with Luca, potentially win. It's probably not gonna happen overnight
or anytime soon for Utah, so I don't blame him.
A bunch of picks moving out of LA to Utah.
They're signing Quinton Grimes fifteen million a year for four years,
They're bringing in Mamukelashvili for four years at thirteen million
a year, and they're getting Collin Sexton to help in
their backcourt for nine and a half.

Speaker 1 (01:46:37):
Million a year.

Speaker 2 (01:46:38):
Said it earlier, if you missed it. I don't think
the Lakers are significantly anything. I think their chances of
winning this year are the same as they were last year.

Speaker 1 (01:46:48):
They would have to really go their way.

Speaker 2 (01:46:50):
Yeah, but they still potentially have one of the best
playoff players and Luca. Offensively, they maybe lost something with
attitude and defense. Remember Marcus Smart missed a bunch of
the year. Get he for the last three trips to
the playoffs for him won in LA and a pair
of trips with Boston. He started every single one of
those games.

Speaker 1 (01:47:09):
He start.

Speaker 2 (01:47:10):
He helps teams play better, winning postseason basketball. I do
think they're going to miss that, and I do think
that's why he's here.

Speaker 1 (01:47:16):
And uston their ceiling is a fifth fish seed and
a second round exit.

Speaker 2 (01:47:20):
And they were the fourth seed last year and we're
a second round exit. Minnesota essentially has re upped with
Ayudisumu and clearly has reshuffled a lot of their front court. First,
they sent Kat out for Julius Randall. Now they're sending
Julius Randall out for money. Basically, what's gonna hurt them?
I'm telling you right now, this guy was going to

(01:47:41):
start for them, nas reed, that's just one of those guys.
Maybe I'm overstating him, but man, I just I don't know,
and especially for LaMelo ball. So let's read and randall out.
Essentially LaMelo in it and are a better, no, a
tougher to eliminate in the playoffs.

Speaker 4 (01:48:02):
Nope, here's what's gonna happen there.

Speaker 1 (01:48:04):
And I said this, I think while you were gone too,
Anthony Edwards is going to be looking around and around
January and be.

Speaker 4 (01:48:10):
Like, get me the bleep out of this place.

Speaker 1 (01:48:12):
And that's when I hope the Rockets swoop in with
those picks and whatever package they can offer.

Speaker 2 (01:48:17):
I think one thing we saw from LaMelo in Charlotte
all of his years there, and this was the first
time they were actually good at basketball. He doesn't seem
serious about basketball. Because if you're serious about basketball, you
care about winning.

Speaker 4 (01:48:30):
And you know who is as Anthony Edwards very much.

Speaker 2 (01:48:32):
So I think he's serious about being an NBA player
and living the lifestyle and having some skills and putting
on a show and being an entertaining player. But he
doesn't look very serious about winning basketball games. And I
think that's going to be a tough thing for that
locker room to handle. If he doesn't change how he is.
I think he's you know, if any coach can do it,
maybe Chris Finch is the guy that can. But they

(01:48:53):
are absolutely rolling the dice in a totally different direction
than the team. They put a ton of time and
effort into bill around Anthony Edwards with all the moves
they've made over the last several years. We'll get to
the also rans a little bit later in the week.
I'll probably handle that next week. But that's what essentially
the top of the Western Conference looks like, and your
Rockets somewhere in that mix with currently Marcus Smart and

(01:49:17):
Bugnanovich as the additions. We'll see what the deletions are
as the days move forward.

Speaker 1 (01:49:27):
The ad on Sports Talk seven ninety you noticed this
Texans offseason.

Speaker 4 (01:49:33):
Wex how many people have.

Speaker 1 (01:49:36):
Gone out of their way, especially here in Houston, especially
on the Texans roster, to have very very vocal and
strong opinions about c J. Stroud what they think he's
gonna do this year.

Speaker 2 (01:49:45):
Not at all, not at all surprised the landscape of
quarterbacks calls for it is. Josh Allen is pat Mahomes Is,
Joe Burrows, Lamar Jackson. Are they gonna have a good
season this year? There's no debate. They're gonna have good seasons.
If they're healthy, they're going to be good.

Speaker 1 (01:50:02):
Is their team gonna win? Maybe that's a debate.

Speaker 2 (01:50:04):
But if you're just looking at the sixteen starting quarterbacks
in the AFC or the twelve that matter, he's one
of the very few where there's people on both sides
of it. And so the debate has been four or
five months now of this offseason.

Speaker 4 (01:50:18):
How do you feel about Greg Kussell.

Speaker 1 (01:50:20):
I think he's really really good and very's very specifically
good at evaluating quarterbacks. Well, it's funny you should mention
that because he had thoughts on CJ. Stroud And we
split this up into two parts, which is kind of
how people split up CJ's career so far. There's the
one year when he was a rookie and he was awesome,

(01:50:40):
and then there's everything after that, good or bad. Yeah,
he begins with it. He was on with Ross Talker
on his podcast and talks about how things started for CJ,
which I think everybody here remembers very very very clearly.

Speaker 12 (01:50:53):
Keep in mind his first year in the league, he
was in a Kyle Shanahan type off fence with Bobby
sloweck O. Now, in that offense, the quarterback has nothing
to do with calling protections. And that was the year,
his rookie year, when Stroud looked incredibly comfortable and then
it just looked like, Wow, this guy's going to be
a great, great player. I remember a lot of quarterback

(01:51:14):
rankings after his rookie year had him as a top
five quarterback in the league.

Speaker 1 (01:51:19):
So do we Yeah, yeah, he needs to be a
top whatever. Well he's be a top what for the
Texans to do what they want to accomplish this year?

Speaker 4 (01:51:31):
Top fifteen.

Speaker 2 (01:51:32):
Well, if he's top fifteen, but he's like thirteen fourteen
to fifteen, which is usually what that means, then they
might be able to do that. If he's top ten,
then they're going to the super Bowl.

Speaker 4 (01:51:46):
Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 2 (01:51:47):
If he's the tenth in the NFL, right, they're probably
going to win the Super Bowl because of their defense. Again,
that particular day, maybe he plays like he's the third
best quarterback or he plays like the twentieth best quarterback.
I don't know if they win that day's game, but
if he plays that way. Over the course of the season,
he has his first twenty five touchdown past season, he
orchestrates an offense that's scoring more touchdowns rather than field goals,

(01:52:11):
that is a lot better in the red zone because
maybe their running game is better, or their offensive line
has done a one point eighty which some would suggest they.

Speaker 4 (01:52:18):
Might do better than a three to sixty.

Speaker 3 (01:52:19):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (01:52:20):
So that was year one with CJ.

Speaker 2 (01:52:23):
Stroud as a rookie, with Bobby Slok as a rookie
play caller. Things didn't go quite as well in year two.
They got off to a slow start and they ultimately
decided to make a change.

Speaker 4 (01:52:33):
So that's kind of where things changed for CJ.

Speaker 2 (01:52:35):
As to Greg Cosell's assessment of the challenge he's facing
now in an additional season, a second season with this
Nick Cayley offense, you're gonna love the description of this
offense when it's the foundation that it's based on.

Speaker 12 (01:52:49):
And then they got off to a slow start his
second year and they fired slowing, and they made a
fairly significant change in approach which has now continued, and
they went more with a New England Patriots style of offense,
and in the New England style of offense. The quarterback
is responsible for setting protections. Okay, everybody can remember Tom

(01:53:10):
Brady yelling out the mic that you know, fifty one's
to Mike Career. That's the nature of that offense. The
old line doesn't really know who to protect until the
quarterback tells them.

Speaker 1 (01:53:19):
Who the mic is.

Speaker 12 (01:53:20):
That's a major, major adjustment for a quarterback. It adds
to the mental part of playing the position.

Speaker 1 (01:53:29):
So he's basically saying what a lot of people think
about CJ that are not fans of his or don't
think he can achieve something great at this level, he
doesn't think he's smart enough to.

Speaker 2 (01:53:45):
Or the Texans think he's so capable, we're going to
put that responsibility in his hands.

Speaker 1 (01:53:53):
It's two different, very ways of looking at the the.

Speaker 4 (01:53:57):
Same sound bite.

Speaker 2 (01:53:58):
They're saying that potentially, and I think they probably are
by choosing that coordinator, by choosing that route, by having
their offense run that way, he can prove otherwise if
his play suggests he isn't. And that's one of the
reasons I think is a little presumptuous to say, yeah,
he can't call out the defenses very well, so he
stinks and that's why he failed. I mean, that's probably
not the only reason. If you can't do that, it

(01:54:20):
is going to be a big reason. And honestly, what quarterbacks.
I know he's pointing out Kyle Shanahan. His quarterbacks don't Okay,
So who are those quarterbacks? Rock Purdy, Jimmy Garoppolo, Matt Ryan.
I guess you would say that since he was his
OC in Atlanta. Yeah, maybe the three most prominent names

(01:54:40):
of quarterbacks.

Speaker 1 (01:54:41):
He's been to the Super Bowl with two of them.

Speaker 2 (01:54:46):
They could handle calling the offense, and they were talented.
I mean, Matt Ryan seems like he's probably on both
sides that talented and capable of doing all that, and
that's why Atlanta won a lot of games regardless of
who the OC was or the head coach was. But
the other two, like Jimmy Garoppolo, they I'm so glad
that he can call the defenses out well. Well, he
can't throw the football well enough for you to win big,

(01:55:07):
big Super Bowl. I mean, you want a lot of games.

Speaker 1 (01:55:09):
This just did.

Speaker 2 (01:55:10):
Are you in a similar situation with Purty like he
can probably you know you're taking this, I'm saying it
the wrong way. You're taking that responsibility away from them
so they can just go out, go out and play football.

Speaker 1 (01:55:21):
But is the talent there to do it like a CJ.

Speaker 2 (01:55:24):
Brock Perty is essentially why you would want that as
your offense, which is why maybe you hired Bobby Sloan
in the first place.

Speaker 1 (01:55:30):
I don't think you would presume that. You would presume CJ.

Speaker 2 (01:55:33):
Stroud to be significantly better than that, And the way
he played in his rookie season suggested that very thing.
He was significantly more talented than that. Like his twenty
three touchdown season, a twenty one touchdown season was going
to be his worst his rookie season. He was going
to do nothing but get better, and nothing but be
able to run an offense is going to be way
better than that.

Speaker 1 (01:55:54):
This just in it's very tough to play quarterback in
the NFL for a variety of reasons, and you better
get a good one if you want to be elite.

Speaker 3 (01:56:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:56:05):
The last thing before he gets Chandler who joins us
right here at the top, is the Texans know CJ.
Stroud better than Greg Cosel and better than me. They've
chosen this path for a reason. I would think one
that they believe in. I would hope it's the five
o'clock hour. Normally on a Thursday, that would mean football.

Speaker 1 (01:56:27):
But since there's no show tomorrow, and since we haven't
had him on this week, and since this is our
only show together, all of those things culminated to bring
in Chandler Rome of the Athletic for his weekly visit
here on the program. Chandler not exactly the type of
series you wanted to see against the Twins after winning
five consecutive, but there were still some positives, not the

(01:56:49):
least of which is that Jordan is still a monster
and that Grand Slam was absolutely fantastic.

Speaker 3 (01:56:55):
Yeah, I would argue it's probably his biggest moment of
the season, which is kind of weird to say, but look,
if you're gonna if you're gonna contend for the MVP
as a DH only, you need a lot of moments
like that, like like if you're gonna win the MVP period,
like you need a lot of like moments that are
seared into people's consciousness. But if you're a DH, you

(01:57:18):
got to kind of do him a little bit more,
just because you don't have that opportunity to impact the
game on defense on the bases, anything like that, and
that was that was kind of an MVP moment, right
You're up against an ace pitcher and Joe Ryan, your
team's down, bases loaded, and you did what you expect
him to do. He was just it was funny. I

(01:57:38):
thought he got under the ball like when he hit it.
I guess it was because it's that part of the ballpark.
I thought he got under it, and it turns out
it was like one of six off the bat. It was.
He's insane. Uh but yeah, he's really good. But yet
snapped a string of five consecutive series wins, so he's good.
But they've got to get some support around him, especially
with Jeremy Pinny on the IL.

Speaker 1 (01:57:58):
Now that's where we was headed.

Speaker 2 (01:58:01):
Do you think Jeremy Pennia plays before they the All
Star Break?

Speaker 3 (01:58:07):
Probably not. I mean technically he could because he could,
because I think he'd be eligible to return for that
first game Arlington in the final series before the break.
That's obviously a big series. Just given that the Rangers
currently lead the division, the Ashers want to win the
season series from them, just in case that comes into
account with the tiebreakers. I will say this Jeremy Pania

(01:58:30):
did a lot of baseball activity yesterday, fielded ground balls.
I think he hit a little bit. He's not running yet,
but he's doing a lot more baseball activity than normal
for someone that's been on the IL, that just got
put on the IL. So it really does lend credence
to the thought that this is not a severe injury.
This is not something major. This is something they just

(01:58:50):
wanted to nip in the bud now, So I mean,
they're not going to do anything reckless, but the fact
that he's doing this much baseball activity now would suggests
that it's going to be a quicker recovery than those
So yeah, I mean you could see it. I think
they're going to be better safe than sorry when it
comes to this. But I do think this is not

(01:59:11):
a serious injury. It's something that he can come back
from relatively quickly.

Speaker 1 (01:59:15):
He wrote about aj Blueball drawing interest.

Speaker 2 (01:59:17):
We know the role he's played for the Astros so
far this season and have a pretty good idea of
what they think of him for the future. But in
that they maybe have arms maybe in Santa maybe in
Uyola that could provide the bullpen need if he were
to be part of a deal. Do you believe that
he is somebody that could fetch them a player that

(01:59:37):
helps them in another area like the outfield?

Speaker 3 (01:59:42):
Well, I mean, and you mentioned a Yola Santa. You've
got Hobbyer too, who's going to be a reliever. Now
you've got Rono Blanco coming back. I'm not saying he's
going to be a reliever, but I'm saying they have bodies, right,
they have guys that are capable of throwing multiple innings
out of the bullpen. Now will they be as effective
as Aj Blueball, who has a two point zero six
ERA in his past forty eight innings. I'm not sure,

(02:00:03):
but it's pretty obvious, Like why teams want Aj blue Ball.
He's got five more years of team control left, he's
got two option years left, and he's been a He
was a starter every year before this one. So you
can see teams that are kind of salivating and thinking, man,
if we get this guy, make him a starter again,
maybe see how that goes. He also got closing experience.
I mean, he closed in college. He can run it

(02:00:25):
up to ninety nine when he has to. Like, it's
it's pretty obvious why And as I kind of wrote
that story. There's parallels. You know Dana Brown has done
this before you go back to the Kakuchi trade. Jake
Bloss and Joey Loperfdo were in that package. Both of
them were on the big league team. They were both rookies.
They both had this much control left and this much

(02:00:46):
many options left. But neither of them were like main
stays on that team, right Like that team could survive
without Jake Bloss, that team could survive without Joey Loperfido.
I guess the question that Dana and his baseball operations
seem not to ask themselves, if you know, things get
down the road and blue balls in any package, is
can this team survive without aj blueball? Like I would

(02:01:08):
tend to think yes, But I guess you know it's
not as easy to replace a sub almost a sub
two era across fifty innings out of your bullpen. Then
you might believe talking.

Speaker 1 (02:01:20):
At Chandler Roam of the Athletic here on Sports Talk
seven to ninety Astros with the night off and then
they've got to Tampa Bay Rays in town, Christian Javier
is going to be a part of that bullpen.

Speaker 4 (02:01:31):
Just your initial.

Speaker 1 (02:01:32):
Thoughts on that what you know, what the thinking was
and how long this will last. Just kind of an
interesting wrinkle in a season full of these types of things.

Speaker 3 (02:01:42):
Yeah, I was a little surprised, not like totally stumbed.
I was a little surprised, just maybe because of the
money he's making. I mean, he's the fourth highest paid
pitcher on the team. That usually kind of reserves some
runway for you, right, that reserves that gives you kind
of the benefit of the out as you get a
chance to at least prove yourself in the rotation. And

(02:02:05):
then you look at kind of the two guys that
this is a vote of confidence for and Mike Burrows
and Spencer Aarraghetty. Spencer Araghtty has a nine ERA in
his past five starts. Mike Burrows, we don't need to
relitigate what his season has been like. Like you could
have seen a situation where either of those guys went
to the bull went to the bullpen for this turn
the rotation, and Pavier got the chance to start the thing.

(02:02:28):
The only thing I can conclude, there's two things that
are kind of front of mine for me. They must
have like we're only privy to so much pitch data
and like how the pitches are playing, shapes, movement, Vilo,
we're only privy to so much of that publicly, Like
they've got a ton more on his pitch shapes and
dynamics and things like that. They must have seen something

(02:02:51):
in those rehab starts that really kind of gave them
pause just in terms of stuff, in terms of how
the stuff was playing, how it was coming out of
his hand. They must have seen something that they didn't
like there. And then, you know, even when Christian Hobber
was at his peak, when he was really really good,
this has never been a guy that's been known for
his efficiency. He's never been known to get deep into games.

(02:03:13):
There's a lot of foul balls, there's a lot of
full counts, there's a lot of long innings. The one
thing you can say about both Mike Burrows and Spencer
Araghedtty Spencer aragedy is last I know, he only went
three innings. But these are guys that generally get you
deeper into games, that generally get you deep into games,
and you saw last night with tessi Emi. Thank god

(02:03:33):
they had an off day to day, because that's the
kind of that's the kind of start that can just
turn your pitching staff upside down for three or four days.
I'm not sure that they wanted to risk that with hobb.

Speaker 1 (02:03:43):
Here in EMI's case, and that this has happened three
times where he's gotten four or fewer outs in an outing.
He's at three outings where he's thrown more balls than
strikes as a starting pitcher, which is nuts. Is there
anything really left for the Astros to try to do
to find some real consistency not a couple starts.

Speaker 3 (02:04:04):
I don't know, man, I I don't know. This is
this is It's tough. It's a tough thing to cover
and and tough thing to analyze, just because the extremes
are so wild. It's like, I don't know that I
can remember something like this where the extremes of when
he is really good, like it's almost unhittable stuff, and

(02:04:26):
when he's really bad, like it doesn't look like he
can get double a hitters out much less major kidders.
I think the thing that you know kind of showed
itself last night. If you listen to his postgame interview,
he talked about when he left the game and he
went to look at video with si Oh his interpreter.
He saw that the way he was standing in his

(02:04:47):
posture was wrong, and he kind of identified things there
and said, I'll improve on that for the next start.
They've got to find a way for him to figure
that out in game, right, and the good pictures, that's
what they do, right, the good pictures. They can adjust
from batter to batter, from inning to inning. They go
down in the clubhouse and look and see on the
iPad kind of what things are going wrong, and they

(02:05:09):
go back out and adjust. His failure to make in
game adjustments and his failure to be able to stop
these spirals is concerning. And I don't know that that's
something that he can just figure out overnight, right, the
like you have seen, the talent is there, right, you
have it's you don't. You don't fluke your way into

(02:05:30):
striking out eleven in a major league start, right, Like,
He's got the stuff is there. It's just this acclamation
process and this learning curve that he has is far
steeper and far greater than I think anyone would have
envisioned before the season.

Speaker 1 (02:05:46):
Guessing who is the most productive Astros outfielder from today
until the end of the season.

Speaker 3 (02:05:56):
Joran Alvarez.

Speaker 1 (02:05:58):
I mean, come on, that's cheating.

Speaker 2 (02:06:02):
If he out homers in the games he plays left
field the other guys, then they're in real trouble.

Speaker 3 (02:06:07):
Oh, I'll go Joey loperfdo I think you know? I
think he's been so injured, the injuries hurt him earlier
in the season, and he's made He makes maybe more
contact than the other guys, especially if you look at
Bryce Matthews, Jake Myers, they have problems making contact. I
probably would go low Perfido. But they you know who

(02:06:30):
they need it to be. They need it to be
Cam Smith because Cam Smith is the guy that can
transform this lineup into something more dynamic. If they can
get him going in any sort of consistency, any sort
of way where he's making contact, where he's pulling the
ball in the air, or he's hitting the ball on
the line, they need it to be him. I'm not
sure if it's going to be him. I probably would

(02:06:52):
take the guy with a little more more veteran track
record in low Perfido. But if they want this lineup
to a to another level, and if they want it
to be a little more dynamic, they almost need it
to be Camp Smith.

Speaker 1 (02:07:05):
Junior Cameron Aro hits how many home runs this weekend?

Speaker 3 (02:07:10):
Well, Hunter, Hunter's pitching the middle game. I'll say, if
if the over unders two and a half, I will
take the under.

Speaker 4 (02:07:18):
That's good. So you're saying they're not the Royals.

Speaker 3 (02:07:22):
No they're not. No, No, the Royal I think the Royals
entire pitching staffs on the IL. The Astros aren't. They're
not in that bad shape. But the junior Cameron Aro's
a stud man. He's really good. He's really really good.

Speaker 1 (02:07:34):
Youngest player since Griffy to hit six straight games hit
a home run, actually younger.

Speaker 3 (02:07:40):
Younger, and he's younger than he's younger than Cam Smith,
Like he just turned twenty three. Like this is like
he is, like I think if he played anywhere else
other than Tampa, like you'd be talking about him as
like maybe one of the next faces of baseball, one
of the next just kind of transformative guys, like he's
he's incredible.

Speaker 1 (02:07:57):
Are they gonna win the AL and nobody's even gonna
expect it?

Speaker 8 (02:08:01):
Now?

Speaker 3 (02:08:02):
The Yankees. I think the Yankees will still win the AL.

Speaker 1 (02:08:04):
That's terrible.

Speaker 3 (02:08:05):
I mean the Yankees, they're there, they don't have Freed
right now, they don't have Judge, they don't have a Stanton.
They've had Ben Rice has come back down to earth
since the beginning of his season. So and you can
see a I mean, they're the more talented team right
and there, and you know that they're gonna go make
the big deadline moves that maybe the Rays are not.

(02:08:26):
I mean, they're able to make them. They have a
ton of prospects, They have a ton of good talent,
Like they can go all in and get a guy
like Schooble if they wanted to. But that's much that's
just more of a Yankees type move. So yeah, I
think the Yankees end up at the end of the
day winning it. But don't be fool man. The Rays.
The Rays just it's an annoying style of baseball to play.
They do every fundamental thing very well. They put the

(02:08:48):
ball in play, they don't strike out, they they're fast,
they run the base as well, they pitch well. They
just do all the things that you would expect a
really good team that doesn't spend a lot of money.
They like the Guardians, right, They do a lot of
the little things well, and they have a lot of
really good players that most of the sport has never
heard of.

Speaker 2 (02:09:07):
Well, for those of you that were listening closely to
our guest Chandler Rome here, what you heard was him
predicting the number one wild card in this year's postseason
in the American League to beat the third best division
winner in the opening round of the playoffs. That would
mean the Yankees beat the Astros in the playoffs for
the first time ever.

Speaker 1 (02:09:25):
That's what you said, right.

Speaker 3 (02:09:29):
You're putting words in my mouth. You're putting words in
my mouth.

Speaker 2 (02:09:32):
I'm Astros will win this division and the Yankees will
finish second in their division. Could still have that matchup
in the playoffs, but it's not for anything close to guaranteed.
Still plenty of baseball, seventy three games left of baseball
for the Astros. As a matter of fact, Chandler, appreciate

(02:09:53):
the time. Enjoy your baseball coverage and America two fifty
over the next handful of days.

Speaker 3 (02:10:00):
Taylor's weddings tomorrow night, You guys excited?

Speaker 1 (02:10:02):
Who I thought it was?

Speaker 3 (02:10:04):
Travis web Travis Kelsey's weddings tomorrow night?

Speaker 2 (02:10:07):
All right, Okay, now I know what you're talking about,
so we don't have to talk about it next week.
Is there one element of this get together that you
actually find at all compelling?

Speaker 3 (02:10:20):
I just want to I want to know, like what
the attendees like. I'm sure they've had to sign an NDA.
I'm sure I like not allowed to bring their phones
in there, But I want to know what, like hoops
these attendees had to jump through just to go to
this wedding. Like I want to know everything about like
all the forms A to fill out, Like are they
gonna lie? It's fascinating to me, Like you're getting invited

(02:10:42):
to a wedding and then it's basically like you're going
to meet the pope.

Speaker 1 (02:10:46):
Can you, even as the swifty that you are, can
you at least admit that it's so ridiculous that there's
all that kind of stuff going on. The NDA's in
all likelihood for a couple that clearly loves and wants
all that attention. Nobody believes this, But are.

Speaker 3 (02:11:03):
They like I'll say this though, like they're like they
hadn't said anything, Like it's not like Taylor Swift or
Travis has come out and said like, oh our wedding's
like this has all just been like people are connecting
dots and like, oh, like they're setting up for this stuff.
Like they've been quiet throughout this whole thing.

Speaker 4 (02:11:18):
Travis didn't go for a run yesterday.

Speaker 2 (02:11:19):
Yeah, they probably had, and they probably had internal conversations
amongst themselves and wondered aloud, do you think if we
build a castle inside Madison Square Garden anybody will notice
and talk about it?

Speaker 3 (02:11:33):
Hey, they donated a lot of money to a lot
of charities throughout this whole thing, So good for them.
They're noble people as well.

Speaker 2 (02:11:39):
Oh my gosh, next week with Clinton in absentia, I
don't know how far into the Taylor Swift conversation we
will get, but I'm looking forward to it. Nonetheless, Chandler,
I appreciate the time.

Speaker 4 (02:11:51):
All right, thanks Eus Chandler, roam of the Athletic.

Speaker 1 (02:11:55):
We'll react to some of what he had to say
and get into some more NFL conversation before the bottom
of the hour in our very very very brief segment
coming up next.

Speaker 7 (02:12:05):
The eight on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 1 (02:12:08):
For joining us last segment. We we actually enjoyed it
a little too much.

Speaker 4 (02:12:12):
I went a little long there.

Speaker 1 (02:12:14):
But other than the Taylor Swift, Travis Kelsey wedding conversation
he was. I actually was really interested to hear what
he'd say about the Oh yeah, yeah, Yah, we've had
almost three hours of conversation.

Speaker 4 (02:12:25):
Do you think.

Speaker 1 (02:12:29):
Our caller wants to talk about Taylor Swift or sports?

Speaker 2 (02:12:34):
Not sports? Not sports? Okay, why we'll find out in
a minute. I didn't realize the call wasn't ready for air,
so I can't put it on the air yet.

Speaker 4 (02:12:46):
Oh now he's gone and we'll never know. How are
you right now?

Speaker 1 (02:12:51):
I'm not at all the end of the week. Okay,
it is end of the week. What I was gonna
say is Christian Xavier's trip to the Bolt. How long
do you think this lasts? It should last.

Speaker 2 (02:13:04):
He needs to be successful, Like we're putting too much
and where he's going, what they're He needs to pitch well.
The team needs pitchers to pitch well, and he's not
one of them. Starting Friday, That's all they need. It
shouldn't be so focused on well, where where should he go?
He needs to get outs. He needs to get in
and out of his outings, which presumably will be clean ones,
as in starting innings and not coming in to finish

(02:13:24):
off innings.

Speaker 4 (02:13:24):
That's Steven Oaker's job, and that's it.

Speaker 2 (02:13:28):
You know, I do think they want him to be
a kind of a AJ Bluebop plus probably want to
get nine outs, maybe twelve outs from him. They do
have two starters that quite regularly have been it's probably
time to go get him after five innings or less.
I mean, Mike Burrows has thrown a lot more innings
than that, but sometimes out of necessity, especially with where

(02:13:50):
he's kind of fallen in the rotation, there have been
a lot of times where they just needed him to
go out there and give them innings to help the team.
He's done that. He's done a tremendous job in that.
But you know, I do think Spencerragetti will get it
turned around. But man, he's had an awful month. And
clearly Emi is an enigma, I guess is the best
way to describe it, because you really, I can't believe
they're handing an eighteen million dollar pitcher of the baseball

(02:14:12):
and they have no idea what they're in store for.
That's just crazy. Never would have expected success versus failure
is one thing. Tatsu Emi comes to the major leagues
and you know, sixty seventy eighty five, one hundred innings
into his career. Just doesn't look like it's been very
good or whatever. I can imagine that he's had some
bad starts, he's had some good starts. That's not what's

(02:14:33):
happened this year. He's been unhittable in a couple of starts,
and he's been unusable in the same number of starts.
That's insane, that's crazy to have ever projected that, because
nobody would have ever done that. But he is on
the in this rotation, which means they have to have
somebody in the bullpen who can go. I mean Ryan

(02:14:55):
Weiss was performing that job for them earlier this year.
Hopefully Christian Javier can do a much better job of that.
Your alternatives were ones they weren't willing to recognize, and
they were willing to say, well, look, this guy hasn't
proven anything either. As much as we'd liked our twenty
one million dollar pitcher to have proven something, anything that
Christian Javier has proven to be able to do at

(02:15:16):
the major league level happened two years ago at best
three years ago. Really, what he's delivered for them earlier
this year and late last year is unsuccessful.

Speaker 1 (02:15:28):
Pitching.

Speaker 4 (02:15:29):
It's very mediocre at best too.

Speaker 1 (02:15:32):
We are gonna leave it at that because we have
in case you missed it to get to we're also
going to tell you or actually, let's put it this way,
you're gonna want to pay extra close attention to next
segment because we're gonna have an opportunity to give you
a pair of tickets to see The Fix and Motley Crue,
as we've been doing all week long separately. Well, yeah,
you can't go to both shows, and you certainly can't

(02:15:54):
go at the same time because they're on different dates
for among other reasons. So we'll do that when we
come back, or we or at least you'll get the
info that you need to win those tickets in the
final segment of the show, when we come back with
in Case you missed.

Speaker 5 (02:16:06):
It, the agen on final pre fourth of July edition,
if in case you missed it, and I think we're
gonna start with a little.

Speaker 4 (02:16:16):
Superstition, if if.

Speaker 1 (02:16:19):
What Josh Jordan has written here is not mistaken, take
it away, Josh.

Speaker 6 (02:16:24):
Yeah, boys, I thought this was pretty interesting. Christian Walker
catching up with the Foul Territory guys, and he was
asked about superstitions, said he'd do anything for a hit,
whether it's you know, changing your facial hair or your
pants up and down, that kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (02:16:38):
But I thought this one was weird.

Speaker 6 (02:16:39):
They asked him about one of his strangest ones, and
he said, I pay attention to which shower Jordan gets
in because that guy can do any You can't do
anything wrong right now, if it's working for him, I'm
going to mirror everything that guy does.

Speaker 1 (02:16:53):
Do you think when he was giving this SoundBite, he
knew that it would sound interesting. Almost done in there.
I'd like to get a hit today.

Speaker 4 (02:17:03):
Like what he's saying is I watch Jordan Alvarez shower.

Speaker 1 (02:17:06):
It's not what he's saying.

Speaker 2 (02:17:07):
What very specifically, as pulled from the transcript from the
sound bite from the interview.

Speaker 1 (02:17:12):
I watched to see which shower he goes in. And
say anything about watching him shower.

Speaker 4 (02:17:19):
Well, he has to watch him shower to find out
which one. He's not supposed to know.

Speaker 1 (02:17:23):
He just has to watch him go in. I go
into if I go into a bathroom stall to use
the bathroom in a public place or in a locker room,
presuming they have doors, you can see which one I
go in, but you don't have to watch me do
whatever it is I'm doing in there.

Speaker 2 (02:17:41):
Well, so when you use it, it's not watching to see. Well,
I'm so superstitious that not only do I watch to
see which stall he goes in, I watch the process face, hair, shoulders, arms, legs, nethers.

Speaker 4 (02:17:57):
Feet done.

Speaker 1 (02:17:59):
He doesn't he say that you have probably most seldom
in your life used public showers.

Speaker 4 (02:18:05):
Correct, We all could say, oh, yeah, I don't.

Speaker 1 (02:18:06):
Well, I mean when you think about how many showers
you take in your own bathroom, it's just the law
of average.

Speaker 2 (02:18:10):
Unless you're a frequent Oh, I do have to go
to work today, but i'd love to get a workout
in first. I'm not going home in between. Yeah, those
are your public showers for most people. But still, if
you factor in weekends, it's always going to be waited.
On the side of you're going to take more showers
at home. Meaning reason I say this, when you use
a public shower, you're always toweled up before you go

(02:18:31):
in and out of there, right, I would be yes, Well,
in major league clubhouses, I don't know that that's always
the case.

Speaker 1 (02:18:40):
I'm sure it's not the case. There's a lot of
guys that are probably just like and I don't know
how Jordon goes about your business exactly.

Speaker 6 (02:18:46):
We've all seen Jerry Maguire, right, yes, although at least I.

Speaker 1 (02:18:54):
Have not experienced a player having a conversation with their
agent in the locker room like in Jerry Maguire.

Speaker 4 (02:19:02):
I have not seen that. I've seen the agents around.

Speaker 1 (02:19:05):
Where the agent is begging him to help him, help him,
something like that. Okay, leg up on the bench.

Speaker 2 (02:19:11):
Look, this is baseball, and I know we will likely
have a if we have a superstitious conversation, we'll generate
a phone call about how stupid they are. This is
total baseball stuff, totally unsurprising stuff. And Walker has given
us every indication you mentioned facial here as he did.
If I can get a hit because I do this,

(02:19:31):
I will do this.

Speaker 6 (02:19:33):
What else, let's do a little NFL some off season grades.
NFL dot com loves to put out these articles. You're
Houston Texans. I think it's appropriate they get a be
talk about, you know, the extending of Will Anderson, al Shire,
Danielle Hunter. So the defense stays awesome, but they also
talk about kind of we don't know.

Speaker 1 (02:19:53):
What's going to happen on the offensive line.

Speaker 6 (02:19:55):
But they also point out that if these editions of
Wyatt Teller and Braden Smith and Rutledge pan out, this
could end up being a better off season than we
originally thought. What really jumps out to me is the
Jaguars getting an f How about that?

Speaker 2 (02:20:08):
Boys, And on first glance, when we walked through what
they had done this season, this is where it was headed.
Letting Devin Lloyd go, watching Trevis hatchet any leave, putting
all their stock in both their rookie and then last
year's player. That kind of burst on the scene and tootin.
I know they did pay strange in the last handful

(02:20:30):
of days. I don't regard that as much of anything.
You said it very succinctly. What have they done to
make the team better?

Speaker 9 (02:20:37):
Now?

Speaker 2 (02:20:37):
Granted they're counting the keeping Trayvon Walker, keeping Daniel Hunter
by extending them, keeping them happy and keeping them there
longer as part of their off season, but the products
already there, They're already under contract. They didn't go anywhere.
You didn't bring them in, which you didn't do is
bring anybody in of great value. I don't think now

(02:20:59):
they might get a little bit of a pass from
me and that they made one of those moves in
season last year. Their receiven cor got a lot better
when they added Jacoby Myers in season and subsequently for
the long term. But yeah, overall, since the season ended
and their zero playoff win season came to a conclusion,
they're not better. The only way they're better is if

(02:21:19):
the players they have at quarterback. The player plays better
than he did last year. Was always a possibility because
he's very inconsistent. Just so you know, Texans B Colts
C minus f for the Jaguars, and of course the
worst team in the division got an A plus A plus.

(02:21:42):
Titans did have a good offseason, but an A plus is something.

Speaker 4 (02:21:45):
It is something.

Speaker 1 (02:21:46):
And by the way, going back to Jacksonville, I can't
wait until the Texans finally sweep them this year.

Speaker 4 (02:21:52):
Whatever happens, what else do we have?

Speaker 3 (02:21:54):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (02:21:55):
I got some MLB Power rankings that dropped Astros up
from twenty two up to eighteen this week. I thought
it was an interesting note where they talk about Cam
Smith making strides. They said in June he is hitting
two thirty one, which doesn't sound great with five home runs,
but is it bats against fastballs are improving. His expecting
batting average off them is to ninety four, and his

(02:22:16):
exit velocity has gone up a couple ticks. So are
you guys noticing some slight improvements from cam Smith as well?

Speaker 2 (02:22:22):
Yeah, And that's how I think why Chandler finally ultimately
said that the guy they need to have as a
productive outfielder does need to be Cam Smith. He provides
them power, rides them speed. He needs to be more
of a part of the post top of the order
production they're gonna, I think, especially with Paradis maybe geared
up for a really good final three months of the season,

(02:22:43):
they're gonna get production out of the top four when
Jeremy Paney returns and Jose Al Tuve is no longer
a part of it.

Speaker 1 (02:22:48):
But they got it.

Speaker 2 (02:22:48):
Somebody else has got to do it from five through nine,
and Cam Smith, Jose Al Tuve, Low Perfito, et cetera.
They're just every game, it seems like, where they get
anything out of them, you know, three or four hits
from the group, you know, back to back walks and
hits to set things up for the front, top four
in the order. Whenever they those games that they do
that they score runs and they win. It really is

(02:23:09):
that simple. They are really leaning on them just to
do something, and I.

Speaker 1 (02:23:13):
Do think he is.

Speaker 2 (02:23:14):
He's showing a different curve from last year. It's not
a strong curve, but last year he started well and
just faded miserably over the final couple of months of
the season. He does look like there are improvements that
are being made the peripherals.

Speaker 4 (02:23:27):
You brought a couple of them up.

Speaker 2 (02:23:28):
His hard hit rate, his barrel percentage, just his average
exit V low. They've been good all year. The numbers
there suggests he's got a eight hundred plus ops with
some of those numbers, but he doesn't. But he's getting
back close to flirting with seven hundred. If he can
give him a seven forty seven to fifty ops the
final couple months of the season, that would be a
monster help for an outfield that produced precious little.

Speaker 4 (02:23:52):
They're getting a little bit from Tremel.

Speaker 2 (02:23:54):
Probably gonna see Lamont Way Junior at least having them
make a decision on what to do with him the
next probably week. I would imagine he probably spends the
next six days or the next series and a half
with the rehab assignment. After that it might be a
roster move if they want us to get his left
handed back out there, because his very short time here

(02:24:16):
was pretty productive.

Speaker 4 (02:24:17):
And just since we're talking about power rankings here.

Speaker 1 (02:24:21):
Of the of these two top ten currently teams, which
one's more.

Speaker 4 (02:24:26):
Of a surprise to you this year? The White Sox
of the Marlins.

Speaker 3 (02:24:29):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (02:24:30):
The White Sox probably because of how far they've come
and the amount of pilayers on their team. A lot
of it is pitching on the Marlins side, and they've
got a couple of guys I would not have expected
this from even the way that al can Contra has pitched.
But there's probably seven, maybe more players on the White
Sox that went from we think this guy might produce
and he's very young and we're hopeful, is to just

(02:24:51):
these guys are just killing it.

Speaker 1 (02:24:53):
They have brought it up earlier.

Speaker 2 (02:24:55):
The Astros have an All Star and no debates about
the other twenty five guys on the rage. Nobody else
on this team deserves to make the All Star team
or even deserve to be in the conversation just yard
on Alvarez, that's not even remotely close to the conversation
you'd have with the Whiteside. You'd probably name six guys
on their roster that could be All Star caliber players,
and they probably will have more than one this year.

(02:25:15):
I think they're the biggest surprise, especially from where they
came from. The White Sox and Guardians are playing tonight.
The winner will have forty six wins. The winner will
be the third best team in the American League. As
Friday's play begins.

Speaker 4 (02:25:27):
What a stupid season?

Speaker 9 (02:25:30):
All right?

Speaker 4 (02:25:31):
Final segment of the week coming up next.

Speaker 1 (02:25:34):
It will include a pair of tickets to see The Fix,
a pair of tickets to see Motley Crue. Who will
be winning those tickets? And find out when we return
the Foxs seven to ninety all right? Would you rather
go to see The Fix live on July twenty third
at the House of Blues. Tickets on sale now at

(02:25:55):
ticketmaster dot com. Or would you like to go see
Motley Crue. It's their return of the Carnival of Sins
tour with Tesla and Extreme that's on September eleventh at
the Woodlands Pavilion. Tickets on sale for that one now
ticketmaster dot com. You'll get the choice the first one
of you and the other person will get the others

(02:26:16):
when you call seven one three two one two five
seven ninety and tell Josh which member of the Astros
clubhouse is wildly superstitious and had some comments about the
how should I put this delicately?

Speaker 4 (02:26:36):
The showering habits of Yordon Alvarez?

Speaker 9 (02:26:38):
Is that?

Speaker 4 (02:26:39):
Is that a good way to put it? The location
of his shower? Maybe?

Speaker 1 (02:26:42):
Yeah, that's probably better. Showering habits can lead to a
different road of things. Most people have the same habits.
They're trying to get clean. All right, you have to
name the Astro at seven one three two one two
five seven ninety, however you want to phrase it about
yord On Alvarez and the shower, and you'll get your
choice of those two tickets. It's a pair for each

(02:27:04):
one of those shows. So uh first first, uh, first dibbs.
As it were, Gosh, you missed a lot this week
and last week. I feel like we didn't even scratch
the surface on some of the things that I wanted
to talk about that you missed, but we didn't.

Speaker 4 (02:27:20):
Where did you go? Where all did you go?

Speaker 1 (02:27:24):
Well? From a sports perspective, the Pro Football Hall of Fame? Yeah,
was it everything you thought it would be?

Speaker 4 (02:27:30):
In more.

Speaker 1 (02:27:31):
I have been there before.

Speaker 2 (02:27:32):
Oh I didn't know that. So I've never been there,
not for several decades. So it was it was awesome.
There's more people in there since the last time you went.
And well, both of the Texans that are in there,
and if you look around, that is how they are viewed.
If you look up, who's which Texans busts are in
the hall? There they are Ed Reid and Andre Johnson.
Oh my gosh, so yeah, walked by his bus and

(02:27:55):
brought JJ.

Speaker 1 (02:27:56):
He's not a Hall of Famer. I thought he was
not yet, Oh, I thought we totally went through that
whole thing.

Speaker 2 (02:28:02):
He will be eligible and will get in forgotten. I
probably may end up playing it on the show next week.
They have an interactive feature there where you walk by
this screen and there's a person on the other side
who clearly can see you and hear you, and he's
just an NFL historian.

Speaker 1 (02:28:19):
So, oh, what brings you to the Hall? Uh whatever?
And what's your team?

Speaker 2 (02:28:23):
And so I had Sam Anthem, my daughter, do this
if she just had a full on conversation about the season,
and of course he talked about what we talked about
with CJ. Stroud well, he's a lot riding on this
year with CJ. Stroud, how the season ended and how
the season might go. So that was pretty fun conversation
to have. They have a several theaters. One of the
theater plays a review of the past season, and so

(02:28:44):
I was like, all right, soon as we get through
the regular season, you're going to see the Texans just
absolutely annihilate the Steelers in the playoffs. They didn't show
a single highlight from that game. It's a short video,
just trying to get from the start of the season
to the end. They did show CJ's interception in the
game against the Patriots. Of course, they kind of paint
the picture of what happened. A lot of the history
was there one of the pictures of the NFL owners

(02:29:06):
that was from obviously recent years. Uh Janis was there
in that particular picture because it has was taken following
Bob's passing that a full list of every single NFL
team ever. I sent you a picture when we saw
some what do you call it when people try to
pretend that Tupac is still a lot hologram?

Speaker 4 (02:29:28):
Oh holo hologram. People try to pretend.

Speaker 2 (02:29:31):
Yeah, Joe Namath hologram kind of walks you through some
of the greats in NFL history that are in the Hall,
and you can clearly see when he pops back up
and down. He's probably voiced in videos something for every
player there, but he runs through about four or five players,
the players he happened to run through when we were
in there, so many of there was only four. He
gives you basically four stories of players. One of them

(02:29:54):
was Warren Moon, so they've got cuts from Warren Moon
talking about how he was the first African American quarterback
to the NFL is time in Houston. One of them
was Steve Largent and for those that remember, Steve Largent
was a Houston oiler until bum Phillips cut him because
he didn't think he was one of the best eight
receivers on the team. And then he went to Seattle
and had a Hall of Fame football career, and so

(02:30:15):
he interviews with him was more about, yeah, never let
bud at but I'd never let bum Phillips forget about that.
And then I think the picture I sent to you
was one of the players they had featured in the
permanent set up. There was Marcus Allen's locker so I
took a picture next to Marcus Allen's locker. Did you
ever play the video I sent you of me walking
over to a famous Buffalo bill?

Speaker 3 (02:30:36):
Yes?

Speaker 4 (02:30:36):
Great? Did I not respond?

Speaker 2 (02:30:38):
You said this is gonna be gonna be played on
the show, but I didn't get confidation.

Speaker 4 (02:30:42):
Yeah, and I forgot to do that part. But that's
not my fault.

Speaker 1 (02:30:45):
I mean I have add so, Yes, the Hall of
Fame is phenomenal, and it was really cool because this
time now there obviously is a Texan that is a
part of it. Louisville Slugger Museum. Did that? Did you
get a bat? Get a mini bat with your tour?
Come on, get a real bat?

Speaker 3 (02:31:03):
Now?

Speaker 2 (02:31:03):
I already knew that Cam Smith use Louisville Slugger huh.
And so they have a display of the billets for
each of the one player from each team that uses them.
So it was his and we were walking through there,
and you know, like every female baseball fan from Houston
between the ages of sixteen and twenty nine, you know
who their favorite center fielder for the Astros is Jake Myers.

(02:31:25):
And my son was joking with my daughter, Oh, I'm
sure Jake Myers bat will be in here and up
on the board a whiteboard because it had just happened
now making bats for and Jake Myers's name was up there.
So she was totally geeked about that.

Speaker 4 (02:31:39):
And did she get one?

Speaker 1 (02:31:41):
No, she didn't.

Speaker 4 (02:31:42):
What does a bat even cost these days?

Speaker 2 (02:31:44):
If you actually bought a bat from them, you could
during the tour or as part of it. It's probably
a little special because it's a major league player and
thus the signature has been burned into it.

Speaker 1 (02:31:54):
Stuff a couple hundred bucks wow for a piece of wood.
The other sports related things. We toured the Muhammad Ali Center,
also in Louisville.

Speaker 2 (02:32:06):
Probably the sports part of it. They had a ring,
They had all these unbelievable posters. I took a picture
of each of the ticket stubs they had on display.
They were basically life size from all of his fights
at the Astrodome, and he had several and then but
more than half of the center and the first part
of it, and the movie they showed was all about

(02:32:26):
his activism and everything else that he was a significant
part of not Louisville's history, but American history. We happened
to stay near basically every venue hotel in Indianapolis was
right outside the Indians Ballpark. The tripa a team for
the Pirates. Obviously, we saw Lucas Oil Gamebridge Field House.
The NBA announced yesterday that we're two days ago the

(02:32:49):
NBA Cup Championship.

Speaker 1 (02:32:50):
Yeah, it's no longer in Vegas, so that they could
take it to the much more booming metropolis of Indianapolis.
We drove through Butler's campuscifically went to see Hinklefield House.

Speaker 4 (02:33:03):
So the Bulldogs play.

Speaker 2 (02:33:04):
Indianapolis Motor Speedway and this was a day of races,
so they had cars on the track testing, driving, practicing,
took a tour. It was because they were racing. We
actually could only do a podium tour, so that means
you're out there on the track at the podium where
they bring the winner's car up.

Speaker 1 (02:33:24):
To on a platform. The drink milk, it's everything about
that was awesome. That was your first time to go there.

Speaker 2 (02:33:29):
Second time really Super Bowl in Indianapolis. The media party
was there, absolutely, that's where was held. I would actually
love to go there for that event.

Speaker 1 (02:33:40):
And then when we were in Cleveland previously, we also
were our or we were downtown Progressive Field and Rocket
Arena or right next to each other, walked into as
close as we could get to Huntington bank Field where
the building that Deshaun Watson built basically he did not
build that building. And last before we get you to

(02:34:01):
the night cap, Josh Shorten has that for you. Went
to Churchill Downs, went to the Kentucky Derby Museum, wagered
on a few races, but we did the museum first,
and right when we started we had actually we were
supposed to go on a tour at three point thirty.

Speaker 4 (02:34:15):
Parking took forever.

Speaker 1 (02:34:16):
We had to get bumped to the four thirty tour,
so that meant we did the museum first, which five
minutes into us walking around this obviously important group of
people walk in. Several people with the museum are with them.
There's cameras, there's photographers, there's total social media people with them,
and I see who they're with and I'm like, I
think that's the Kentucky Derby winner. Because of course the

(02:34:38):
horse has a huge display Golden Tempo, and it was
the trainer in with all these people and they went
to the display and they were taking all these pictures
with them. Scherie Deveaux, the first female trainer to ever
win the Derby, a second to ever win the Belmont,
and they're taking all these pictures. So I'm shooting some
video and taking a couple of pictures and one of
the people that's leading the group saying, hey, do you
guys want a picture with them?

Speaker 4 (02:34:58):
And I'm looking, are they talk to us?

Speaker 2 (02:35:01):
And they were, So the four of us just went
up there, up on stage with the Kentucky Derby winner.

Speaker 4 (02:35:07):
I did see that and took a picture with her. Nice.
It was pretty cool.

Speaker 1 (02:35:10):
All right, Right, I'll send you some non sports related
picks from Cabo next week.

Speaker 2 (02:35:15):
And then I'll tell the listeners about our trip to
the two national parks that we saw and the safari
that we went on.

Speaker 4 (02:35:22):
All sorts of good stuff. I love it. I called
you all the Griswolds while you were gone.

Speaker 1 (02:35:26):
We do have it. The Nightcap. It comes your way next.
Enjoy the weekend

Speaker 7 (02:35:32):
The eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety