No C.J. Stroud? No Problem! It's The Titans!

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Two lifelong Houston sports guys named Adam Raised.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
My Girl.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Nolan Hockey, multed by the magnificent roller coaster ride.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
That is Houston Sports.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Chill lage down for the only homegrown afternoon team is
Talking Your Teams. Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler are the
A team.

Speaker 3 (00:51):
What's Up, Houston, Texas? It is a Wednesday edition of
the eight team Sports Talk seven ninety. We will take
you to six o'clock tonight Rockets basketball. Finally, I hate
more than one day off between games, and I'm so
pumped tonight, and wex is too. Wex is actually more
excited about the uh the sickest city edition jerseys in

(01:16):
the league by far than even I am. Tonight. He's
He's going to model some gear on television today. He's
very excited about it, and honestly, the game is like
second secondary to him. He doesn't even hardly care about
the fact that Cam whittenore whit More.

Speaker 4 (01:31):
That often that the worst outfit in the NBA visits
just once a year.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
It's night. I was looking at their schedule and they
were actually competitive against the Pistons the other night, Like
Cam Whitmore had that dunk.

Speaker 4 (01:42):
Yeah, they might have won the game if they didn't
give up back to back threes in the final three
seconds to force overtime.

Speaker 3 (01:47):
Yeah, but I mean they lost by two in overtime
to like the best team in the East and one
of the best teams in the NBA right now.

Speaker 4 (01:53):
Yeah, it was their worst loss of the season.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
Who the Wizards? Yes, what are you talking about?

Speaker 4 (01:59):
They hate got outscored six to one in the final
three seconds.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
It was their worst loss of the season.

Speaker 4 (02:04):
Oh well from that standpoint, But that's just you know,
it was uh, once, play hard one night and then
give it away. That's what they did.

Speaker 3 (02:13):
That's that is a little bit deceptive when you look
at the final score. But still you even took them
to overtime. That's impressed took.

Speaker 4 (02:20):
You to overtime. You were winning, it was over. It
takes a miracle to lose it.

Speaker 3 (02:24):
Why is everything so argumentative? It's just an Eastern Conference
November game. It's not like it matters like this one tonight.
I you know, again, the game itself. I think the Rockets, honestly,
I'd be surprised if they didn't win by like thirty tonight.
Now I say that, and they'll probably lose to the
Wizards over some dumb reason. But really, if they play

(02:46):
their game, they should like that's it. But looks like
it's going to be Like I'm getting emails about the
fact that it's going to be a near capacity crowd tonight.
I think everybody's excited about this gear. It's going to
be available.

Speaker 4 (02:57):
The upper right hand corner of the official game book
will say sold out, sellout.

Speaker 3 (03:02):
Because they're all sold out, like Texans games where no
one's there. I don't.

Speaker 4 (03:06):
I'd have to. I'm gonna double check that for you
since you brought it up. The Texans might still be
saying that, but there's nobody there.

Speaker 3 (03:14):
No I know, relatively the tickets are sold, so you
know that's from a sellout standpoint. It's a technicality.

Speaker 4 (03:21):
If I wanted to sit in an entire row of
seats one by one, I absolutely could on any Sunday
so far this.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
Year it's been that bad.

Speaker 4 (03:28):
Well, there's just there's not seventy thousand people there.

Speaker 3 (03:30):
I don't. I've I had long since gave up looking
around at what it looks like at kickoff for whatever
game in Houston because we don't get there on time.
We just don't. We're terrible at it. I don't know
if it's the traffic. I don't know if it's the
you know, in the Texans case. I do still think
there is something to be said for people who are
just out in the parking lot, eating, still in barbecuing

(03:51):
and tailgating. It is a good time. Yeah, it sounds great.

Speaker 4 (03:54):
Seventy thirty one, No bleeping way, they are all in
the semantics.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
Yes, paid attendance.

Speaker 4 (04:02):
That is what's listed on the official game book that
the NFL puts out, and I believe that is accurate.

Speaker 3 (04:07):
And yet somehow I feel like if they said sell out,
it would stick in your craw more. Even though they're
basically saying the same thing.

Speaker 4 (04:13):
Sell out, the connotation of this ticket had a monetary
price of attached to it. Sold it was brought in. Yeah, yeah,
absolutely it does. Now this should be a fantastic atmosphere.
The jerseys are suite. It's always cool when the people
in them love them. And that's the sense we got
a couple of years ago when the guys that are
still here were there, and that's a lot of this team.

(04:35):
Kevin Durantz not among that group, and he obviously as
you've seen really seemed to take to them quite well.
They also love that they are stomping on the dunkstronaut
from right there at center court. It's an awesome looking court.
Not everybody's alternate courts are as cool as this one,
at least to the two of us here. And I
think all the fans in attendance tonight and Rockets fans everywhere,

(04:57):
so absolutely there are a bunch of games on the horizon.

Speaker 3 (05:00):
This is the first. How much have you looked at
that actual logo on the court, like, stared at it
and seen the details. There's a reason I'm going somewhere
with us I problem.

Speaker 4 (05:09):
I mean, I've stared at the details of the Donkster
not on the gear, much more than I have on
the court, because it actually it faces away from our.

Speaker 3 (05:15):
Seats, right, we're the opposite.

Speaker 4 (05:17):
It faces to the Fertita's seats, not to the Wexler seats.

Speaker 3 (05:21):
Well, we're not the billionaires, correct, do you?

Speaker 5 (05:24):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (05:24):
Have you noticed what they stuck in there? They snuck
in there?

Speaker 4 (05:28):
Uh? Is it only on the court and not on
the logo gear? Like sure the shorts have it. I
don't know what you're referring to, So no, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
You know my least favorite version of Rockets logos over
the years.

Speaker 4 (05:39):
Right, uh not every listener's listened to every show we've
ever done.

Speaker 3 (05:43):
So let them know the ones right after they won
two championships and they changed everything up. Because what do
you call them?

Speaker 4 (05:48):
The Mobley's, the Galla Francis.

Speaker 3 (05:51):
I can't call them what I only call them off
the air, on the air Well's we're on the air.
So that's what I'm asking for. The navy blue rejecs. Okay,
So what about them?

Speaker 4 (06:00):
Are they?

Speaker 3 (06:00):
Is there a little bit of the logo itself, which
was what a space themed lettering with a rotating rocket? Yep,
that rocket is in the dunkster? Nt have you noticed that?
But it's just like the face of it.

Speaker 4 (06:13):
Most of the versions of the jersey that I can
recall that they've made in the last ten or so
years are so detailed that they brought those elements, even
the gold and yellow homage homage to their.

Speaker 3 (06:26):
San Diego slash Baylor. Before they came to out there, they.

Speaker 4 (06:30):
Had bits and pieces of other parts of franchise history
as a part of it. Just as you're describing here.

Speaker 3 (06:36):
I feel like all the City edition they've come out with,
because the last time they did one, like last year's
had the throwback logo and then they had the blue
version of the throwback logo. But every one of them
have been good. The only thing about that one that
you're talking about, the Golden Yellow. We didn't get a
court with that one, and the court would have looked sick.

Speaker 4 (06:55):
We got a court with the DeMarcus Cousins City editions. Yeah,
the Oilers, Yeah, court, it was awesome. I call those
the who's the guy looks like Scotti Pippen. That was terrible.
Christian Christian Wood would I kept wanting to say Christian Walker.
I know it was Christian w Yeah, the Christian Wood
jerseys is how I refer to them, or the James

(07:16):
Harden fat suit some people like to. But yeah, all
the courts have been fantastic and this one's no different.
This one's the best though. It is down and it
is ready for Wizard Rockets tonight. Right not here on
Sports Talk seven to ninety, that's true. This game tonight
for the Rockets will be over on k t RH.
The Texas Longhorns basketball game will be here beginning at

(07:36):
six thirty.

Speaker 3 (07:37):
Who are they taking on tonight? Fairly, Dickinson, I just
want to hear you say it, and you delivered it
perfectly in the most Waxian.

Speaker 4 (07:45):
Way early in the Shawn Miller era. I'm sure people
are interested to see how things play out.

Speaker 3 (07:49):
Look, Kate, it's not even the only two basketball games
you have. H is on tonight right down the dial.

Speaker 4 (07:53):
Their home is nine p fifty and they have hoops tonight,
so that's where they will be.

Speaker 3 (07:57):
You take it on Oakland. I like their chances.

Speaker 4 (08:00):
Juggernaut, Well, the Rockets are close to the top of
the standings. The Longhorns aren't as close to the top
of the standings. They lost their opener, and the Cougars
of the number one team or the number.

Speaker 3 (08:11):
One team in the country, there's nobody better. Maybe they
should be on should they be on steven forty or
seven ninety.

Speaker 4 (08:16):
They should be on the home for Cougar's athletics nine
to fifty.

Speaker 3 (08:19):
They should be on the iHeartMedia Empire at some point somewhere.
So yes, lots of options tonight, but as it pertains
to us, we'll be by the way are you doing?
There's no local pre.

Speaker 4 (08:29):
Because the game's on kh H I have local post.

Speaker 3 (08:31):
Are you doing it from the building? Unlikely? Ah Man,
I thought you'd be there. No, not tonight. Way to
put a wet blanket on that idea unbelievable. All right,
all right, So, speaking of teams that should be beaten soundly,
the Titans are going to be waiting on the Texans
in Nashville. This week should be a rip roaring affair. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (08:56):
Going to practice today has a purpose, and unfortunately, as expected,
the purpose will to confirm that CJ. Stroud has not
returned to practice. Jalen Peetree has not returned to practice,
two of the three players in concussion protocol, though the third,
as we talked about yesterday, I thought there was a
really good chance that Titus Howard would return to practice.

Speaker 3 (09:14):
He did.

Speaker 4 (09:14):
He was practicing today. Of the official injury report a
little bit later this afternoon. Guys in concussion protocol that
begin practicing almost always are listed. Is limited, but it's
almost always a fantastic sign that the symptoms have subsided
so much that it's likely they'll be available to play,
barring any future setback. At Ingram with the knee that
kept him out of last Sunday's game. Also returned to

(09:35):
practice today. Cade Stover, who has missed the majority of
the season after an early season injury put him on ir,
but his practice window was opened and he was at
practice today. I think there's most of the players they've
brought back via the practice window have taken longer than
the first week of practice to actually get activated. I
don't know that he'll be the same. I think there's
a real good chance he's actually active on Sunday and

(09:58):
they get back to the we're going to carry three
tight ends into a game. Also note that Harrison Bryant
was playing through an injury. Dalton Schultz is playing through
knee and shoulder injuries. I think Dalton Schultz will likely
be listed as limited at today's practice, but he was there,
so some good news on the injury front for the Texans.
Also added Miles Bryant officially to the roster. He was

(10:20):
elevated from the practice squad last week and barely left
the field. He was already getting reps before MJ. Stewart
went down, and then got almost all of his remaining reps.
Stuart as a Demico, told us on Monday his season
ended with the injury he suffered that the quad injury
that had him carted off the field with his leg
in an air cast. He was put on an IR

(10:40):
season ending for MJ.

Speaker 3 (10:42):
Not great. I know it's Wednesday. I know it's entirely well,
it's not entirely too early to say this. I mean
the game is Sunday. What's your gut on CJ this week?

Speaker 6 (10:50):
Now?

Speaker 3 (10:51):
Oh, he's not playing? Okay? Why was that such a
controversial take for me to think that he would miss
too Yes, just because people on can't handle conversation like
normal people like you and I have every day on
the show for four hours. It doesn't mean it's controversial.

Speaker 4 (11:09):
There's nothing controversial about watching a quarterback have a concussion
leave the game because of it, and think he's going
to miss more than one week's worth of games, especially
when the second week of games includes two games. Right,
next week includes two games. When he misses game two,
he's four days away from missing game three. I only

(11:30):
immediately answer, is he playing? We didn't practice today. So
just from the steps of the protocol and things that
need to happen in order for him to clear the protocol,
it's not impossible.

Speaker 3 (11:39):
He's not out.

Speaker 4 (11:40):
I doubt that the OC who speaks today in a
few minutes will say that he's out. But it doesn't
mean that it doesn't look like things are trending towards
him playing. And also it means that there were more
likely more significant symptoms for this particular individual who has
obviously had an NFL document a concussion before which kept

(12:01):
him off the field for multiple games two years ago.
It's taken a little bit more time for him to
and we don't know it could take all. It could
take the rest of the season for all we know.
I mean, he usually doesn't, but there's no real timeline
on concussions.

Speaker 3 (12:15):
Well, and I'm not even like this wasn't for effect,
but just watching it as you talked about, you know,
a quarterback having a concussion, being taken off the field
in the tent, then going into the tunnel into the
locker room and all that kind of stuff that happens
all the time. Unfortunately it's part of the game. I
do think there is something to be said for an

(12:35):
eye test for a certainly non medical professional as myself.

Speaker 4 (12:39):
We had three concussions in the game. Described Titus's concussion,
You didn't notice it? What about Jayalen Peter. We saw
one of them. Yeah, but once we saw the hit
that was delivered that created the concussion, we saw the
mayor in which his head hit the turn that part right.
Those things are part of the guess work. That's all
we can do. But we have seen so many of them,

(13:00):
so of you guys out there on X and obviously
listening to us and soon viewing. There's only so much
you can just act like you're not paying attention to
This is not a typical We'll see what happens with
Jackson Dart. His concussion was different in that it was
more of a forward facing hit to the turf, but
he had also been in the medical tent being evaluated
for a concussion within the month, and that created the

(13:22):
whole firestorm with how their former coach, now Brian Dabole
handled things. So it's a I don't know, Tricky's not
the right word. It's it's somewhat of an unknown every
time for every individual.

Speaker 3 (13:33):
But when you do see what.

Speaker 4 (13:37):
Fostered the concussion, then you have a little bit more
of a guesswork to work from, all.

Speaker 3 (13:42):
Right, Speaking of that, we will have a conversation with
Nick Suss of the Tennesseean that's going to be coming
up in the four o'clock hour. We have our signature
segment as well that hour. It's gonna be say what,
as we mentioned yesterday, best of X at the bottom
of this hour, the U a little bit of hardware
if you want to call it that, for the Texans,
the defense, not surprisingly in light of what happened this

(14:02):
past week, we'll tell you about that so much more.
Plus we're here from Joe Espada over the course of
the show. It's all coming up on a Wednesday edition
of the program.

Speaker 1 (14:13):
The eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 3 (14:30):
It is the a team Sports Talk seven ninety. We
will be simulcast at the top of the hour on
Space City home network. WEX and AC with you till
six o'clock tonight. Rockets Wizards. Tonight you will have Texans
Titans on Sunday, and when you do line up, you
being the Texans and specifically their defense to kill the

(14:52):
latest quarterback metaphorically. Of course, Danielle Hunter will be bringing
a little bit more hardware with him. Not surprising at all,
not been a little surprising that he got AFC Defensive
Player of the Week honors after his as Wex likes
to put it, four, not three and a half SAT
game against the hapless Jags. I saw something today that

(15:13):
I guess I just hadn't seen until today. Like I
don't know if it was out there floating around or
if it's just I'm late to it, because you probably
have already seen this. Did you see the footage from
the Jags sideline as the game was unraveling in the
waning minutes.

Speaker 4 (15:29):
We were talking about yesterday when Dimiko was speaking with
us about, Yeah, you know we ran down there with
Rank and Davis. You know all of our touchdowns were
scored right there and that particular end zone. Well, head
coaches usually tend to drift towards the action. If the
play is at the fifty, they're probably standing around the fifty.
If the plays at the forty or the thirty, they're

(15:49):
probably standing more like that, Whereas most of the players
on the bench they stand where they they sit on
the bench, they stand between the two thirties. You know,
the reserves for whichever units on the will go along
with the line of scrimmage so they can check in
and out of the game. But the coach is pretty
the the head coach specifically almost always travels with the ball.
So when the Texans line of scrimmage was the fourteen

(16:11):
yard line for Davis Mills, Liam Cohen and I believe
his OC a few yards beyond him were kind of
looking a little bit to their right for the action,
and then a little bit to their left was where
the end zone is. Liam stayed the most subdued, while
the two other coaches you could see were much more
dejected and ready to fire things into the ground. In

(16:32):
that they were up seventeen to nothing or up twenty
nine to ten, and again they from the moment points
were scored in that game, they were ahead.

Speaker 3 (16:42):
It was never tied.

Speaker 4 (16:43):
They weren't really even threatened obviously until the fourth quarter
and all of a sudden, with thirty one seconds left,
they weren't winning.

Speaker 3 (16:49):
Yeah, well, the run in by Mills was where you
really saw the dejected side of things. The other view
was I don't like. I didn't like the view because
you couldn't see any unless you looked up at the board,
which was just.

Speaker 4 (17:02):
For their phenomenals, they're another team that's jumped on board.
They do some really really really awesome behind the scenes
stuff with their team, and that's why you have that foot.
You know, they actually not only do they video them,
they actually release their coach's post game locker room chat
after losses, which is it's never done. I don't remember

(17:25):
seeing other teams do that before this year, and they
have done that throughout the year. You know, there are
some really good team auditorium stuff with them. When he
was trying to take all the response, hey I screwed
this up. I'm supposed to put you in this great
position to play. That is my fault. I'm the head coach,
I'm the OC.

Speaker 3 (17:39):
That is on me.

Speaker 4 (17:40):
And as he's saying that, one of the players who
was in on that play said, you know, coach, I
should have done this that. Hey man, I appreciate you
saying that, taking some accountability, but this is on me.

Speaker 3 (17:50):
It's really it's awesome. I'm surprised, honestly that any head coach,
even Liam Cohen, would be okay with that. They have
to give the okay to this, of course they do it.

Speaker 4 (17:58):
So it's just like when you have Hard Knox and
you're trying to decide beforehand, where do we not want?

Speaker 3 (18:03):
What are we okay with?

Speaker 4 (18:04):
Like the Giants were the off season hard knocks a
couple of off seasons ago. I thought it made him
look awful. I thought it made their GM look like
an absolute moron more often than not. And we're seeing
the what has happened since then. This is the off
season where Barkley left, and they're videoing him in his
office taking the call from Barkley when they're discussing, Hey,
we're gonna let you hit the free agent market. Just
do me a favor and let us give us a

(18:26):
chance to match. Ha ha, And Sakon's on the other end, like,
so you're basically saying you don't want me back, Okay,
I hear you loud and clear. And the owner comes
in and said, I'd have a hard time sleeping at
night if Barkley's playing elsewhere like Philadelphia. His kids were
in there on draft day telling him who to draft,
and they go to it. It was really really wild wild.
It was awesome. I love it. And we see a

(18:46):
little bit here and there from the Texans, mostly from
a micd Up variety. We'll see a little bit more
than usual, but obviously after wins, we get the goods,
the game balls and things like that. Just some teams
have the have put a little bit more behind all
that than others.

Speaker 3 (19:00):
Now, this could be a different player, It could easily
be Will Anderson Junior. But Daneil Hunter getting back to
back AFC Defensive Player of the Week awards is absolutely
in play when you consider how both of these guys
are playing, when you consider how this defense is playing.
Put it this way, the Texans getting a back to

(19:22):
back honors with any of their defenders is certainly in play.
But those two guys especially, it is certainly in play.
And I don't know the last time that's happened in
the NFL, But in light of who they're playing and
how they're playing right now, how the Texans are playing,
and who they're playing in the Titans, that's honestly not
even a hot of a take.

Speaker 4 (19:43):
First award for a Hunter since he arrived here. Third
time in his career he's won a defensive Player of
the week, the Texans grabbing offensive or defensive player of
the week in succession week after week. All that has
that's not happened before, I mean it almost did it. Well,

(20:04):
who beat him out? I'd have to go look and
see who won the week four award back in twenty nineteen,
but he won it in weeks three and five.

Speaker 3 (20:10):
Very important. Yeah, I mean there is a precedent for this.
You know though, when people these people the vote on
these things, look, they're like, well, they won it last week,
so we can't give it. I'm like, why why don't you?

Speaker 4 (20:22):
No, no, no, That's what NFL officials do when they
eject a player on one play and then on the
very next play they watch a player from that same
team throw a punch and connect. But because they ejected
another player on the previous play, they didn't want to
eject a player on consecutive place. Dumb report came out
this last couple of days from sources, so it's unconfirmed.

(20:43):
Obviously the league did not say that, and they probably
would even dispute it. But that was what is from
the Commander's game, where again, did you hear what I said?

Speaker 3 (20:52):
Punch is thrown. That's the dumbest.

Speaker 4 (20:55):
Two helmets is what took place in this game. A
Detroit player punched a Commander's player in the helmet with
his hand. The Commander's player punched that Detroit player in
the helmet with his hand, and a different player was
actually ejected from the game.

Speaker 3 (21:08):
That's insanity. I mean, you can't, you just can't. That
is so selective on so many different levels, for all
the wrong reasons.

Speaker 4 (21:16):
You're gonna get ejected for a punch most of the time,
and it's going to do nothing because they're wearing a helmet.

Speaker 3 (21:24):
Just shove them.

Speaker 4 (21:25):
Well, you know, it's fun. He's more damage. It shows
what you want to show the player, I think. And
you're not gonna get ejected for a shove.

Speaker 3 (21:32):
You know what's funny about that. If last season's Zizou
Shaire hit on Trevor Lawrence, he was ejected. Now I
think they ejected him because of what happened after that play.

Speaker 4 (21:45):
It's very likely they might not have ejected him for
just the hit itself. Yeah, we would go down as
a personal foul.

Speaker 3 (21:51):
So their backup comes in. I can't remember who is
it the same backup this year? No, he's brock Parties backup.
Oh that's Mac Jones was there last year? Mac Jones
has played very well game. I cannot believe. I don't
remember that. Wow. Okay, So anyways, what if he had
gotten hit similarly, do you go by the same logic?
That's why I said this report.

Speaker 4 (22:12):
I can hardly believe it, but somebody did cide a
source and report it, so I'm just passing it along.

Speaker 3 (22:18):
I can't believe it.

Speaker 4 (22:19):
I mean, we rarely see back to back hits that
necessitate the thought of an ejection. I mean, Kamari last
year was in that spot from this last game when
he got into a you know, a little yelling match.
He was asked about it after the game. He got
a personal foul after a hit he made. He knocked
the guy down and stood over him a little bit,

(22:40):
a little flex but that was fine. It wasn't overt
enough to dry taunting penalty. But the player from behind
him bumped him and said something to him, and when
Kamari turned around, he hit him with his helmet and
the two were drawing back and forth. He was in
disbelief after the game, explaining it to us, like why
did I get the foul there? And because of that
caliber of unsportsmanlike conduct. The referee also notes this is

(23:01):
the first such penalty this game, and another one will
result in an injection. But all that stuff gets officiated
so oddly because some of those players are extremely similar
and they don't get officiated the same way. But we
could say the same thing about when we sit here
on a Thursday or Friday and say, oh, Steve hockeyly
is going to be the crew chief. Their crew calls

(23:24):
a lot of blank penalties, They call a lot of
holding penalties.

Speaker 3 (23:27):
They call a lot of penalties. Period.

Speaker 4 (23:28):
They're always the staff that has the most false star.
I mean, they all have their little here's what they're
known force, and like major league umpires, they shouldn't have
any what they're known force. The game isn't different, only
you guys are call it the same way. The game's
not different. The plate hasn't moved. It's the C word
when it comes to officiating in sports. It always seems
to come up. You want creative Nope, creative officiating Nope.

(23:52):
Consistency there it is. I don't even like that word.
Hey man, we just want a consistent zone. You mean
you're okay with Larry the umpire telling you that today
this is a strike even though it's not over the plate.
That's what you want. Yeah, we want consistency. I don't
want that. I want the strikes.

Speaker 3 (24:10):
Though nobody wants that. Yes, just call balls and strikes accurately.
Which we might get next year to some extent, but
only if they.

Speaker 4 (24:17):
Show these two extra pitches a game maybe more unbelievable.

Speaker 3 (24:20):
All right, best of X. We do it every single
day this time of the show. We will do that next.

Speaker 1 (24:26):

Speaker 2 (24:32):
Did you all see this? We're putting out between five
and fifteen posts a day.

Speaker 3 (24:37):
Four hundred people were arrested for things.

Speaker 2 (24:39):
So they said on social media.

Speaker 4 (24:40):
History repeats itself type Ben, you'll succeed.

Speaker 3 (24:45):
Never doubt that you're the one to pf no one
bild Y're the best be nothing's gonna ever talk. You know,
yore the best of it.

Speaker 4 (24:58):
Post an every single day, You're the best of it,
breaking the entire internet.

Speaker 3 (25:11):
Well, speaking of consistency, yesterday the Dallas Mavericks dominated the
first half hour to forty five minutes of the show.
They could easily dominate this segment again today. May I'll
open the floor up for other suggestions if we have any,

(25:32):
but I will say this, after yesterday's news that Nico
Harrison had been fired, the fact that there are reports
out there that the Mavericks have opened up trade discussions
for Anthony Davis is bleeping hilarious, also obvious. Well, I mean,
are they breaking it down?

Speaker 4 (25:53):
Well, the thing is firing Nico Harrison after that trade
doesn't really solve anything because the problem and all the
other moves he might make or has made, it's your roster. No,
it's it's the one move. If that move isn't made,
he's not fired. That move was made, so he's fired.
So you're gonna have to fix what is now broken.
That's the move that broke it. None of this nonsense.

(26:14):
And there's a big article written in The Athletic today
about the deficiencies that this year's team has because Kyrie
Irving isn't hurt, they really don't have a competent point guard.
They went out and got D'Angelo Russell and he obviously
hasn't been the answer, and Cooper Flagg is running some
point because of these issues they have. If you're really
looking at this year's team so closely without Irving, without
Anthony Davis and saying, yeah, the off season roster management

(26:37):
was so bad, we've got to move on to somebody else. Well,
then great, because Dallas is never going anywhere no matter
what GM is in place. And one name to consider
and it was in this article from the Athletic is
a very familiar name around here, Dennis Lindsay, who has
been in some very good situations. He spent a little
time helping the Dallas Mavericks. He is current helping the

(27:01):
best team in the East, the Detroit Pistons, part of
their front office and has some relationships inside the Mavericks building,
and some believe if he is in fact the higher
then it will suggest that Mark Cuban, now as before,
may be the loudest voice in the room. He was
the loudest voice in the room for the whole time
he owned the team. He sold the team to this

(27:23):
group and no longer was the loudest voice in the
room because they hired their own GM, who put this
team in the position there in now. But remember that
GM also helped to put the team in the position
they were in in May and June of twenty twenty four,
the NBA Finals and Western Conference Championship. So, like I
said yesterday, the GM that they just fired put together
a Western Conference Championship caliber roster, and almost all of

(27:47):
it is still there except for the player that was
the best player on the team and made it all possible.
And they specifically built a team around that particular player.
So now some of the players that they do have
aren't as good. Guess what Luka Doncis does for the
fourteen mates on the court with him, he makes them better. Well,
he's not out there, so they're even more deficient. So
these are all the real problems that they're dealing with

(28:08):
that gotten off to three and eight start mentioned yesterday.
They got a bunch of home games upcoming, so maybe
there's an opportunity to head in the right direction. There's
potential indecision inside their building. Additionally on what do we
do with Anthony Davis Right now you're talking about the
idea that he's going to be involved in trade discussions.
Well that's that's fine, but some indecision about the medical

(28:32):
staff saying we don't want him back out there because
of the injury to his calf, which, as most of
us in the NBA tend to believe, what does a
calf injury lead to If it's not properly handled, it
leads to it a more destructive Achilles injury.

Speaker 7 (28:45):
I mean.

Speaker 4 (28:45):
So there's some people that think he's healthy and can
get back. There's people on the medical side that think
he cannot and so he will continue to miss more games.

Speaker 3 (28:54):
Yeah. Harrison reportedly urged him to return early from that injury,
despite the MAVs medical staff warning that there was a
chance he could tear his achilles. Hello, you just had
two superstar players in the same postseason, not even twelve
months ago on the calendar, suffer this injury, and they're
not playing for their teams this year. I mean, I
know that you've already ruined the roster with trading for him,

(29:17):
but now you're not even gonna get One of the
responses to this article said, oh, so, basically the Lakers
got Luca for free? They did, They didn't if you
look at it by that, you know account. But yeah.
Monday's loss to the Bucks marked the six straight game
Davis has missed with a left CAF strain. Multiple league
sources said he has also tried to convince the match

(29:37):
to let him return to the court, and Harrison urged it,
but the team's medical staff forbaita, citing the potential for
a torn achilles if he returned too soon. What a disaster.
They are good.

Speaker 4 (29:47):
Yeah, I don't mean it in the harsh sense. I
mean it purely in the basketball sense. I mean, it
could send them, you know, to the depths where they
think they need to really truly retool. And that's why
the Anthony Davis possibility is is out there. You know what,
did what they have control over their next handful of drafts,
where they end up finishing, how they operate appropriately because
of that, That's what some of these teams the Rockets

(30:09):
have been dealing with. From whose assets they have they
have to consider, I mean Brooklyn or Phoenix. Yeah, we're
not good, We're What difference does it make We're gonna
end up at the top of the draft. Well, that's
not a good thing for you if somebody else has
your picks, and Dallas to some degrees in that situation
with some of their future assets. So all these things
are at play there. When when you're talking about a
team that now very very clearly, even if Anthony Davis

(30:33):
plays sixty five games for them and Kyrie Irving returns
for the final fifteen games, they're right now the worst
team in Texas now and too one finals removed from
being the team that represented them. While San Antonio was
one of the worst teams in the NBA and Houston
was one of the has just now recovered from being
one of the worst teams in the NBA. When the

(30:54):
Maps were in the finals, the Rockets had completed their
forty one and forty one season, and the Spurs were
in the midst of a con secutive streak which is
still active of missing the postseason. Now they're sitting at
the bottom. What do I think Kyrie thinks? I think
he thinks what Jimmy Butler thinks and every other advanced
age player thinks after they have gotten the team that
they're on, to give them the maximum extension, that's what

(31:17):
he thinks.

Speaker 3 (31:17):
He thinks.

Speaker 4 (31:18):
Awesome, I got the money I think I deserve, and
now I just have to figure out where I want
to play?

Speaker 3 (31:23):
Is it here? Is it a chance to do something
so funny? Could you imagine Kyrie on this team? Hey,
what's your most glaring weakness? Oh? Really? I mean, I
know he's not available until forever, but eighty seventy percent
of Kyrie on this roster would be see feel like
a tough ad.

Speaker 4 (31:41):
Considering he would be the highest paid player on the
team by a teen fourteen million. I don't even know
what you would How would you would orchestrate that deal, you.

Speaker 3 (31:52):
Would get the rest of what makes you so good
for Ted, like this is what you've got salaries.

Speaker 4 (31:57):
Yeah, I know what you're saying. You're not being real
about this, although people on X might take you to
be real. Hey, what do you think who says no
Alprin shingoon for Anthony Davis.

Speaker 3 (32:05):
Everybody, we don't want to do that.

Speaker 4 (32:07):
You know what did we say about this Durant deal? Okay, great,
he's joining a young corps. Well, if Kyrie is joining
this team, he ain't joining a young.

Speaker 3 (32:17):
Court court exactly.

Speaker 4 (32:20):
Not from a basketball sense, just from you're gonna have
to give some of.

Speaker 3 (32:23):
The most Dallas asked for as a man.

Speaker 4 (32:26):
Thompson, Right, it's very that that's probably not Kyrie Irving's
new address.

Speaker 3 (32:30):
No, no, I was just thinking about their weakness.

Speaker 4 (32:35):
Why he can't shoot. He's having a bad time shooting
this year, but that's the only thing he can still do.
I think it has a lot to do with the
teammates around him, just like it did when he was
in Golden State.

Speaker 3 (32:45):
He's so bad that he lost his starting job in
Dallas this year. That is killing it. He's been extended
to so He is killing it for.

Speaker 6 (32:55):
Him and he's killing them.

Speaker 1 (33:06):
The eight on Sports Talk seven ninety cost me from
the cold.

Speaker 3 (33:15):
Winding down the two o'clock hour, say eighteen Sports SOX
seven ninety We'll be simulcast at the top of the
hour on Space City Home Network. So you're already very aware,
well aware of this, as are most people that follow
the Titans, all ten of them. Lugarious Need was not
going to be taking part in this game because he's
injured right now. What is going on with some of

(33:36):
these players though? He was indicted by a grand jury
uh yesterday in Dallas County on a misdemeanor charge of
failure to report a felony from an incident that occurred
in December of last year. He is accused of having
observed the commission of a felony under circumstances in which
serious bodily injury or death may have resulted, and knowingly

(34:00):
failing to immediately report the commission of the offense to
a law enforcement officer. Charge is punishable by one year
in county jail and or a fine of up to
four thousand dollars. And this happened allegedly on December sixth,
of last year when Christian Nahena Najah, I have no
idea how I'm gonna pronounce that last name, and then
they're not gonna work here anymore. He owns an exotic

(34:23):
car rental business and was researching vehicles for his company.
Was sitting inside a Mercedes g Wagon at a dealership
in Carrollton, Texas, and alleges that Snead and his personal
assistant pulled up to the dealership in a rented Lamborghini
and shot at him while he was sitting inside his vehicle.
I'm gonna ask the same question I always ask, what

(34:44):
are you doing well? I'm gonna ask a question first.
I think I'm curious.

Speaker 4 (34:48):
Are you bringing this story up for a specific reason
the Titan We should be on the lookout this weekend
at around ten, ten thirty eleven o'clock when the Titans
are on the field warming up, to see if they
are also wearing very smart clothing that says free thirty
eight shirts something like that.

Speaker 3 (35:05):
Good point is that what we're looking for here. You
know what I'm mad about is that the Chiefs didn't
get more grief for doing that stupid stunt.

Speaker 4 (35:11):
Yeah, I don't under I mean I almost said what
I definitely don't mean.

Speaker 3 (35:16):
I mean.

Speaker 4 (35:18):
Why he had tried to just kind of move on
with life until oh, I can't, right, it happened?

Speaker 3 (35:25):
Am I caught? Am I involved?

Speaker 4 (35:27):
Does anybody know? Can we just pretend nobody knows? And
though no somebody knows? Is that what happened? Well, he's
being sued. That's how he found out.

Speaker 3 (35:36):
I guess right, I get, But the original question is
it just idle hands with some of these guys, Like
what are you doing?

Speaker 4 (35:44):
I mean maybe part of it, but I don't. I mean,
every athlete in our professional sports, just like any other
group of hundreds and now thousands of people, there're gonna
be some less than tasty apples in the bunch.

Speaker 3 (35:59):
You know what made me laugh the most about this story,
which is not a very funny story, this paragraph right here.
According to the lawsuit, nahena naja, I mean, seriously, come on, man,
you can't do it, man, you can't do it. According
to the lawsuits, Christian N. Christian N remember seeing Sneed

(36:21):
and his assistant at the car dealership, but didn't recognize
Sneed from his NFL career or television. Why would he
exactly that's why it's funny. Oh my gosh. I mean
it's mean spirited, but who cares. He's the one that
did something allegedly wrong here.

Speaker 4 (36:38):
Yeah, I don't know where this will go and what
what else will will kind of go along with this.
And you know the NFL's arm in every one of
these situations, they don't really even extend it until the
authorities take care of it. So I don't know this
if a healthy sneed has to be placed on the
commissioner's list or.

Speaker 3 (36:59):
You remember that joke you just made about three thirty eight.
You know how he got to to Nashville, don't you.

Speaker 4 (37:05):
The Kansas City chiefs said, that's enough of this guy.

Speaker 3 (37:07):
Yeah, we got too many guys doing dumb things like
this on the roster already, I mean allegedly.

Speaker 4 (37:14):
I mean, this was probably more of a we don't
think we need to pay you what you're demanding and
still can be good without you.

Speaker 3 (37:21):
So probably something that factored in. But I you know, semantics, Yeah,
I he was never going to be a part of
this game this weekend, But just because the Texans are
playing the Titans and its top of mind with them
right now, I just thought it was an interest interesting story,
not only for the fact that it's you know, that's
who the Texans are playing, but for what's happened.

Speaker 4 (37:42):
I don't really know the details of it, only what
we've seen in a couple of different articles. The person
that was purported to be his personal assistant is involved,
and seemingly much more involved, as in he's the one
facing a charge of aggressive aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
Sneid is accused of witnessing those actions. Obviously, this is
not where you want to be, but in that case,

(38:04):
that does present a different picture of who the individuals
are and at least what they're accused of doing. Doesn't
make it all that, I mean, doesn't solve the problem.
But he says he doesn't associate with this person, and obviously,
like I said, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (38:17):
Where the league will go with this.

Speaker 4 (38:18):
I don't know Sneed's physical condition had him heading back
towards the field anytime soon. He's right around the four
week period of minimum stay on IR. But this is
a problem team with problem players, and there are one
I don't even think people realize this. They see them
with one win and they just ah, this is the
worst team in the leagu they got one win. Do

(38:39):
you remember why they have one win? Does anybody remember
how they got it and why they have it? This
was the play where they gave up a seventy yard
touchdown run, but the Cardinals player a Marii Demrcado decided
to fumble the ball on his own intentionally before he
reached the end zone.

Speaker 3 (38:54):
Well, that's on the Cardinals for even being in a
one score game. They weren't in a score game at
the time.

Speaker 4 (38:59):
It became that as things moved on, But that's the
only time they've won, that's the only they'd be over
the season trending towards the immortality.

Speaker 3 (39:08):
Yeah, well that's true that too, and that's even harder
to do now you have to lose an extra game. Yep.
But yeah, the way that the language in this is
also amusing to me because you're taught and you just
said it.

Speaker 4 (39:20):
Well, he witnessed it, he was in the car. It's
a Class A misdemeanor. The maximum punishment is a year
in jail. That's crazy to me. He clearly knew it's
not going to be a year in jail. It's a Lamborghini.
It doesn't have more than two seats. He's sitting right
next to him.

Speaker 3 (39:37):
Literally when he takes these shots at the guy. Yes,
you're telling me he didn't know he was going to
do that before. Yeah, I know. But how many times
is a hey, what what do you have that for?
We don't need that. It sounds like I'm not here.
I'm not there. That's insane to me. He wasn't in
the non existent back seats. All right, we'll take a

(39:58):
quick time out, We'll come right back. Will begin the
simulcast three o'clock hour reset, and we're often running for
our number two on a Wednesday.

Speaker 2 (40:08):
The A team on Sports Talk seven.

Speaker 1 (40:10):
Ninety two, lifelong Houston sports guys named Adam Talking Your Team.
Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler are the A team.

Speaker 3 (40:30):
Welcome in to our number two. It is straight up
three o'clock here in Houston, Texas. It is the A
Team Sports Talk seven ninety and now simulcast on Space
City Home Network. Hello out there, TV Land. I've always
wanted to say that. That's actually the first time I've
done that in my.

Speaker 4 (40:47):
Intro when Bill and or Dom would toss it to you. No,
hello out there in TV Land.

Speaker 3 (40:53):
You're fired, right and first of all, it would have
wasted three precious seconds of the no seconds I had
to get every.

Speaker 4 (41:00):
Thanks Frank coming up in sports, Adam Clinton is in
and what do we have tonight?

Speaker 3 (41:04):
He's done.

Speaker 4 (41:04):
The Astros had a wild game tonight. That's right, they did.
We'll have highlights next.

Speaker 3 (41:10):
Why are you saying it like your anchorman his name
is Nutty that squirrel can water ski.

Speaker 4 (41:15):
Because we joke like that's not what it is on TV,
when sometimes it is.

Speaker 3 (41:19):
I actually did that one time. I was anchoring on
the weekend KPRC sportscast and I put Nutty on the air.
It was a water skiing squirrel.

Speaker 4 (41:30):
If I can find it sometime before the end of
the week, I'll find some old audio will work just fine.

Speaker 3 (41:35):
But obviously was with video.

Speaker 4 (41:37):
I was treating both Bill and Dom and I think
Frank two to a golf related dad joke.

Speaker 3 (41:42):
You'll love it. I will love that. You definitely will
love it. Did I ever tell you what I used
to do?

Speaker 4 (41:47):
It actually has to do with the Instagram story that
you reposted today.

Speaker 3 (41:52):
What did you post? Albert shared and Hueye oh yes,
now I remember, I love Huey. There you go, do
you know what I used to do right before break
was over, just to see if I could get them
to crack on air. What I did an impression of
a fellow co worker for as long as I could
until a break was over, like right up until the
last second, like Gene was counting us down five four

(42:16):
and I'm still going and they're just dying laughing. It
was great. I'll let you guess who co which coworker
that I know it is? I know you do, all right,
Rockets and Wizards tonight the one and ten Wizards coming
to town. Is Houston playing the two worst teams in
their respective leagues this week at the same time, the

(42:37):
Texans and the Rockets. Yes, I mean, there's nobody worse
than the Wizards this year, even though Brooklyn has no wins? Still, right,
or did they get one?

Speaker 4 (42:43):
Finally, Well, if they had no wins, then they would
be worse than them. But they only have one, right,
they each have one along with the Indiana Pacers.

Speaker 3 (42:51):
Yeah, but the Pacers have an excuse. What's the other
two's excuse?

Speaker 4 (42:54):
There isn't one unless you want to use age as
an excuse. There is only one NBA team with eight
players age twenty two or younger.

Speaker 3 (43:03):
It's the Wizards. They have ten.

Speaker 4 (43:06):
That's like, that's the Rockets three or four years ago.
And what kind of team did they have? It wasn't
lost his.

Speaker 3 (43:12):
Stand as Adam Wesler would call it in his this
is his scientific terminology in analysis, stinky. It was stinky. Yeah,
they were bad.

Speaker 4 (43:20):
Yes, the one win Titans, who are clearly the worst
team in the NFL are the Texans foe, and the
one win Wizards tonight are the Rockets faux. But the
Rockets will be on their third game by the time
we get to Sunday on this home stand.

Speaker 3 (43:32):
That's true, and they're finally playing home games. By the way,
they've had their all of them.

Speaker 4 (43:35):
They're the only team in the NBA yet to play
ten games. The Rockets are the only team in the
league that's only played nine times. That's how which is
insane since they started earlier than everybody else, which is
why I pointed it out yesterday from a durant minute
standpoint and health standpoint. I know we'll say differently at
a different pocket of the schedule, and almost assuredly during
the April portion of the schedule, they couldn't have had

(43:59):
a softer start to their season in terms of travel
and rest. If they wanted to, they could have held
practices many times. Yesterday, they practiced the day before the
Proctic had a game. Well, how do you practice it? Okay,
tonight they play? Are you gonna practice tomorrow before Friday's game?
Are you gonna practice Saturday before Sunday's game. No, So

(44:19):
the opportunities to practice were presented for this team and
an ideal spot. It's a very new team with a
very important new player, with multiple new starters to a
group that is obviously still young. So I thought it
couldn't have been much better. It'll even out, it'll be
less desirable soon, but you want them to be able
to have taken advantage of it, and nobody else has

(44:41):
gotten hurt. Obviously, Dorian Phinney Smith has yet to make
a mark on this team. And the response we got
to do you have an update on Dorian Phinney Smith
when we asked email a joke about that yesterday was nope,
because he doesn't, although I did see him at the
facility as he's been working out and trying to get
himself ready for the season. They're in a good spot
they won six of the nine games during this light schedule,

(45:02):
wised portion of their season, and hopefully this homestand could
get them to seven, eight, nine and three before they
head back out on the road.

Speaker 3 (45:09):
Well, like I said last segment, they should absolutely obliterate
the Wizards tonight for all the reasons you listed and more. CJ.
McCollum does tend to have good games against the Rockets.
He has his own his whole career, going back to
was he on Portland or New Orleans first?

Speaker 4 (45:25):
I can't remember this right now. Is one of the
reasons they were able to push Detroit to overtime A.

Speaker 3 (45:32):
CJ. Mccoum absolutely, yeah. Forty two he went off. Yeah,
and that wasn't somebody said. Kate Cunningham had his career
high forty six. He took forty five shots. What are you,
Michael Jordan? Believe it or not? You good for it? Yep?

Speaker 4 (45:47):
A tab that is open on my computer is a
believe it. Yes, that is correct. Most missed field goals
in a game since twenty fifteen.

Speaker 3 (45:57):
He is the new leader. Really, he took.

Speaker 4 (46:00):
Forty five shots to score forty six points. He missed
thirty one of his forty five shots.

Speaker 3 (46:06):
The ultimate volume shooter.

Speaker 4 (46:07):
Would you like to guess which two active and healthy
players are two and three on the active or the
from the last ten years? Who's missed the most shots
in a game before that among currently active and healthy players.

Speaker 3 (46:20):
Bradley Beal. He's on the list, but he's not at
the top of it. Kyle Kuzma, No, D'Angelo Russell, Nope.
Aren't these good guesses? Though? Really crappy players?

Speaker 4 (46:31):
Well, now think about really really good players at that
are doing interesting things with their basketball. They're both on
this list multiple times. It's not Lebron Well, he's not
healthy and he's not on the list.

Speaker 3 (46:42):
Okay, okay, because for all criticism, he's in the number
tissue five spots is one player and in the fourth,
sixth and eighth spot is the other player. This guy's
not healthy either.

Speaker 4 (46:55):
So both are former Rockets. Jalen Green No, when did
he ever take forty five shots? They're thirty one every
time out?

Speaker 3 (47:02):
No?

Speaker 4 (47:02):
Man, how about Russell Westbrook and James Harden? Really, I
don't think of James as being inefficient. I know that
sounds crazy because the last ten years all of Russell's
games were as a member of the Thunder when he
was a high volume scorer and shooter and somehow MVP.
All of James's appearances on this list are in twenty nineteen.

(47:24):
They're from the twenty nineteen twenty season, all three of them.

Speaker 3 (47:27):
Oh, I was gonna say that as a joke now
because I knew he was as a rocket. It is accurate.
I mean, how else do you score thirty for? Like,
how many games in a row? Was it thirty two?

Speaker 4 (47:37):
I think it was more in the teens, but it
was a lot. I thought it was more than that.
He also took fewer shots and made more of them
and scored more points. He did miss a bunch, but
he was a little bit more effective than thirty one
misses on forty five attempts like Caid Cunningham.

Speaker 3 (47:51):
You know what, they want a game, I know, and
they won a lot. You know what's funny about James
Harden And it pains me to say this in retros
because of what happened. I'm still bitter about it. I
know the Rockets. There's gonna be a night where the
Rockets retire his jersey and I'm not even like opposed
to that because he's the second best Rocket of all time,

(48:13):
if we're being honest, I don't like that because I
don't like the way he left. It's all about the
way he left. It's not about the fact that he
was a jerk while he was here. I'm just spitting
facts about that. People can get upset about it. They
know I'm right. But he got away with it because
they were winning until they weren't winning.

Speaker 4 (48:30):
And he was his team. I mean, he put it
together exactly.

Speaker 3 (48:33):
At some point the general manager duties were taken from
Darryl Moury and they were given to James. Daryl was
just a facilitator, and I tell Daryl that to his face,
like I love Darryl. But that's what happened at the end.
It's part of why the Rockets got into the spot
they were in and what we talked about last segment.
Again for the second day in a row with Dallas

(48:54):
the Lakers. They're awaiting the return of some healthier bodies
and we'll see where the season take something.

Speaker 4 (49:00):
They've gotten off to a very good start. James Harden's
Clippers the other team in LA, and they are very
much the other team in LA. Awful start, very very
bad start to their season and what just happened. We're
not quite to the They're not going to panic, but
there is rapidly growing concern about the team that they've
put together.

Speaker 3 (49:17):
What just happened, didn't you know? I might know? Just
tell people I know what happened and his hip, what
he broke it he's done now that actually might be
a good thing for them. He's talk about inefficient. That's
why he was the first name I mentioned. Yeah, he
was inefficient this year. He was very efficient and I
think poorly cast as the reason, the reason they lost

(49:39):
in Phoenix. He was just there while they lost and
obviously did not help them win. He just had not
played well early this season, obviously missed time. This is
going to have him missing all the time. And now
you're leaning on an older duo. You already knew that
most of even though I liked the people, they got
older this offseason by choice. They chose to put a
team together it was a little older and moved on

(50:00):
from Norman Power, brought in John Collins, Brook Lopez among others.
Obviously had an old core to begin with, and Bradley
Beal along with Kawhi and James keeps it that way
it can. This could be could be a disaster. It
is a disaster. Listen, and now I don't remember, I
really don't. I know it was the Warriors, and I

(50:20):
know where he had the Rockets, did not. John Hollinger
in his stupid article put the Lake or the Clippers
near the top of the West and the standings as
his prediction.

Speaker 4 (50:30):
I think they were with it. I think they were
like the pretty much the group of everybody else because remember,
once you got past Okac or Golden State, whichever one
we were talking about, almost all the other that was
one too. They were all just lumped together fifty one
to forty four wins or something like he had.

Speaker 3 (50:44):
I think it was even dumber because he had them,
Like even if you don't want to put I don't
think it was dumb because I liked what they did.
I'm talking about what Hollinger did where I think he
had the Clippers as a three seed and then the
Nuggets or something like that unlikely to happen. There was
no doubt my mind that the Rockets and the Nuggets
would be the two teams eventually at the end of
the season that would be fighting for the two seed.

(51:05):
If you pencil in OKC number one. Yeah, those were
the two teams I thought would be actually fighting for
it when all a sudden done.

Speaker 4 (51:12):
Another thing that I thought this offseason, I liked trading
Michael Porter Junior for Cam Johnson Brooklyn and the Nuggets.
Cam Johnson, I don't know how you play worse he's been.

Speaker 3 (51:23):
I don't.

Speaker 4 (51:23):
They don't even understand kept winning. Yeah, they're in a
good spot, but he has. They got to figure out
how to have him help them because they're playing with
an empty spot now. Everything that MPG was giving them,
they're getting nuts about.

Speaker 3 (51:34):
To say, Michael Porter Junior was very, very good. He
killed the Rockets. I was so glad to see that
trade just from that standpoint. So yeah, going back to
tonight should be a thirty point win for your Houston
Rockets against the Washington Wizards.

Speaker 1 (51:50):
The A t on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 3 (52:01):
Little off the beaten pack here. Joe A. Spotta joined
Astro Line last night here on Sports Talk seven to ninety.
I do wonder what he's thinking going into twenty twenty six.
I know it's way too early. GM meetings underway. The

(52:24):
stove will be hot before you know it. Astro has
had a ton of injuries last year. That can really
if it doesn't give them a pass. I don't know
what you call it. It's got to be some sort
of pass. I just the further we get away from
the season, I keep saying, I can't believe they were
even in contention. And I don't know if that says
more about them or about the Seattle Mariners or a

(52:45):
combination of both. But I do wonder, like you know,
Bregman's now gonna have been gone for an entire year.
Saying with Kyle Tucker, those two are free agents this offseason.
By the way, neither one of them is coming back
here fromber is going to be walking out the door.
The pieces continue to leave, but unlike in past seasons,

(53:06):
you know, the Astros aren't still winning at that level
or looking like contenders now. Last season, I think you
get an incomplete because of all the injuries we talked about.
But you know, fully healthy going into this year, they're
gonna have to make some moves before you're gonna feel
comfortable thinking that they're going to be at least contenders

(53:26):
for the division again.

Speaker 4 (53:27):
Yeah, fully healthy roster that returns with no frommer is
not going to win the division.

Speaker 3 (53:32):
That's a very fair statement.

Speaker 4 (53:34):
Well, they're going to lose eleven to five a lot
on the days that Hunter doesn't pitch.

Speaker 3 (53:39):
That sounds terrible. That's what has to be done.

Speaker 4 (53:41):
You're not going to go into the season with a
fully internally put together starting rotation.

Speaker 3 (53:46):
On paper, you can do it.

Speaker 4 (53:48):
You can give Hunter Brown the ball on opening day,
then give it to Christian Xavier for four innings, then
give it to Spencer Araghetti for five innings, then you
can give it to Nate Pearson for however many outs
he's gonna get, and then you can give it to
aj Blue Ball, and then you only have one hundred
and fifty seven games remaining with that five minter rotation,
maybe six at times. It's just that's not what you're

(54:09):
gonna do. They're not intending to do that. There's no
way they're going to do that. Is not it's a
foolish way to hit your off season and obviously get
to February spring training and have that only have that
at their disposal.

Speaker 3 (54:19):
That's what is.

Speaker 4 (54:20):
Honestly, it's a bigger deal than anything else they have
to do it. It's not figuring out the infield log jam.
It's not figuring out where how Jose Al Tuve will
be every day. It's figuring out how to get through
the season with your starting rotation. They got bodies, they
got names, they have arms, but they they don't have
enough good ones, enough proven good ones, enough ones that
you can consider. All Right, I'm going I'm gonna give

(54:42):
the ball to hundred Brown thirty two times this year,
and that's gonna be great. We'll find out tonight where
he finishes in the Cy Young race. Okay, then what,
there's not a single other pitcher on the staff you
think you're giving the ball to thirty two times? Very
few contenders can say that. Nobody wants to say that
the Astros are the only contender. If you believe they
are a contender is in a position where they're unfortunately
unable or have to say that. Every other team has

(55:04):
two or three, if not four, or five guys that
they already know who if they had to and they
were healthy, Yeah, they'd be glad to give him the
ball thirty times a year. Thirty two times. They have
one guy. One guy.

Speaker 3 (55:14):
You can't make it through the season like that.

Speaker 4 (55:16):
You can't you can make it through the season, you'll
finish in fourth or fifth place in your division, no
matter what the offense does.

Speaker 3 (55:21):
What do you think the fascination with Dylan sees.

Speaker 4 (55:24):
Is because he's available and he well, he's not awful.
I'm just saying I don't want to pay him what
this market will pay him. And I didn't want to
pay him that last year because I think as much
as he helps you by taking the ball every fifth day,
every time he takes the ball, you need twelve more
outs from your staff because he's only going to get

(55:44):
the first fifteen.

Speaker 3 (55:45):
Well, by definition, that's now helping you.

Speaker 4 (55:47):
It's helpful in that many times you're in an okay spot,
but this last year you weren't. We should be and
I hopefully people hear it. We're pushing back on the
quality start stat. It means you gave your te he
made chance to win. That's all he's done this past year,
is he that's a four to fifty rats the king,
and he starts, well, he didn't have any What I'm

(56:08):
getting to is he doesn't pitch six any so he
ne or has one, but his eras in the four
fifty every time, and he's only giving you five that's
the that's the worst thing ever. A ton of strikeouts,
a ton of walks. Nobody can hit him. He can't
go deep into games. He hasn't been hurt yet. He
might be the fromber Valdez. You're talking, Well, he hasn't
been hurt. He gets makes all of his starts every year.

(56:29):
He's number one in Major League Baseball in the last
five years and taking the baseball among starters. At some point,
that's not going to be the case. We mentioned his
teammate yesterday. I would much rather have a guy who
happens to be coming off injury like Michael King. I'd
much rather take a chance for less money and fewer years,
which is likely what the scenario would be for a

(56:49):
pitcher who isn't come Immy, he's coming off a troublesome year.
I would much rather take a chance on a picture
like Michael King than you know, sinking lots of dollars
and lots of long term years into Dylan Cees. That's
just not what I'm looking for. This never was, and
he's been on their radar forever. He has great stuff.
I'm not sure how they're gonna make it better, though.

(57:11):
I don't know if maybe they fancy him a little
bit like you say Kakuchi, because if you honestly look
at what you say was as a Blue Jays pitcher
and obviously to a certain degree as a Mariner's pitcher,
he had the stuff that guys can't hit. But he
spent this much time in the majors, just like you say,
of not being able to harness it well enough, way

(57:32):
too many walks for you say Kakuchi in his career,
and it curtailed slightly with Houston, it went right back
up last year with the Angels. If they can do
something about Cese's inability to throw strikes, he gets swings
and misses and it helps him strike out more hitters
than anybody else in baseball over this time period. But
if they maybe they view him as a pitcher like that,
because I do think some of what they've done in

(57:54):
their careers prior to landing here. If it's Kokucha and
Cis Kokuchi and Cease who end up here at different
points in their respective careers, I could maybe see that's
the angle they're taking. I'm taking it at face value,
and I probably shouldn't because the Astros are very famous
at taking pictures who've been okay elsewhere and turning him
into something even better once they get here. Maybe that's

(58:16):
how they view him. It's a little bit risky to
believe it's definitely gonna happen for what it's going to
take to get him. That's why I would probably not
want that to happen.

Speaker 3 (58:25):
Yeah, and I mean you mentioned they're available. That's free agency.
Kakuci was a trade. I don't know what you're giving
up to get a picture of value this offseason if
that's the route you were going to go, especially when
you're also walking or you're also watching from or walk
out the door.

Speaker 4 (58:45):
I mean the people, the players that I think you're
trying to move if you're trying to make the team
better in a different area, are Kristian Walker and janer Diez.
You're going to create a massive hole at Ketcher, no
matter what people think, massive hole. He's also been healthy
for all these years here and whenever you need him
to start his hundred and whatever games, he can. So

(59:06):
now you're left with probably two backup caliber catchers if
Victor Karrottini is back, and whomever you bring in to
help him, because you don't have anybody in the system
that's ready for that. I love Sally. I don't think
he's a seventy five game a season catcher maybe ever.
But if you're awesome, if you have a true number one,
maybe that's a little bit different situation. But those are

(59:27):
players that would interest other teams, and the interest in
Yiner would be true. True to his contract. He doesn't
make a lot of money, yet you have him under
control a little bit, and his best could still and
likely is still in his future. Walker's interest in that
you probably know what you're going to get. You're gonna
get a guy who hits for power, a guy who
drives in runs at a much lower level than he
did before he got to Houston. It's gonna hit you

(59:49):
about two thirty. Hopefully he has a better season with
you than he did with Houston. But you're also going
to be asking the Astros to eat some of the
forty million in the code.

Speaker 3 (59:58):
That would make me if and that's the only only
scenario that would happen, by the way, the one that
you just mentioned. They're going to eat a ton of
the salary, and then he goes wherever and his numbers
bounce back to what you expected them to be prior
to him getting here in someone else's uniform. That is
a double gut punch, and I don't care what you
got back for him exactly that envision that happening, which
part him performing the bounce back.

Speaker 4 (01:00:21):
I know his numbers away from Houston, which is what
you're literally taking him away from, might lend you to
believe that he could hit. If he's sitting in all
these other ballparks at this rate and he's sitting in
your ballpark for one season at that lower rate, take
him out of line. But I don't think it'll play
the things he was doing poorly this.

Speaker 3 (01:00:36):
Year, are you?

Speaker 4 (01:00:37):
Two point zero? Is what you're saying, Except he's playable
like that's the people Lumping them in together is obvious.
It's unavoidable, and it does make sense, not just because
of the same position he was. They were acquired in
the same way bad free agent idea. They play the
same position. One of them is an elite fielder, one
of them is a butcher that stage of his career.

(01:00:58):
I think that's why you was was as I said,
he was unplayable. You could not have him in your lineup.
Christian Walker was at a point where you shouldn't have
had him batting forth in your lineup for as long
as they did. But having him on the field and
in your lineup every day wasn't nearly you know.

Speaker 3 (01:01:14):
It's messed up about this whole scenario, and it's happened
now twice so far. I mean, I don't know what
Christian Walker is gonna be if he remains an Astro
next year. We don't know, but like you said, the
trends tell you it's not gonna be great, you know.
I think that's what's the most frustrating for astros fans
specifically about the way Jim Crane operates when it comes
to this topic, because they're sitting there thinking, well, you

(01:01:37):
won't pay premium for this guy over here because of
basically the length of the deal. That's what it comes
down to. It's always about years more than anything else.
But you'll give shorter term deals for players that also
have a three in front of their age. Inevitably, it
just blows up in your face, it does. You don't know,

(01:01:57):
I mean, yeah it did. I mean, Christian Walker was.
It was exacerbated because of all the injuries you had
to everybody else.

Speaker 4 (01:02:04):
And I'm gonna be honest that the signing of a
Brew and the signing of Walker.

Speaker 3 (01:02:08):
I didn't frown on him at the time.

Speaker 4 (01:02:09):
No, actually, anybody did, never expect so, I mean they
made sense. I made costly, but it made sense. But
so did signing Alex Bregman.

Speaker 3 (01:02:18):
To just keep him here. And they didn't do that
for comparable ish money. Not exactly the same, but it
wasn't that far off in the grand scheme of things,
just for two.

Speaker 4 (01:02:27):
More years, which means it's a lot more money.

Speaker 3 (01:02:29):
Yeah, but okay, you're paying for these two years for
this guy over here or five years for that guy
over there, and you're getting I think better production. Anyway.
I'm not in charge. I don't make those kinds of decisions.

Speaker 1 (01:02:44):
The ag on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 3 (01:02:54):
How much do you miss Ryan Stanek in Astro's uniform?

Speaker 4 (01:02:58):
I like him as a part a great deal. I
don't miss him at all.

Speaker 3 (01:03:03):
Man, that's hardcore, dude.

Speaker 4 (01:03:05):
I'm trying to not say it in a way that
makes me sound like me. They have so many guys
that are just like him and have been more successful.
I wouldn't be somebody to keep an eye on. But
I doubt he ends up back here. Is that what
you're getting at?

Speaker 3 (01:03:20):
No, although I'm with you, I really liked him as
a guy. Super cool dude, very accessible, and very good
when he was here. Yeah, no, he was and he
went after what was the officials name, Junior or something
or other Valentine. Yeah, that's him. I liked that a lot.
After he got tossed, well, actually he got tossed on
his way out, after he got his words out.

Speaker 4 (01:03:41):
His best seasons as a major league pitcher, not surprisingly
came as a Houston Astro. His worst seasons as a
major league pitcher came in his one of his most
recent stints, the one he just had with the Mets.

Speaker 3 (01:03:57):
Yeah, yeah, I could. I could see that being the case. Well,
that same thing happened with Justin Ferlander, for being honest,
worst season.

Speaker 4 (01:04:05):
Different levels of best as.

Speaker 3 (01:04:09):
No, I bring it up because of what we've been
talking about, actually a lot the last couple of days,
gambling and all the stuff that has gone into now
two scandals in two different leagues. With that subject, Ryan
Stanek just finished season number nine with the Mets. As
you mentioned, he says that due to the proliferation of

(01:04:31):
sports betting, these days, he has received more threats from
fans than ever before. Quote. I get death threats all
the time, every day. It's not anything that every baseball
player doesn't deal with all the time. Like you cost
me my parlay. I hope your family dies. End of quote.
He went on to say gambling in baseball is doing

(01:04:54):
nothing but making the day to day lives of players
substantially worse. It's just people that recklessly bet their money
on just anything that they can, and if you mess
up their bad life choice, you're the problem and you
should die.

Speaker 4 (01:05:08):
The other thing that goes along with it is just
where we are. Sure there's a proliferation of accessible and
legalized wagering, but there's also way more accessibility to players.
It's nineteen ninety seven, and Ryan Stanik ruined you or
parlay because you live in Las Vegas and you're at
the casino. How's Ryan and Stanic gonna Ryan stant gonna

(01:05:30):
hear about it from you? Is he gonna send a
letter to the Mets? Is he going to drive to
the stadium when the bus gets back. He's certainly not
going to d m him or post something on the
non existent social media platforms.

Speaker 3 (01:05:42):
I bet you.

Speaker 4 (01:05:43):
He doesn't know Ryan's email address, Ryan dot stank at
mets dot com, I mean our stank at mets doc co.
Listen to the comment he made. People are constantly messaging, well,
there is no ability to do that at all. In
any way, you had no access to players. They weren't
writing articles on their own behalf they were. If you
knew something about a player, it came from the media,

(01:06:04):
it came from a television program, it came from a
radio spot. That's it. That's all you got. That's all
there was. Now you have a direct link to any
player who wants to be active on social media. You
want to drop a message into their onto their ig page,
go right ahead if it's open. Same thing with the
X platform, and they will see it, and their family
will see it, and many of their family members, their wife,

(01:06:25):
sometimes their kids also have accounts. It should be it's
nice that they have access to you. It should be
they can be more involved in the player and their
players' lives. Great, but this is what comes with it,
the unfortunate part of it. That's why players are deactivating
accounts oftentimes. And Ryan's I mean just probably in the life.
I'm trying to remember which player's names come to mind

(01:06:47):
in the last two weeks, even as free agency is
about to start, and you hear a little bit more
from some players. He's what he said in that comment.
I just heard it from a different player a couple
of days.

Speaker 3 (01:06:57):
Ago, lancemanc Collors, Liam Hendricks, Carlos Rodin, Francisco Lidor, Cam Schlidter,
Tray Savage.

Speaker 4 (01:07:10):
Well, like all of them, you play, it happens all
of those guys. Everybody just hasn't come out and said
it right right.

Speaker 3 (01:07:17):
And a poll which I think we talked about this
on the show before, of MLB players relieved revealed, I
should say this, seventy eight point two percent of them
feel that legalized sports betting has negatively affected how fans
treat them and their teammates. And what percent feels that
way seventy eight Why it should be love exactly exactly.

Speaker 4 (01:07:37):
It should be almost one hundred. How could it have
positively impacted it below eighty? How many messages did Ryan
or any Francisco Lindor Man. It's been awesome receiving all
those dms from all the gamblers that were happy that
I had a homer today. They don't thank you for it.
They only get mad at you. That's what social media
and the age that we're in, that's what it's about.

Speaker 3 (01:07:56):
It's about negativity. Unfortunately, the Twins hired a former Minneapolis
police officer for their staff just to deal with their threats.

Speaker 4 (01:08:05):
It's I wish it weren't the case. I wish people
were better. They aren't. Well this is and by the way,
those who may have some skepticism about this, don't.

Speaker 3 (01:08:17):
Yeah, I think I saw that. I think it happens.
I think I saw that with with Lance this past year,
because people were just people wanted to believe it was
just he was making an excuse since he had had
a run of bad incidents. But it's like, okay, even
if you believe that, so all these other guys are
making it up, Like come on.

Speaker 4 (01:08:35):
We also got we took the path down the investigation
to oh, it was from this person overseas.

Speaker 3 (01:08:41):
In another country, right, that was drunk, very drunk. Yeah.
By the way, not to make light of this, but
if you're betting on the Minnesota Twins this upcoming year,
that might be not great for you.

Speaker 4 (01:08:51):
No, see, you're not understanding the wagering. I will take
the over in the Twins game because while they might
not score any their lack of a pitching staff will
allow the other team to score a lot. I will
take the money line on who are they playing, It
doesn't even matter. I mean they could, especially if they
decide to move on from Buxton and he agrees to

(01:09:14):
allow them to by waving his no trade clause. They're
gonna be the worst team in baseball, like the Rockies
will be better than them.

Speaker 3 (01:09:21):
No, I fully agree with that. And by the way, no,
I don't want him here. We had as much as
fun as it was to have everyone injured last year.
Another guy who always gets injured might not be the best.

Speaker 4 (01:09:32):
But working with this staff here on the medical and
health side, I would what staff making sure you're listening? Okay,
like we don't have one yet. I'm not sure what
exactly they will do. And this year, for much of
the year, he really finally, almost more than ten years in,
you really saw what this kid could do. One hundred
and twenty six games, the second most he's played in

(01:09:55):
his eleven seasons. One of those was a COVID season,
so obviously it was limiting, but he was awesome. A
deserving All Star, a goal glove caliber outfielder, incredible speed
even at age thirty one, hit for power at his
career high in homers and RBI. Obviously hadn't played in
a ton of games, So would I would almost be
willing to say, yeah, you better believe I'd want to

(01:10:16):
roll the dice for an.

Speaker 3 (01:10:17):
Extreme talent like that.

Speaker 4 (01:10:20):
But it would be extremely risky to roll the dice
for an extreme talent like that with multiple seasons, albeit
at a pretty nice rate, got a lot of bonus
and incentive money, and his deal that would, even if
they're reached, which he almost never reaches, would only get
him into the mid twenties. He's got a fifteen million
dollar base salary for the next three seasons with heavy

(01:10:43):
bonuses and incentives built in and beyond that.

Speaker 3 (01:10:45):
Who are you trading? Well, I don't know. I'm not
sure what the twins are after, Like, what do they want?
I mean, I'm assuming prospects. I mean they didn't want
anybody for Carlos, That's true, you just take Yeah, they
got him for us song. They wanted to alleviate their
cost structure. Did you want to reunite together here back
here in Houston.

Speaker 4 (01:11:05):
I guarantee you Carlos would if asked, and Joe spot
A noted he talks to Carlos correct quite a yes please,
he would say yes.

Speaker 3 (01:11:13):
No by all accounts, a great teammate and all that
good stuff. But yeah, I am very very injury prone,
very very injury prone. We continue here on a Wednesday
edition of the program.

Speaker 1 (01:11:24):
Next the a t on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 3 (01:11:34):
One segment Away from Taco Little Texans Football with Nick
Suss of the Tennesseean and by one segment, of course,
I mean two segments wex Apparently I can't count mentioned
just before we went to break about the the outfield,
you know, adding a Byron Bustam or somebody to improve

(01:11:55):
that situation, especially since you just tossed aside Chaz this offseason.

Speaker 4 (01:12:01):
Now, he wasn't helping to improve the situation. He actually,
unfortunately was making it worse.

Speaker 3 (01:12:05):
He's not very good, right, But Jake Myers, like I'd
hate to think that that was his best season as
an astro. Probably what you.

Speaker 4 (01:12:12):
Shouldn't do, in my opinion, is count on Jake Myers.

Speaker 3 (01:12:17):
I don't like the sound of that.

Speaker 4 (01:12:18):
He might be here, he might be a play well,
he might have a nice season like he did a
year ago, and I know he will catch a lot
of baseballs, he won't throw anybody out, and he won't
hit for power if that's who he is moving forward,
But I wouldn't. When I say counter, I don't mean
from a health standpoint. I mean count on him to
help the teams. Yeah, well in that vein.

Speaker 3 (01:12:36):
That was one of the subjects that came up with
Joe spot on last night's Astro Line right here on
Sports Talk seven nine year home for Astros Baseball, the
outfield spots in general, and this is what the Astro
skipper had to say.

Speaker 8 (01:12:48):
I'm very excited about some of our young players. They
bring a dynamic tone to what we want to do.
There's some speed, there's some threat to steal some basis
and the Melton, the sack Cole and the Cam Smith, Right,
So how can we get all those.

Speaker 3 (01:13:03):
Guys in there? You know, the the Censos.

Speaker 8 (01:13:06):
You know, he's another guy that was there early in
the season, got hurt. He's someone that we really like
the bat and the power, and he's also got some
flexibilities and what he can do on the field. So
that's gonna be the interesting part of spring training. It's
getting all those guys on the field playing them. I

(01:13:26):
want him to play every day. I don't think those
guys are platoon players. I think those guys that have
the potential to be everyday players. So from the very
first day, those are the guys that you're going to
see out there very often.

Speaker 4 (01:13:37):
That's interesting because those for the most part, Cam Smith
would be the outlier. I think his status a little
bit above the others is fair. He's played a whole season,
but he's much more highly regarded for what they think
of him as a major league finished product three four
years from now, same thing the Cubs thought and everybody
else thought pre twenty twenty four draft.

Speaker 3 (01:13:56):
That's fair.

Speaker 4 (01:13:57):
None of the other guys fit that. Jacob Melton's been
at the top of their prospect list, but I don't
think anybody fancies him as a big time performer in
your major league lineup. Same for Zach Coles, same for
Zach Decenzo. You know, do those players give you a
better chance to win on a daily basis right now
than Jake Myers.

Speaker 3 (01:14:14):
They probably don't, and I don't.

Speaker 4 (01:14:16):
Maybe sounded a little harsh with Jake my thought on
Jake is when I say count on him is if
the Astros are going to be highly competitive next year
and Jake Myers is in their everyday lineup, I think
that can absolutely happen. Jake Myers should be your seventh, eighth,
or ninth most productive hitter, because that's the caliber of
offense that he's going to provide for you. It was
a little bit above average last year if you look

(01:14:38):
at ops plus. I can't get away from talking about
how little power he had last year because I'm just
dumbfounded by it. You know, a three homer season in
three hundred and eighty one played appearance is I don't
even know what to say. I don't even know how
that happened. How it's even possible for a player who
it used to be not to this player, but he
is a major League baseball player. I can't say that

(01:14:59):
about Zach Cole, Zach Decenzo, or Melton. They might be
and I know where they are on the in the
Astros' eyes for what they've been rising through the ranks,
but at this point they haven't. There's no obvious answer
to that. It was great what Zach Cole did because
he kept hitting homers. He's the guy that but he
wasn't like he didn't hit, he didn't hit for very

(01:15:21):
good average. He has a massive hole in his swing,
which is why he struck out in Double A, Triple A,
and at the major league level. I don't think those
things get fixed. Maybe they get lessened. But these guys
where there are where they are, Like, he's twenty five
years old and honestlying, he can't be great. I'm not
saying any of those things. The likelihood of it is low.

Speaker 3 (01:15:40):
I sometimes forget that aspect of baseball, of major leaguers
when they get up at a certain age and it
takes them that age to get to where they are,
like he's ancient now.

Speaker 4 (01:15:51):
I mean sometimes it's just a simple matter of they
were drafted as a college player, so they didn't get
here to pro baseball till age twenty one. They started
single A. Let's say they progress a level of season, Well,
now they're twenty four, when they get there. They didn't
do anything wrong, it's just the path that they took.
It's not necessarily a super negative. But if you're showing

(01:16:13):
that you should be in the majors and you're gonna
be a plus level, front of the rotation pitcher or
middle of the order hitter. You're probably not waiting. They
don't wait till you get to twenty five to say, man,
we can't wait to put this guy in the everyday lineup.

Speaker 3 (01:16:26):
What's the latest late bloomer superstar that you can think
of off the top of your head.

Speaker 4 (01:16:31):
I mean, some of them, it's more because of the
path than.

Speaker 3 (01:16:34):
What the college versus trade out of high.

Speaker 4 (01:16:36):
School, honestly, Like we're talking about twenty five year olds
or Zach Cole. And sometimes I usually would just talk
about the number of at bats or at played appearances
to get as a minor leaguer, And every time I
do that, I think of George Springer, and I said it, then,
this is a long long time ago when I was
on the radio, and many of you remember, what is
George Springer doing in the minor leagues? Why are you

(01:16:56):
doing this? You're stupid, it's dumb. I don't care about
what the costs are. You'll be able to afford the
costs because he's going to help you be good enough
to generate the money to spend on him. He's wasting
very good what I thought would be very good major
league seasons by having five hundred played appearance seasons for
the Quad City River bandit's in the Oklahoma City RedHawks.

(01:17:19):
He played college baseball for three seasons. Why did he
play minor league baseball for three and a half seasons?
That makes no sense? Is that just too good of
a player? Is that Jeff Luno's greatest sin? I mean,
it's a kind of a small sin, but what it
was I just saying about Zach Cole. George Springer made
his major league debut with the Astros at age twenty
four because he was drafted in twenty eleven, twenty twelve

(01:17:41):
minor league, twenty thirteen minor leaguer, got a sniff late
in the half a season with the Astros in twenty fourteen.
Then he basically didn't play in the minors anymore. But
what was he not doing while he was dropping nine
to fifty ops is on minor league baseball at lower levels,
then nine to eighty ops at the levels, then a
thousand ops at the net.

Speaker 3 (01:18:02):
Did what do you want him to do?

Speaker 4 (01:18:04):
You're it was strictly financial, clearly, and it just you
just see, but he could have another thirty homers. He
could have another on hundred are I'm not talking about
his numbers, but you could have used those when you say.

Speaker 3 (01:18:14):
Are trying to win, But when you say strictly financial,
who else were they spending money on.

Speaker 4 (01:18:19):
It's about when you're spending money on. If you don't
bring him up now, well then in five years when
he could be making more money, when he's making a
year less worth of that money. Now you have him
at major league club control for this distance further into
his career because you haven't kind of started that clock
of major league service time.

Speaker 3 (01:18:36):
It was almost like they knew he was going to
bolt already.

Speaker 4 (01:18:39):
But that to be there's huge divide between Zach Cole
where he was drafted, what he did in the miners,
versus George Springer where he was drafted what he did
in the miners. I would never have sat there in
twenty fourteen on the air and said, I hope George
Springer is a good Major leaguer.

Speaker 3 (01:18:52):
We'll find out. There was no doubt there was zero
guys on the cover of Sports Illustrated that year. Well
three years later, no, I thought he was on the
cover of twenty fourteen. Oh what did it look like
when Ben Ryder predicted that the Astros would win the
twenty seventeen World Series. I believe that came out in
twenty fourteen and it was Oh, I see what you're saying.
George's was on the cover. George was on the cover
of that.

Speaker 4 (01:19:12):
Probably not during his rookie season, but I guess it
was a radio was twenty fifteen. But yeah, like that's
the difference. I do have doubt. The Astros have doubt.
Everybody has doubt about what Zach Coleby is a major leaguer.
Nobody had any doubt and it worked out. It doesn't always,
but nobody had any doubt. He has to prove it.
He did immediately. There's a different level of player in
the system. They don't have any of those players currently.

Speaker 3 (01:19:33):
We'll jump back into some Texans conversation. There's also odds
as to where Fromer is going to go. I don't
know if you're aware of that. It might be surprising.
Which two teams are ahead of the Astros. Yeah, they're
third on the list. We'll tell you next.

Speaker 1 (01:19:47):
The A teen on Sports Talk seven ninety two lifelong
Houston sports guys named at him talking your team's Adam
Clinton and Adam Wexler are the A team.

Speaker 3 (01:20:12):
Straight up four o'clock. Here on the A Team, it's
Sports Talks seven to ninety. It's Space City Home Network,
a lot of baseball conversation over the past couple of segments.
By the way, just before we move on from that
from ber Valdez, and this is just one one senior
handicapper that thinks this his twenty twenty sixteen odds Toronto

(01:20:33):
Blue Jays at plus three point fifty, followed by New
York the Mets.

Speaker 4 (01:20:40):
Yeah, the Yankees probably aren't in the starting pitching market.
This I'll get a guy back. They should get Garrett
Cole back. There are a few other arms that obviously
weren't at the state they should have been. And they
still have Carlos Radon making a ton of money and
pitching well enough to deserve it. And they just signed
Max Free the previous off season. Cam Schlitzler looks like

(01:21:02):
a keeper for sure. They're in really, really good shape
in the starting pitching department. Mets have money, so the
Mets could always use somebody.

Speaker 3 (01:21:11):
Astros So Mets are plus four fifty and then the
Astros are third at plus five hundred. They're tied with
the Giants, if you want to look at it that way,
because they're also plus five hundred.

Speaker 4 (01:21:21):
Total guest work at what the Giants will want because
of their overhaul. I know Buster Posey remains in place
as the personnel decision maker at GM, but obviously they've
hired a new manager who has zero major league experience.
I know you won't believe this, but an old manager
said it's unfair and it's insulting the path that he

(01:21:41):
took to a major league managerial job to him, since
he worked his way up through the system in the
eighties and got his first managerial job about twenty years later.
He complains and complains and complains. He goes, well, that's
just the way it is. I'm like, yeah, I know,
of course you're going to complain because you weren't. You
didn't get gifted the job. It wasn't a different time.
He tried to make it like this should never happen,

(01:22:01):
and he's like, no, this is kind of normal now. Yeah,
so back it up a little bit. It might work,
it might not. It's totally normal because everything is normal
now because teams do different things now. Major League Baseball,
the NBA, the NFL. It's not like it used to be.
This just in change, change occurs, and uh, different owners

(01:22:23):
and different general managers different times, they're making different decisions.

Speaker 3 (01:22:27):
I would.

Speaker 4 (01:22:28):
I mean, I figured it would probably happen at some
point a college coach had made the jump in every
other sport, why not baseball. I know how much different
it is dealing with players, the day to day grind
of it. I mean, he's been grinding through the recruiting
process year round, but he only grinds through the season
for a couple of months for their seventy games, maybe

(01:22:48):
if they win the title. This is very, very different
he's dealing with. You know, he's a younger coach, but
he's definitely dealing with totally different people and players and
monetary earnings from their players. And his coll players weren't
making anything legally for most of his time in college.
Now they can, obviously, but we'll find out if it
works or not. I'm sure the Giants they've been in play.

(01:23:10):
It seems like for so many players in free agency years.

Speaker 3 (01:23:13):
I'm sorry, Arson and Carlos Correa.

Speaker 4 (01:23:16):
Yeah, and they actually have landed some and they are
spending money. They got Matt Chapman and then extended Matt
Chapman off of one of those bregman like deals. They
were the team that put Willia Damas in the stratosphere
of highest paid shortstops, and he's there for many years
to come. So they have some money that they were
clearly willing to spend, and now they've gotten players to

(01:23:37):
take it. I don't know if Frommer's next in line,
but they're almost always if there's an awesome, very accurate,
factual report from John Hayman, he'll say, well, the Mets
and the Red Sox and the Guardians are interested, and
I think there's a mystery team out there.

Speaker 3 (01:23:54):
Well, the mystery team will be the Giants. It's always
the Giants. It's been the Giants, by the way, why
don't they I just assume people would want to play there.
It's an amazing park.

Speaker 4 (01:24:07):
What do you think about the competitive nature of playing there?
If you play for the Rockies, Diamondbacks or Giants, And
maybe it's getting easier because the Padres might not be
who they once were, but you're joining a division that
you probably aren't going to win during your time there.

Speaker 3 (01:24:23):
Just because you're in the Dodgers' division.

Speaker 4 (01:24:25):
And for the last several years you were battling it
the net arguably the second or third best team in
the National League, because that's who the Padres were. Yeah,
and you're not only competing with them to get to
the playoffs, you're competing with them twenty six times a
year on your schedule. I think the way the schedule changed,
instead of playing nineteen games against those teams, to drip
it down to just thirteen, that makes a humongous difference.

Speaker 3 (01:24:47):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:24:47):
The players, Caroh, you're gonna pay me one hundred and
fifty million. They're gonna pay me one hundred and thirty
And you get on the phone with your agent and
they explain to you the taxes of the two different
places you're talking about and what it actually is the
actual money.

Speaker 3 (01:24:58):
Then you make your decision. That's where you go. Yeah,
I don't know. I guess farmer to the.

Speaker 4 (01:25:03):
Astros should be far, far, further away from the top
of the board.

Speaker 3 (01:25:08):
Yeah, well, yeah, I was. That's what stood out to
me about this list. It's just in case you're wondering.
It was the Blue Jays, Mets, Astros, Giants, and then
the Orioles at plus eight hundred, Padres at plus eight
point fifty, Atlanta Braves at plus twelve hundred, and then
if you want to take the field, which I know
you always do, U plus seven fifty.

Speaker 4 (01:25:30):
I think most of the teams that seem like they'd
be the entrance into that sweep SAX are listed, So
I think the field would probably be a poor play
in this in this bet.

Speaker 3 (01:25:39):
I mean, do any of those teams stand out like
I do the fact that the Blue Jays have the
best odds, I guess. I just wasn't expecting to see
the team that's fresh off the World Series be the
number one odds for Look.

Speaker 4 (01:25:52):
You believe in Bieber, and you believe in Galsman, and
you believe in your Savage. Well there's your one two
three without him, but as a kid, and he just
got to the majors.

Speaker 3 (01:26:01):
That's a lie.

Speaker 4 (01:26:01):
And I know how well he pitched, and I want
to count on him, and I think they will. And
you got other pictures you have to make decisions on
that you used this past year. That doesn't strike me
as that would also be a poor bet. I would
not bet on them being that high on the list
just isn't what I would want Mets make more sense.

Speaker 3 (01:26:20):
The Mets make much more.

Speaker 4 (01:26:21):
Sense, very very He might hate them though, because remember
they almost ruined his season when John Hayman told this
he was out for months because they broke his finger
in spring training.

Speaker 3 (01:26:28):
Well, that wasn't the Mets. That was just well, I
guess they're the ones that they didn't break his fingers.
You mean it wasn't the Mets.

Speaker 4 (01:26:35):
Who they were playing? Who was the hitter A Met?
I know, Yeah, that's all you need to know, the Mets.
It was wearing the Mets jersey.

Speaker 3 (01:26:43):
It was so it was it made such an impact
you came to remember who it was.

Speaker 4 (01:26:47):
Well, it didn't make such an impact because the report
was bogus.

Speaker 3 (01:26:50):
That's because it was made by John Hayman.

Speaker 4 (01:26:52):
Yes, uh, he's so many things have to happen. So
many teams that he and his agency expect to play
for him be in play for him. They would have
to give him bad offers, and we would not be
able to leverage this offer against that offer. For him
to come back to Houston and say, well can you
just do this? For them to even have an offer
on the table, I think he might consider. We'll find

(01:27:15):
out shortly definitively that he and each of the other
players that were offered their qualifying offer that they have
been declined because that officially has to still be done.

Speaker 3 (01:27:24):
All right, Rockets basketball. Tonight you have the Wizards, but
it is the start of three in a row at home,
which is by far the most you've played at home
in a row or at all. You're gonna match the
amount of games you've played at home by just playing
this home stand.

Speaker 4 (01:27:39):
Yep, just three home games in their first nine.

Speaker 3 (01:27:41):
Yeah, and you're going to win all three of these games.

Speaker 4 (01:27:44):
It might be on paper it says that is what
will happen Washington, Portland and Orlando. But Orlando's is a
tougher team than I think they've played this year. I
think the Rockets are significantly better than them, so I
do expect them to do what needs to be done.
I think Portland's a tough one to figure out, though.
I give them much more than a puncher's chance to
be a team that hands other teams unexpected losses all

(01:28:06):
season long. And I'm not just saying it because they're
the only team to beat Oklahoma City. They're crazy, young,
crazy athletic, They play super hard, They don't know what
they don't know. They also don't miss Chauncey Billips. Not
to jump on him now, but Tiaga's done a really
nice job being a part of what they were trying
to build to begin with.

Speaker 3 (01:28:24):
Helps.

Speaker 4 (01:28:24):
Their young talent is its talent. It's not just that
they just haven't done a whole lot as young players.
There's no question about their talent. It's just they haven't
really been on the court together, haven't been on the
court as NBA players. Avia obviously wasn't there until last year,
but the Rockets saw it with a different group.

Speaker 3 (01:28:42):
They're of their own. But I think that's a pretty
good team.

Speaker 4 (01:28:44):
That is a team that looks to me, if they
stay healthy, they're gonna make a team that thought they
were gonna be in the top ten not be because
Portland is in that spot this year, somewhere around nine ten.

Speaker 3 (01:28:56):
I mean, watching them so far, I can't really argue
with that. It's just like Damian Lolard is not playing
this year, either, is he? No, he won't bring them
down with his play. He'll be on the sidelines. You
hate Damian Lillard.

Speaker 4 (01:29:12):
I mean he probably would fit in if they wanted
to give up one hundred and thirty points, even more
than they already have, which they've done twice.

Speaker 3 (01:29:21):
Now a good defender.

Speaker 4 (01:29:22):
No, it's just this is this stage of his career, helping,
helping them. He's gonna be really helpful to them. But
he's helpful to them as best as he can be
right now because he's going to help them learn how
to be NBA people, NBA players, NBA leaders, NBA workers.
Had care about what you're doing out there, care about winning,
bringing it every night. He's going to be tremendously helpful

(01:29:43):
in that regard. I don't know what he's going to
be like when he actually gets back on the court,
because you know, his legs matter for twenty five to
thirty foot three pointers that he's going to be launching
at the end of his career. Yeah, they are hurt. Well,
he used to make them though, right. I think that's
what we'll be saying when he's out there shooting.

Speaker 3 (01:30:01):
Well, Hey, maybe he just needed to be back in Portland,
like like gowert Pooholz at the very end. Oh he
went back to the Cardinals and started magically not sucking
again what he did when he went to the Dodger
or the Dodgers. Yeah, hitting homers every other day. Yeah,
that was that was wild in the same city essentially,
I mean at Los Angeles Downtown. Los Angeles and Anaheim
are well, depending on traffic patterns, probably four hours away

(01:30:24):
from each other. But yeah, it was crazy to see
that he had just been hanging out in effectively suburban
Los Angeles and just terrible stealing money. And then he
puts a Dodger uniform on and turns back the clock.

Speaker 4 (01:30:36):
Yeah, I don't know what. Again, the numbers are a
little bit off. I think at this point in the
season they're slowly coming back down. But we've had so
many guys putting up insane numbers.

Speaker 3 (01:30:44):
It is.

Speaker 4 (01:30:45):
In relation to the rest of the league, it's fine,
but in relation to previous.

Speaker 3 (01:30:49):
Seasons it's way, way, way off.

Speaker 4 (01:30:52):
They got three guys averaging twenty points a game, Shadan Sharp,
Jeremy Grant, and Denny Avdia, who had just mentioned he's
at twenty six points per game through ten games this year. Ye,
I mean this, He's not a twenty six point per
game score. He is in this stage of the NBA
because scores are, like I said, they're through the roof
the point's got to come from somewhere. They've been really,
really good, and honestly, the player they have playing Damian

(01:31:13):
Lillard's position right now is much better than Damian Lillard
in every single way Drew Holiday being on the court
for them.

Speaker 3 (01:31:20):
Massive would kill to have Drew Holiday on the rockets.
He would be perfect, all right. I'd kill to have
a little Texans conversation. Next segment, Oh, look at that,
it's time for Nick Suss of the Tennessee and to
join us to talk about this Titans Texans matchup coming
up in Nashville on Sunday. We'll do that.

Speaker 1 (01:31:36):
Next the aged on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 4 (01:31:48):
Fat reel Texans Titans here momentarily. Injury report for the
Texans released, and not very unexpected about what is seen there,
most of which I'd mentioned to you earlier, the expectations
of what I ficed we would see. There was no
practice today for CJ. Stroud or Jalen Peatrie, both still
in the concussion protocol. Dalton Schultz was there but did

(01:32:10):
not practice. Kimie Fairbairn was not there and obviously did
not practice, and both Harris and Bryant Denico Autrey were
also dnp's today, handful of others limited. Davis Mills is
listed on the injury report because of a left elbow injury,
his non throwing elbow. He practiced in full and is
in line to start again this weekend. To that end,

(01:32:31):
Titans Texans Round two coming up this weekend. Last time
in Houston, there were zero points scored by one of
the two teams.

Speaker 3 (01:32:39):
It's the team with one win.

Speaker 4 (01:32:40):
Nick sus of the Tennessee and joined us now as
he did prior to the season, So I'll talk about
the NFL, the AFC South and this matchup.

Speaker 9 (01:32:48):
Nick.

Speaker 4 (01:32:48):
We appreciate you joining us again. The last time you
were with us, the head coach of the Titans was
Brian Callahan. Is not Brian Callahan any longer. And I'm
sure you're aware. And a lot of people pointed out
how many number one picks or first year starting quarterbacks
here in the last couple of seasons from that first
round they're seeing their head coach moved on from almost immediately.

(01:33:11):
What is the future looking like for both cam Ward
based on how he started and where you think they're
headed from a head coaching decision this offseason.

Speaker 7 (01:33:21):
Yeah, I mean the one thing we can say that
we know with the utmost certainty is that bad teams
fire people, and the Titans are not very good right now.
Dare I say they're worse than they were last year
when they earned the number one pick?

Speaker 3 (01:33:36):
How much that belongs to the coach?

Speaker 7 (01:33:38):
How much along of that belongs to the players, how
much of that belongs to the roster that's been assembled.
We can gripe, we can pick through it. But to
your question about Cam, It's going to be really hard
to make a career judgment on him until we see
him play six, seven, eight games under the next coach,
which is obviously daunting for him to have to learn

(01:33:58):
what will amount to, I believe, his fifth offensive coordinator
in five years, dating back to college. He had a
different one is two years at Washington State, and then
he had a new one at Miami, new one with
the Titans, and I'll have somebody new next year. That's
a lot of adaptation. It's something will Lews had to
go through through his five years of college and pro
and obviously that did not work out for him with

(01:34:18):
the Titans. So you're daunted with that. Obviously, Cam's got
a lot of potential, A lot of talent that people
are betting on, so you still want to see it
with a scheme that maybe takes advantage of his unique
skill set a little bit more, but he's also got
to be willing to adapt a little bit more than
he has as a pro. As for where the Titans
are leaning, as for what they're going to look for,

(01:34:40):
the only indications we've gotten on the record from the
team boiled down to they want a guy who has
high leadership qualities, and they want a guy who is
going to be willing and capable of working well with
the general manager to devise the roster. So what does
that point towards. I think most people expect the Titans
are going to lean experience. I think the Titans are

(01:35:01):
going to lean somebody who has done the job before.
Whether it's an offensive minded head coach or a defensive
minded head coach, they don't seem to matter very much
at this point. I think they are probably going to
lean somebody who has at least some familiarity or connection
with the Green Bay, Kansas City, etc.

Speaker 5 (01:35:22):
Etc.

Speaker 7 (01:35:22):
Model that both the president and general manager come through.
Whether that means obvious higher direct from Kansas City, or
whether that just means cursory connection through people they've met.
It's a lot of different directions to go. Short answer,
they got a lot of people that they're going to interview.
Picking a favor right now would be a fool's game,

(01:35:43):
but it's obviously crucial. Used that number one pick on
cam Ward and people wouldn't be shocked if they stockpile
an arsenal of talent this year. If they get the
number one pick again and can trade back and kind
of prey on other teams that need quarterbacks, that's a
good place to be. And if you'll nail the higher
that's that's how Houston rebuilt so quickly. So not too

(01:36:03):
difficult to point to that within the division.

Speaker 4 (01:36:06):
Yeah, Nick, a little bit difficult to pinpoint a name,
so you can get back to me when it's Matt
and Nagy the new head coach as the Tennessee Titans
move forward, if in fact that proves to be correct
a couple of months from now. But from an organizational standpoint,
I would imagine you're aware of what most people outside
of Nashville that cover the NFL, or our fans of
the other teams in the NFL think of what's happened

(01:36:27):
there over the last several years. From an ownership and
decision making standpoint, is it viewed similarly, very poorly from
those closer to the team that either they just don't
know what they're doing, or they're run very poorly, or
anything along those lines.

Speaker 6 (01:36:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:36:42):
I mean, you have your factions, and there are Rabel loyalists,
and there are people who think that it was the
right decision to move off of him, And there are
people who will point, probably very correctly to the fact
that there is only one player left on the roster
who was drafted by the Titans in twenty twenty twenty
one or twenty twenty two. One total player left from

(01:37:03):
the three draft classes that theoretically should be the core
of your roster right now probably not going to cut it.
They haven't hit hit on a first round pick who's
become a superstar since twenty nineteen with Jeffrey Simmons. You
can't go that long without replenishing your roster and expect
to continue to compete at the.

Speaker 3 (01:37:22):
High levels of the NFL.

Speaker 7 (01:37:24):
A lot of people who are going to point to
John Robinson's drafting because of that, A lot of people
who are going to point to bad decisions made by
Ran Carthon, the successor as a general manager, who went
out and traded for Lagerius Sneed and signed Calvin Ridley
to a big contract and spent all this money without
really replenishing the ranks with younger players. You'll have some
blame thrown on Brian Callahan for not taking advantage of

(01:37:46):
the players that were given to him and for not
helping Cam Woard establish himself quicker.

Speaker 3 (01:37:50):
You'll throw all this blame.

Speaker 7 (01:37:51):
And then the primary concern, as you are mentioning, is
that people don't get much of a read on what
Amy Adams Drunk is as the control owner of this team.
She is hard to read. She does not speak publicly,
She does not come out and defend her decisions. She
did not hold a press conference about firing John Robinson
or Mike Rabel or Ran Carthon or Brian Callahan. And

(01:38:14):
so there's a little bit of mistrust within the fan
base of well, that's four major firings in four years.
How can we trust her not just going to clean
house every time things go a little bit sour. So yeah,
I mean, the general perception around the fan base, the
general perception around people within the organization. All of that is,
there's been a lot of turnover for a reason. The
team is not built very well. The team does not

(01:38:37):
seem to be consistent with its decision making. There's a
lot to fix, and that's how you end up winning
what is it now, ten games in the last three years.

Speaker 3 (01:38:48):
Yeah, lean times there in Nashville. We're talking to Nick
Suss of the Tennessee and here on Sports Talk seven nineteen.
Not to look back too much, but you know, in
light of what you just got done talking about, and
of course in light of what's going on in New
England this year, how do you think the tenure of
Mike Vrabel is looked back upon now? Is it almost

(01:39:09):
like why do we let that guy get out the door?
Or was he never given the tools to succeed? I'm curious,
in light of what he's now doing early in his
tenure in New England, what people in Tennessee think about that.

Speaker 7 (01:39:21):
I mean, we don't have an hour to dissect every
single part of that question. I will say this much.
I think there is an overwhelming belief across the league,
not just from people here, not just from people in
New England that had Rabel been given an extra year,
the team still would not have turned things around last year.

(01:39:43):
I think the Titans, instead of being a three to
fourteen team last year under Brian Callahan, maybe a five
and eleven team, or five and twelve team, maybe a
six and eleven team, They's still not a playoff team.
Mike Rabel's success in New England is in dependent of
his success in Nashville, simply because the Titans have such

(01:40:05):
a poor roster. Those drafts from twenty twenty one to
twenty two that I alluded to, those were still while
Vrabel was the coach, and none of those players seemed
to pan out under him or after he left. You
look through some of the decisions that were made, especially
once Ran Carthon became the head of the general manager,

(01:40:26):
it's very clear there was not alignment between Rabel and Carthon.
Now we can go back a little bit further. Had
Rabel been able to hand pick his general manager after
John Robinson was fired and get to pick his guy
instead of the team guy with Carthon, maybe we're talking
a slightly different story, and it will obviously be clear

(01:40:46):
versus unclear how much of Rabel's guys are in charge
in New England versus the general manager in scouting staff,
and Harrit's there, and we'll see three, four or five
years down the line if the bad drafts in Nashville
were more of a blip or if they really do
have sustainability problems under Rabels regime.

Speaker 2 (01:41:04):
There's obviously so so much to wonder and worry about there.

Speaker 7 (01:41:09):
But you come out of that twenty twenty three season
Rabeles last year in Nashville, Derrick Henry's a free agent,
Ryan Tannehill's a free agent, Deniko Autry and as He's
Al Shayir, who are now in Houston obviously are free agents.
A lot of the core of that team that was
so successful in twenty and twenty twenty one winning the
division was either already gone or on the way out

(01:41:32):
the door, and so they would have had to make
the decision do you re sign a bunch of players
who are maybe aging out of their prime and tried
for one last go, or do you try and start
over and recreate this strategy. Albeit without Derrick Henry it
would have been really tricky. So to make any guarantees
of Oh, it's as simple as Rabel's eight and two,

(01:41:53):
now that he's in New England, they should have kept
him way more nuanced of a conversation. But there is
no doubt that Rabel has been more successful without the
Titans than the Titans have been without.

Speaker 4 (01:42:05):
Rabel brilliantly said, and so well said that you've taken
us to the break, so we don't have to ask
you for a sad prediction about the Titans Texans game
this weekend.

Speaker 3 (01:42:13):
Nick. We appreciate.

Speaker 4 (01:42:15):
There you go, We got it anyway, and we agree,
appreciate the time again as always, and look forward to
catching up again in the future.

Speaker 3 (01:42:22):
Yeah, appreciate ch'all. You got it.

Speaker 4 (01:42:24):
Titans to drop to one to nine. Breaking news right
here on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 2 (01:42:30):

Speaker 1 (01:42:37):
A little help over the hump with some Wednesday Bs,
two Adams.

Speaker 3 (01:42:42):
And a whole lot of bit stealing.

Speaker 1 (01:42:43):
BT stealing with the bit Steelers better known as the eighteen.

Speaker 3 (01:42:52):
All right, a team rolling along with our signature segment today.
You heard it voice, guys said it, say what now?
This is something that's been rumored to be on the
horizon for a while, so I don't know if this
is the time that it actually comes to pass. Well,
we're real fast, my bad.

Speaker 9 (01:43:12):
It should say Wednesday's BS.

Speaker 4 (01:43:16):
What Today's Wednesday? Today's Wednesday? And then the sound you're
hearing is not very safety.

Speaker 3 (01:43:25):
It still qualifies.

Speaker 4 (01:43:27):
Sure, it's BS. This is very much PS. This is
what's happening.

Speaker 3 (01:43:32):
I know, but it's really crappy. I let's get to it.
Paul fine Bomb, according to Front Office Sports and other
reports out there, very close to leaving ESPN, not because
he's getting fired, not because of any other reason other
than to jump into national politics. He is considering a

(01:43:55):
run for the US Senate as a Republican in Alabama.
He's waiting to make a decision on his political future
until after the college football season. Why read that. That
just means when the season's over, it's gonna happen. That's
all that means.

Speaker 4 (01:44:09):
Yeah, he's got a contract for another several seasons to
continue talking about all of the conferences in college football.
But he's also seventy, and obviously there's no issue at
all with being old and in politics, perfect age fully normal. Yeah,
absolutely doesn't affect you at all. He seems sharp enough

(01:44:30):
at this point in his life, and we've seen several
others already make this jump, not necessarily to the running
for an office side, but going from broadcasting to broadcasting
sports to becoming a broadcaster with a political reason for
being on the air many many times over. And I
don't think we're done with it yet. And when you're

(01:44:51):
watching this unfold, and I agree with you completely. I
don't think this is a report that's unfounded or a
report that is a negotiating ploy for he has be
able to.

Speaker 3 (01:45:00):
Try to keep him. It's been a rumored for a while.

Speaker 4 (01:45:02):
I think this will happen, and it will not surprise
me if the most highly paid employee at that network
does the same thing in going into politics. I don't
know that he's running for an office, but he might.
I do think he will be speaking more of his
more of his talks on broadcasting will be about politics

(01:45:22):
than sports. Currently they're mostly on sports and some on
politics talking about Steven A. Smith, But I think that
shift is somewhere in our near future.

Speaker 3 (01:45:30):
You said he's seventy seventy year old. Fine, bam, Yeah,
Spring Chicken. Nancy Pelosi just said she's retiring at eighty five.

Speaker 4 (01:45:39):
But she didn't just get into the game. No, she's
been there since she's eighty five. Yeah, I had no idea.

Speaker 3 (01:45:47):
That's because she's looked eighty five for about twenty years now.

Speaker 4 (01:45:51):
No, she looks way younger than eighty.

Speaker 9 (01:45:55):
Zoh.

Speaker 3 (01:45:55):
Absolutely, Grandma Vodka looks young to you. Yes, shut up, gosh,
I wish we had that, you do.

Speaker 4 (01:46:03):
I don't know who you're referring to when you say that,
because that's the first time i've heard it.

Speaker 3 (01:46:06):
That's her. I now know who you're talking to.

Speaker 4 (01:46:09):
But like I said, I've never heard that term, never,
not even joking, I mean dead. No, what you called her,
I've never heard. I've never heard that because I pay
so little attention to it. Well, now you have to,
because Paul Fine Bombs definitely don't have to. I barely
pay attention to Paul fine baumb talking about SEC. I
don't think I'm gonna pay more attention to him when

(01:46:29):
he's talking about stuff at a different office, in our office,
at a different office. That's how you refer to it.
I don't actual interest, not to me.

Speaker 3 (01:46:42):
You guys ever noticed that if wex isn't interested in something,
you shouldn't be either. According to wex.

Speaker 4 (01:46:48):
Well, on our particular platform, it does apply, it crosses
over all the time it can, and maybe you're right,
but I don't have anything to add to it, so
it makes me feel unnecessary.

Speaker 3 (01:46:58):
You're not unnecessary, You're very necessary. You're good enough, you're
smart enough, and dog gonnet people like you. Now. One
of the lead stories today is revolving around Pat McAfee
basically being criticized and criticizing others about their opinion on
whether or not he should have interviewed the president on

(01:47:20):
a show, and I just it crosses over more than
we We don't talk.

Speaker 4 (01:47:26):
About it in the booth this weekend. I exactly why, and.

Speaker 3 (01:47:32):
Well, that should be the reaction most of the time,
but it depends on who it is.

Speaker 4 (01:47:37):
Of course, people are in the booth of all varieties
all the time. The President of the United States, I'm
not going to give you his name, was in the
booth and was interviewed during an unnamed sporting event. How
could we possibly take sides on that this stuff like
this happens all the time? And I say, how could
we possibly? Because I'm still trying to be blind to

(01:47:59):
when I am living and where I am living, because
it's just what happens. Now. The unbelievable negativity around everything,
because we have two sides. So there's going to be
a positive sign right here which we don't hear about,
and we're gonna have a negative side, which is the
only thing we hear about no matter what we're talking about.

Speaker 3 (01:48:17):
Would do you think if if Paul Finebaum was leaving
ESPN to run for office as a Democrat instead, it
would be different.

Speaker 4 (01:48:26):
If he were running to be what you just said.
I would be equally uninformed about what that means.

Speaker 3 (01:48:32):
You need to share this. So occasionally a lot this
will come up during breaks and wex with a straight face.
And I still don't believe him. I still think he's
putting me on. I don't know what right or left me.

Speaker 4 (01:48:46):
Here's a couple of things right or left when it
applies to politics. No clue directions, road directions inside outside
the loop left, don't know those things. I just now
finally think I'm on board with d is for both
Donkey and Democrat. And I have no idea no matter
how many different times I've been told. The easiest way

(01:49:08):
to remember it is, I still don't know which is
in California and which is in Florida, Which Disney really,
which Disney World? Which Disneyland? I cannot keep it straight. Well,
all of those things are foreign concepts to me. I
don't I'm bad at it. I don't understand it. I
miss it every time.

Speaker 3 (01:49:25):
Is what letter does California start with? That's a C.
What letter does Florida start with? It's an F? All right,
so that's later in the alphabet, right, yes, well so
is L and W.

Speaker 4 (01:49:39):
So the W is in Florida? Yes, okay, I'll work
on that. But yeah, the political lean like you told
me right now, he's running as a Republican and so
now I also have no idea what he stands for.
Really none, I mean not even a little, not even
a little. Come on, give me a give me an issue,

(01:50:02):
a botch?

Speaker 3 (01:50:03):
Do you know what I just mentioned? Nancy Pelosi? Do
you know which side she was on? No? Really? What
what was her title? What did she do? Again? She's
the former of the House. I knew that. And speech
terror upper she did that one time. Uh, she's Grandma
Vodka that's her nickname now twice. Well, she drinks a lot.
I guess she's not the woman. I have proof.

Speaker 4 (01:50:25):
Who's the person that they would make they would make
fun of on SNL all the time for drinking too much.
I always had the red wine with her. Was spitting all
over Colin Hodah No, a politician who I don't remember.

Speaker 3 (01:50:41):
The vice president, the last vice president, was accused of
that a lot of what drinking a lot? She is
hammered right now. You never know that.

Speaker 4 (01:50:51):
I'm hearing new things constantly if this is the topic,
because they're all new to me.

Speaker 3 (01:50:55):
He's so comfortable. All right, we will wind down the
four o'clock hour. Come up next. We'll tell you about
some tickets we're going to give away and more as
we continue here on the eighteen.

Speaker 1 (01:51:06):

Speaker 3 (01:51:20):
I scale one to ten six. That's actually a good guess,
I thought so, the uh one being you're as disinterested
in it as you supposedly are in politics, and ten
being this is the best move the Astros have ever made.
Where do you put them hiring Anthony? No way I'm

(01:51:42):
going to be able to pronounce that as their new
hitting coach.

Speaker 4 (01:51:44):
I got a four pack of tickets to give away
to the bud Life Backyard section over at TDCU Stadium.
Here's my answer for the TCU University of Houston football game.
It's Senior Day coming up on November twenty second, game
time TBA. The league has not gotten around to announce
that yet. They will do so after this weekend's game,
final home game of the season, obviously Senior Day, and

(01:52:05):
I want you guys to come out there and join
me in the bud Light backyard where we will all
be enjoying ice cold. Bud Light's got some food in
there for it. It's like enjoying it the game in
a sweet button. You're outside enjoying the game, and we
get cheer on your Cougar's in style. You can come
early and be loud and join me out there if
you know the answer to this cougar related to a
question at seven one three two one two five seven

(01:52:26):
ninety seven one three two one two five seven ninety
I mentioned something yesterday about the Cougars being undefeated on
the road, and they still are after their fifth consecutive
win on the road this season. Well, they've got another
road game left that will be the final game of
the season in Waco. They win that one, they'll be
six and oh and they will be undefeated on their
road schedule. And go six and oh for the first

(01:52:49):
time since what Cougar's season? When was the last time
the Cougars went six and oh on the road during
their season? Just give us the year. What season was
it when the Cougars went undefeated on the road. Something
they will be after when they get to their November
twenty ninth game in Waco. Game time for that one
also still to be announced. But that's how you get

(01:53:11):
a four pack of tickets to join me in the
bud Light backyard. Hangout, Joyce and bud Light and Joys
and great football. Seven one three, two, one two five
seven ninety Cougar fans would love to have you out there.
Just tell me the last time the Cougars went six
and zero on the road on the football field as
a football team.

Speaker 3 (01:53:28):
What year was it?

Speaker 4 (01:53:29):
Seven one three, two one two five seven ninety. How
excited am I about uh Anthony joining the team as
a hitting assistant along with the promotion from within as
part of their hitting group. I don't know exactly how
they will piece it together, but it will be quite
different than what they were working with the last handful
of years. As has been reported. Obviously, the changes they

(01:53:51):
made we already know about. But what they decided to
put together, I am as excited as I would have
been with almost every other their name, because if it's
a name that you know, it's a name that some
that has been a hitting coach before, why are they
now you're hitting coach because some team said enough of
this guy, we're not hitting like we should and he's

(01:54:12):
running it's run its course here, or they just flat
out got fired. If it's somebody I don't know, then
I would probably feel the same as I do. I
don't know enough about what he's going to try to do.
What Dan Hennigan, they're a hitting coordinator is now part
of their staff as the director of hitting, and they
have an offensive coordinator now, that is what Dan Hannigan
will be fascinating.

Speaker 3 (01:54:32):
So I know what they didn't do well.

Speaker 4 (01:54:34):
Last year and what they have done well for so
many years, and that's all that they're trying to get
back to. They still believe in what they believe in
for this entire run of Golden era of baseball, and
Joe Spott has said the same thing last night with
Todd Kallis on Astro Line right here on Sports Talk
seven ninety This is what they're They're they're trying to
get back to that, and the easiest way to do
it is ad hitters that already adhere to these principles,

(01:54:57):
free swingers, not really interested, players leaving the zone far
too often, not really that interested high swing or chase
rates with rates strikeout rates. They add a Christian Walker.
I don't think they anticipated a one hundred and seventy
three strikeout season from him, even though they knew his
number would be high. This was outraged. They played a

(01:55:17):
lot of young players out of necessity. Almost all of
them Cam Smith included, had outrageously high strikeout rates, and
one of their healthiest players was their extremely free swinging catcher. Here,
you know what pitches he likes. Sliders Nope, low and
away nope, all of them.

Speaker 3 (01:55:37):
Oh well, that's true. If you throw the zone he
really likes.

Speaker 4 (01:55:40):
I mean, he's the Ron Burgundy of reading off the teleprompter.
If he throws it, he's gonna swing at it. If
a pitch is coming, he likes it. It's worked out
for him because he really hasn't changed his philosophy from
the time he was first brought up. After they stole
him from the Indye Guardians and to where he is
today as a regular, every day, one hundred and twenty
game caught as a cat. Sure, but that's not ideal

(01:56:03):
in some of the situations where just make contact and
it's one nothing. Just make contact and you've taken a
three to two lead. Sometimes it's okay to shorten up.
Hit it where it's pitched. And he has great opposite
field power. There's so many things to love about his
swing or about his offense, but there's a few things
you'd like to You got to balance it. What do

(01:56:24):
we want to take away because he's here because of
who he is. Can we limit this, but then we're
not limiting that the good stuff too. It's hard to
figure that balance out with a hitter like that.

Speaker 3 (01:56:34):
And if you're wondering why we're talking so much Astros Baseball, well,
number one, we're your home for Astros Baseball. But number two,
there's a lot of news coming down because of the
GM meetings and then things like Astro Line last night.
Brian mctagger tweeting the following a few minutes ago, speaking
of Christian Walker, Dana Brown says he's not trading him. Quote,
we haven't talked about Walker in a trade. Walker as

(01:56:56):
our everyday first baseman. He will get some time off,
we'll play Peretis there. Yeah, And just to the hitting coach,
they have a hitting coach. These two people, the new
hires will assist the hitting coach, Victor Rodriguez. If that
wasn't clear, because I know he didn't mention his name there.
That was reported a week ago, and that's obviously where
they were going with that with Christian Walker in that

(01:57:18):
comment via Dana Brown on where things stand with him,
that's that's interesting, Like that's a pretty it's hard to
make it through the year healthy. And while I wouldn't
say they're counting on that exact thing happening, that's pretty
much the only way you can navigate three everyday players
who only play two positions. Carlos corret Is gonna play third,

(01:57:41):
and per Dana Brown, Christian Walker's gonna play first, and
Esach Perettis will play there some and we'll get some
days off for Walker if they're all three healthy.

Speaker 4 (01:57:50):
That's not a realistic plan. And he knows that, and
he's saying it in advance of anything that might happen.
And while he can say it and totally believe it,
and it'd be totally true.

Speaker 3 (01:57:59):
And Nick say and said he wasn't gonna.

Speaker 4 (01:58:00):
They don't have to shot him. And you could say
we're not trading him. That doesn't prevent you from trading
him at all. It doesn't do anything to it. It
just puts it out there that you go every day. Well,
he's not lying.

Speaker 3 (01:58:12):
He could be.

Speaker 4 (01:58:12):
It could turn out to not be true, but that's
a lie. No, when he said it was a white lie,
he fully believes it. Things change and wing at the
end exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:58:22):
Channel Rome also tweeting even even more recently on injury
updates via Dana Brown, Josh Hater has thrown off the
mound three times and is progressing well. This one's my favorite.
You're on. Alvarez is jogging at sixty five to seventy percent,
but is expected to be ready for spring training. I
don't even know how you get to that arbitrary number.

(01:58:44):
It's not seventy five, it's below seventy five. It's sixty
five to seventy. I don't know what that means. And
that Jeremy Pania and Jose Altuve are totally fine. Missus.

Speaker 4 (01:58:56):
Alvarez and mister Alvarez and family recently I think completed
a family vacation, or maybe they're still on it. But
she was nice enough to post a handful of pictures
that were in a part of a video. Jordan showed
up just a couple of times, not real active. They
did some fishing. He was holding up a very large
fish that he and the family had caught. He was

(01:59:16):
sitting around what looked like a little campfire. He looked
perfectly healthy, so hopefully the but he wasn't jogging or
yogging based off jails. Don't have any games in November,
December or January or February.

Speaker 3 (01:59:28):
That's true, He'll be fine, and then hopefully he stayed.

Speaker 1 (01:59:34):
Adam Clinton and Adam Wexworth are the eighteen.

Speaker 4 (01:59:45):
It is five o'clock here on the eighteen, five o'clock
before a seven o'clock home game tip off, so Ac
on his way to Toyota Centers. We get to football
at five to discuss Texan's Titans Week eleven at large
for Houston and the fact that it begins tomorrow night,
Tomorrow night's NFL game. I don't know how interesting the

(02:00:07):
action on the field will be, but it will be
of note for Houston, Texans to pay attention to Patriots
on the field against the Jets. Patriots just made a
signing today. Looking for a little help at tight end.
They signed a former Pro Bowl tight end. No word
on if he will be available for their game tomorrow night.
With the close proximity from the signing to when they

(02:00:29):
will be on the field, it isn't home. And he
was in the facility today signing his one day contract.
Rob Garnkowski said, it's absolutely the thing that had to happen.
He signed a one day contract with the Patriots so
he could retire as a New England Patriot. Was asked
a handful of questions from the media, including where, what
is he what would he like to see for the

(02:00:51):
statue outside Jillette Stadium. He said, come on, now, that's
for Tom. That's not for me. I'll just hang out there,
take pictures and I don't need a statue. That's He's
the greatest Patriot ever and that's just fine. I don't
need that. Hopes to land in the Patriots Hall of
Fame soon. He commented on this year's team though, which
is what I'm talking about, and he said, for those

(02:01:12):
of you that know how great an analyst I am,
and he obviously works for Fox and Stude air shows.
He mentioned that he felt like the Patriots would be
a significantly better team this year and would be a
playoff team. Expected them to be a wild card team,
and they are absolutely in the driver's seat to win
that division. They are eight and two, the Bills are
six and three. There have one more meeting between those

(02:01:35):
two teams, but the Bills already won the first or
the Jets already won the first meeting, so the Jets
the Patriots already won the first meeting, so if they
went again, not only does it give them the tiebreaker,
it also creates the gap in between those two teams
that it would seem very unlikely that the Patriots would
get caught. They've already won seven in a row and
they're about to play the Jets, the Bengals, and the

(02:01:58):
Giants in success with only the Bengals game on the road,
Odds are pretty good they're going to be eleven and two.
Not a given, not a guarantee. They played two teams
the last two weeks that easily could have beaten them.
They beat the Falcons by one. Falcons missed an extra
point at the end of the game, and they beat
the Bucks by five with some very unexpected explosive plays.

(02:02:20):
But I do expect them to handle things quite well
and their win will for the time being, move them
into first place in the AFC South. The Colts are
off this week, so they will hold at eight and two,
So a win by either the Broncos or the Patriots
puts those teams whichever it might be, and the Broncos
will not move ahead of the Patriots. They would be

(02:02:41):
in a tie, but the Patriots would have the tiebreaker.
That would be the case the other game that I
just mentioned, the Broncos game. That one is of much
greater importance to the Texans. This weekend, Broncos hosts the
Chiefs in a late afternoon Sunday game.

Speaker 3 (02:02:55):
Texans will have already played.

Speaker 4 (02:02:57):
Texans likely will be a five hundred team by the
time those two teas teams finish their game. Will beat
the Titans, they'll be at five and five by the
time the Chiefs finish their game. Pretty reasonable chance that
the Chiefs will also be five and five. There's a
pretty reasonable chance that the Jaguars will also be five
and five. Jaguars are hosting the Chargers. Jaguars are absolutely

(02:03:18):
smarting from what took place on Sunday. They knew they
wouldn't have Travis Hunter this week, but now they also
know they won't have him the rest of the season.
I mentioned this on X earlier posted this. The Texans
defense just took care of business against the twenty eighth
rated passer in the NFL, Trevor Lawrence. This Sunday they

(02:03:38):
get the twenty ninth rated passer in the NFL, cam Ward.
There are only twenty nine qualified quarterbacks. They played the
second worst. Now they play the worst. That's who Jacksonville
is being quarterbacked by the second worst by passer rating
quarterback in the entire league this year among players who qualify.

(02:03:58):
And they're five and four and they beat you once,
and that's embarrassing. As not a good quarterback, he manages
to play on a good enough team to have allowed
them to get there. So why would that poorly quarterbacked
team win a game against the Chargers. The Chargers are
on a roll. The Chargers aren't quite on the roll
that both the Broncos and Patriots are on. Each of

(02:04:20):
them are on seven game winning streaks. Chargers have put
a winning streak together. They've won their last three. Two
were dominant. The one that wasn't dominant, ironically enough, was
the one against the Titans. They hammered the Vikings and
they crushed the Steelers. And now they have the Jaguars
before they're off week. They're going to Jacksonville and they're

(02:04:40):
going to win. And the Broncos, as I told AC
earlier this week, and we'll tell them again tomorrow, and
we'll tell them again on Friday, the Broncos are going
to beat the Chiefs and that's going to put the
Texans tied for the seventh best record in the AFC
with the Jags, and with the Chiefs, they can easily
win the tiebreaker with the Jaguars based on other results,

(02:05:01):
divisional results and conference results if it comes to that,
because they've already split the series between those two. And remember,
the Texans' losses are heavily weighted onto the hardly matter
at all games when it comes to the tiebreaker. The
games that hardly matter at all when it comes to tiebreakers, well,
those are the teams that you play against the other conference,
and the Texans have been very bad against the other Conference.

(02:05:22):
They've lost to the Rams, They've lost to the Bucks,
They've lost to the Seahawks. They're one and three. They
beat the Niners, They're probably going to be two and
three when the season ends. They'll beat the Cardinals. But
again that leads to with just the AFC results. If
the Jaguars fare better in their games against the NFC, well,
that obviously means they fared worse in their games against
the AFC, which matter when it comes to tiebreakers, or

(02:05:43):
if they stumble inside the division like Houston, Jacksonville's remaining
schedule from a divisional standpoint, well includes the tough games,
the games that probably are the hardest to win. They
have not played the Colts, just like the Texans have
not played the Colts. Two of their final five games
are against the Colts. Badly, as this Texan season started

(02:06:06):
oh and three. As bad as things sound when your
starting quarterback has a concussion and your three and five
two weeks from that concussion and hopefully just a few
days from his returning to the field, because as much
as it looks like he's gonna miss this weekend's game,
talking about CJ. Stroud, who is on the injury report,
as a nonpractice player because of the concussion, and thus

(02:06:28):
still seems very unlikely to play this week. They got
another game in five days. They play Thursday against the Bills.
It's possible that the concussion protocol won't be cleared by Sunday.
It's possible the concussion protocol is cleared by Thursday, and
if it's not, then you got another ten days of
hopefully time to get as well as you need to.
I don't think any of these teams they play are unbeatable.
With Davis Mills. As much as he started the game

(02:06:50):
off poorly looked every bit the backup quarterback he is,
he still managed to take the team down the field
throughout the game and then at the end of the
game take the team down the field and into the
end zone on three concent of possessions to touchdown passes
and his own touchdown run at the end of the game.
All of these other teams, including the ones that are
on the Texans schedule, including the Colts, they're beatable. The Texans,

(02:07:13):
even with Davis Mills, can beat these teams. They need
a lot of things to go their way. Be nice,
if they were on the right side of the turnover battle,
which they were not last week. They did force the
one until the end of the game when they even
things up, but they weren't on the right side of it.
They need to play more games where they're on the
right side of it. And Davis Mills, he did throw

(02:07:34):
thirty nine passes without an interception to close out the game,
but he threw or thirty forty two passes without an interception,
So he's got that strength going into this game. But
that obviously has to continue. But that's the position the Texans,
I believe will be in when we get back to
the airwaves on Monday afternoon, the Texans will be five
and five and they'll be sitting inside the playoff picture.

(02:07:55):
They'll be sitting there in a tie with the Chiefs
still on their schedule. I told you the other day
if if they go six and to the rest of
the way, I'm guaranteeing the Texans make the playoffs. And
I feel strongly enough about that that it does also
mean those six wins. They need to be quite specific.
If you go six and two and your two losses
are to Buffalo and to Kansas City, you're making it really,

(02:08:16):
really difficult at least one of those teams has to
be beaten by the Texans among those six wins I'm
forecasting they need to get to get to the playoffs.
If they beat them both, they can lose all the
other games, or they can have those two losses be
to whomever beyond that and still get into the playoffs
because they will be ahead of the Chiefs if what
I think plays out this weekend does, and obviously they'll

(02:08:37):
have the tiebreaker because they will have beaten them. If
you have the same record when you play and you
beat them, you basically have a two game lead because
once they get back to your record, it doesn't matter
you're better than them.

Speaker 3 (02:08:47):
You've beaten them. They have to get better than you.

Speaker 4 (02:08:50):
They have to outplay you by a win by two wins,
I should say, the rest of the year. So I
don't know that that all how it all plays out
at the end of the year, but I do know
I do think the Texans are are going to be
in a very good position after this weekend. Take care
of business against Tennessee. There's nothing that Tennessee does well.
There's no part of their team that you should be
concerned with. Anything can happen on any given Sunday.

Speaker 3 (02:09:10):
TYJ.

Speaker 4 (02:09:10):
Spears, anybody, Tony Pollard, Calvin Ridley, anybody could have a day. Sure,
pretty unlikely, very unlikely. I mentioned earlier, the only time
they won a game is when the other team gave
them an incredible amount of gifts.

Speaker 3 (02:09:24):
Ones.

Speaker 4 (02:09:24):
They didn't even have any hand enforcing when they beat
the Cardinals by one point, just absolute gift touchdown taking
off the board and it's a three touchdown or three
score game if the Cardinals don't just drop the football.
I don't mean fumble the football, I mean literally drop
the football and that game's over. And they're sitting at
aze to nine. Very few competitive games that they've even
played in, and the Texans game was not one of them.

(02:09:45):
Even though it was competitive for forty five minutes, it's
a sixty minute game.

Speaker 3 (02:09:48):
It's twenty six to nothing at the end.

Speaker 4 (02:09:50):
I'm fine sitting here and saying that was not a
competitive football game, and it wasn't. Cam Ward has not
helped their offense play competitive football, and their defense is
there's not very They have had some injury issues. I
don't know that there's major concern about Jeffrey Simmons, for
the upcoming game, but he did not practice today. That
would be of great significance. There was at least one

(02:10:11):
play from their first meeting that everybody remembers. But the
Texans are actually in much worsch shape injury wise compared
to the Titans. They're in much better injury shape than
they were a week ago. Both at Ingram and Titus
Howard returned to practice today, And not only that, Titus
Howard will be cleared and out of the concussion protocol
and starting on Sunday, most likely because he was a

(02:10:32):
full participant at practice today. I told you he was
on the sidelines during the game. That indicated that his
concussion like symptoms probably had subsided a great deal. The
fact that he who's on the field and fully participating
in practice today confirms that. And like I said, he's
going to be back. And do not think for a second,
Titus Howard is going to be healthy on Sunday and

(02:10:53):
not starting. He's absolutely starting, and he should absolutely be
starting at right tackle any which way you want to
discuss it, I'm happy to he's your starting right tackle.
I don't really want to get into what happened last
week as to why I would put him back at
right tackle because it's not necessary, but I'm happy to
get into that.

Speaker 3 (02:11:10):
If you'd like a.

Speaker 4 (02:11:11):
Couple more items from last night's astro line we need
to get into, including Carlos Korea specifically to the twenty
six astros.

Speaker 3 (02:11:20):
We will do that next the Age.

Speaker 1 (02:11:24):
On Sports Talk seven ninety, I cash.

Speaker 4 (02:11:30):
You here on the A team reminder with Rockets basketball
coming up here this evening, they take on the Wizards
over at Toyota Center. That game can be heard beginning
with six to thirty coverage on KTRH Adam Clanton and MT.
You have the call of that game for you. I'll
be with you after the game for Rockets wrap six
point thirty. Here on Sports Talk seven ninety, the Longhorns

(02:11:50):
are playing FDU and that game will begining coverage at
six thirty seven o'clock.

Speaker 3 (02:11:56):
Tip.

Speaker 4 (02:11:57):
We have Cougar basketball over on nine to five, and
of course, in between the A Team and Longhorn basketball
heavy brief edition of the Nightcap Owners Meetings. Ongoing awards
season in full swing, the Baseball Writers Association of America
handing out their awards over the course of the week.
Rookie of the Year handed out earlier this week in

(02:12:19):
both leagues, with Cam Smith being listed as a fourth
place finisher on one ballot and finished in a tie
for tenth. Joespota listed on one ballot, finishing sixth in
the voting, And we will find out in an hour
or so where Hunter Brown finishes in the American League
Cy Young voting. You already know he finished top three,

(02:12:40):
and I think we also know he did not finish
top one. I think this is another unanimous award. Nick
Kurtz won the American League Rookie of the Year with
all thirty first place votes. I think Tark School will
do the same with tonight's American League Say Young voting,
and then it's a matter of how much love for
second and third place finish Garrett Crochet of the Red

(02:13:01):
Sox and Hunter Brown get. I'm gonna guess Hunter will
finish third. I think it will be very very very
very close, but I think that's where he will finish tonight.

Speaker 3 (02:13:12):
Joe A.

Speaker 4 (02:13:12):
Spotta was on Astro Line last night. Dana Brown met
with the media that is, at the General Managers meetings
a little bit ago, gave some updates on both the
hitting coaching situation, with how they're gonna line things up.
I have three people in place now, with Victor Rodriguez
as the hitting coach, Anthony Apasse as a hitting coach
as well, working with him underneath him, so to speak,

(02:13:35):
and Dan Henigan is the director of hitting and their OC.
He's on the major league staff, but as Matt Kawahara,
Chandler Rome, and Brian McTaggart have reported, he will not
be in uniform for Astros baseball games, but obviously is
an assistant in the hitting department. Updates from an injury front,
with so many Astros ending the season unhealthy, they all

(02:13:57):
sound very good, but I'm still very, very concerned about
one of them. Yard On Alvarez jogging in about sixty
five to seventy percent. All indications are he's going to
be ready for spring training. Jeremy Payna noel effects from
his injury late in the season. He is already fine,
and same for Jose al Tuvey. Both will be ready
for the start of the season in spring training, barring
anything in the future taking place. Esach Peretis Dana Brown

(02:14:20):
used the term about sixty five percent. The Astros season
has been over for five and a half weeks. And
he's at sixty five percent. He was playing for the
Astros at probably a lot less than sixty five percent,
and it was very easy to see. It was I
can't say it was bad for the team that he
was out there. It was a little bit like what

(02:14:42):
you saw Bobaschett doing in the postseason. Obviously in the
World Series for the Blue Jays. He can't run and
he can feel his position only if it's hit right
to him, basically, but he did those things, and he
did those things. Did the hitting obviously, did that very well,
hit a huge home run that nearly won them the
World Series. But Estach Perettis being ready for spring training

(02:15:03):
sounded like that might be in jeopardy. Keep in mind,
their first spring training game is February twenty first, more
than a month later they will play their first regular
season game, So ready for the regular season opener versus
ready for the beginning of spring training. You got about
six and a half seven weeks of time in between
those two dates. To Joe a Spot his appearance on
Astro Line last night, I mentioned going into the break,

(02:15:25):
you're going to have Carlos care here from the beginning
of the season. He obviously was a big help once
he got here. He is the everyday third baseman. Possibility
that you'll see a repreat of his offensive performance, which
was definitely an uptick for how he performed in Minnesota
to start the twenty twenty five season. Hopefully there's much
more for Correa here even than what he showed during

(02:15:46):
the back half or back third of the season post
trade deadline, but also influential in pretty much every single
other way in the clubhouse, on the road, in the
batter's box, in the field, and even in the front
off is to a certain extent, which Joe spot has
mentioned more than once. But the involvement with Carlos Korea
as the off season continues.

Speaker 8 (02:16:06):
Getting some ideas, some feedback from him all two way,
Jodan and some of our pitchers. You know, I talked
to the Lamps mc colors a few times, just checking
up on him and his health. So I want to
hear from them and and Bill got you know, one
thing that I do hear from them is their desire
to get screen training going.

Speaker 3 (02:16:25):
They they do not like.

Speaker 8 (02:16:27):
The fact that we we need not make the postseason,
and and we're gonna We're gonna feed from that these
guys are ready to go and and my conversations with
conversations with them has been very exciting.

Speaker 4 (02:16:37):
Very much like the chip on our shoulder statement Joe
made to all of us in his post season availability
this year, one that they probably needed to have going
into this year, also losing both of their playoff games
to Detroit, and one that they probably have had for many, many,
many years. And it's one of the reasons why they
have done who they are, which is one of the
best teams in baseball, multiple trips of the World Series

(02:16:58):
and multiple World Series. Offensively, with too many players missing
time and even some of their more trustworthy players not
having the kind of season that I think was expected,
other offense left a lot to be desired. It's not
the kind of way they want to play baseball, quite honestly,
with how they attack things last year. Well, some adjustments
will undoubtedly be made. We just mentioned the changes to

(02:17:20):
the hitting staff to people out and Troy Snicker and
Alex s and trone essentially three people in one from
inside the organization and the hitting coach and his assistant
from out. A spot of commenting on getting back to
who they have been over the years, offensively, we.

Speaker 8 (02:17:35):
Are a good offense where we control the pace of
the game. Well, what I mean with that is, you
know an offense that is long, it's in nine hole
hitters working working at the same pace with the same objective.
We have to get on base more. We have to
make our opponents work more. We got to know We've
got to be very specific to our players.

Speaker 3 (02:17:57):
There's strength and weaknesses. What we do best.

Speaker 8 (02:17:59):
How can we can work together to make sure that
when we struggle, it's it's it's for a short term.
Dynamic offense is one that beats you from many different ways.
Not only we slugged, but we could went on base,
we speed taking an extra base. When when we've had
that offense at dynamic offense, that moult that everyone is

(02:18:22):
working together is very is one very difficult too to beat.

Speaker 4 (02:18:26):
You put pressures on the put pressure on the opposing pitcher.
They're pitching under duress, They're pitching in an uncomfortable situation
that didn't happen enough last last season.

Speaker 3 (02:18:37):
It's it's very clear.

Speaker 4 (02:18:38):
And when you're subbing out players for Jeremy Payney, Esak Perettis,
Jordan Alvarez, Jake myers On and on and on and on.
It's very unlikely you're going to have players capable of
doing those things, not only in the fact that they're
in experience, but they're also just not totally familiar with
how everything should be happening, and how they want to
get prepared and how they want to operate when they're
at the plate, as well as a I think an

(02:19:01):
offensive development machine the Astros have created in their organization.
So I think their developmental staff offensively has been fantastic
Because normally players have arrived here offensively and been right
in tune with how the Astros do things. It couldn't
happen with Cam Smith. He'd never been in the Astros
system before spring training. That was when he became an Astro.

(02:19:24):
There wasn't a learning period for him. How do we
like to work and what kind of ideas do we have?
Here's how you go out there and implement those ideas
as you're playing double A baseball, triple A baseball. He
did all those things on the fly at the major
league level. So I think this offseason and learning more
about the Astros ideas and more things that they can
do with his swing, he just never really had a
chance to do that because he was also playing almost

(02:19:46):
every day. It's not a coincidence that he was much
better at the beginning of the season than he was
at the end of the season. I don't think there's
anything questionable about that because of how much the mental
side of it is. As soon as a player, any player,
even a great player, a great prospect, someone who's the established,
when things start going in the wrong direction, difficult, difficult
to send him back the right way. More difficult when

(02:20:07):
you're a young player like Cam Smith with virtually no
professional experience. He played more baseball at Florida State than
he played in the minors period in his major in
his professional career, and that will probably be true because
I don't think he has to make the team this year.
He had to make the team last year. And I'm
not saying he's just an obvious star in the making.
I think he will be, but I don't think he's

(02:20:29):
starting the year anywhere but as a starter in their outfield,
and pretty much no matter what they do with their
personnel or whomever else they think highly of in their
own system. But again, bigger pictures more about how the
offense operated. Plenty of players on base, still took enough walks,
still got enough singles, but didn't do some of the
things that could have easily earned you a one run inning.

(02:20:49):
Not always playing for the beginning. They obviously aren't going
to hit home runs all the time. They're not one
of the biggest home run hitting teams in the league.
There's somewhere in the middle, and they can absolutely survive
as somewhere in the middle. Probably lost some pop, probably
with jord On Alvarez playing very little all season, Yet
you probably lost thirty to thirty five homers. You probably
lost another ten twelve homers maybe with estoc Perettis basically

(02:21:12):
being unable to be out there for the final sixty
some odd games.

Speaker 3 (02:21:15):
That does take a toll.

Speaker 4 (02:21:17):
And everything the Astros want to get back to is
everything the Estac Perettis already was. They added one offensive
player last offseason that was the ideal player for how
the Astros approach hitting. When he's at the plate, he
does everything they would want. Every team should want that,
I would think, but I know their philosophy and he

(02:21:38):
does that better than anybody else here. Long pitch are
long at bats, high pitch counts, very selective drive the
pitches that are in the zone. He was fantastic at
that and hopefully he will do that again this year
wherever they find a home for him, which they don't
currently have a bunch of items we need to revisit,
maybe a few we have not hit on yet. That's

(02:21:59):
when in case you missed it is for and that's next.

Speaker 2 (02:22:03):
The aged on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 4 (02:22:09):
It is time for in case you missed it here
on the A team halfway through the final hour of
the program.

Speaker 3 (02:22:13):
That's what we hit you with.

Speaker 4 (02:22:14):
Final segment of the show will bring you an opportunity
when tickets a pair of them to see The Jack
Johnson Show Circle Music twenty twenty six tour August twenty
eighth at.

Speaker 3 (02:22:24):
The Woodwinds Pavilion.

Speaker 4 (02:22:25):
Given more details on that and the final segment of
the show, and you'll know the answer to the question
we will ask at that point because you've been listening
to the show. One thing from me, just a recount
recap of some things related.

Speaker 3 (02:22:38):
To the Texans In case you missed it.

Speaker 5 (02:22:40):
MJ.

Speaker 4 (02:22:41):
Stewart's season is officially over now that he is on
season ending ir with the quad jury suffered in Sunday's
game Miles Bryant, who essentially was already in his spot
from the last Sunday's game. He had been elevated from
the practice squad for Sunday's game. He is now on
the active roster and almost assuredly will get the reps
that were those of the MJ.

Speaker 3 (02:23:01):
Stewart.

Speaker 4 (02:23:01):
Expect him to be starting in the secondary for Stuart.
Don't know the status of Jalen Petrie yet. He's among
several Texans players who did not practice today, along with CJ. Stroud,
Dalton Schultz, Harrison Bryant, Kamie Fairbairn, and Denico Autry for
others were limited. Al Shaire with a knee injury. At Ingram,
who is returning to practice last week after missing Sunday's

(02:23:24):
game with his knee injury two weeks ago. He played
through that injury that he suffered in that game, and
Cad Stovert practiced on a limited basis today. He was
available for practice because his practice window was open. He
is on IR and now designated to return. His twenty
one day practice window is open. I think there's a
reasonable chance he is active for this game on Sunday, so.

Speaker 3 (02:23:45):
An additional roster move would need to be made.

Speaker 4 (02:23:48):
As I mentioned, both Bryant and Schultz were not practicing
today for the Texans. Schultz, I'm sure will play, but
they're also trying to manage his injuries to get him
into and out of every game the rest of the way.
A very popular target for Davis Mills and start number one.
We're likely to see start number two from Davis coming
up on Sunday against the Tennessee Titans in Nashville.

Speaker 3 (02:24:11):
What else do we have today?

Speaker 9 (02:24:13):
Cam Smith, Let's go back to him and talk a
little bit about astro line at Joe Aspota want to
bring up how Cam had a very strong start twenty
twenty five, maybe wasn't fully prepared. He look at the
numbers after the All Star break. He added one forty
seven in the month August and one ninety four in
the month of September. Van was able to get on
base and as you saw, he was playing time to minish.

(02:24:33):
But Joe Spotta is not concerned, believing that eventually that
twenty twenty five season will be very beneficial to help
Cam Smith not only get acclimated playing more on the
run field, but seeing major league pitching.

Speaker 8 (02:24:46):
That he experienced that in year one of the big
leagues doing a playoff run. You know that right there itself,
It just tells you about the character and the makeup
of this guy, right, Not a lot of players, you know,
usually players they experienced that on losing teams, meaning they
get the opportunity to play every day where the team

(02:25:07):
is not really in a position to contend. But he
did it on on a team that we are expected
to win the division, right, and we felt, you know,
convicted enough to give him the opportunity because we believe
in him and he experienced a lot of things that
in the long run, he's going This kid's going to
be a star because he endure a very tough season

(02:25:33):
on learning how to be a major league player.

Speaker 3 (02:25:36):
And he never took offense defense.

Speaker 8 (02:25:40):
We mentioned how he was the finalist for for right
for his right field defense, but there is so much
in there offensively. He did so many things very well
where he knows the strikes and we know the power
now is tapping to that.

Speaker 4 (02:25:54):
Right.

Speaker 8 (02:25:54):
I think he has a lot of things that he learned.
There's some things, some goals that we gave him this
offseason for him too to work on, and I think
he's going to be a so much better player who
saphomore year of the.

Speaker 9 (02:26:04):
Season in his first year batting average of two thirty six,
nine home runs, fifty one RBI, and a OPS of
six to seventy one.

Speaker 4 (02:26:11):
Yeah, you mentioned the final two months of the season.
You just split it up in half. First three months,
last three months to seventy six average seven to seventy
six OPS when he was accurately being mentioned among the
Rookie of the Year leaders for the Al honor, and
then the last three months of the season it was
one to eighty eight batting average with a five to

(02:26:31):
forty six OPS. So one eighty eight batting average and
a five to forty six OPS is that of a
player you do not put in your lineup and also
is normally not on your twenty six man roster. That's
how poorly he played as a hitter last Season's also
going to be light years better as an outfielder. There
are so many little nuances to how he played in
the right field last year that there's just almost no

(02:26:54):
way to get better at and to learn when you're
out there at the major league level and playing a
position you don't know like that, getting to the ball
a little bit more quickly. The angles he takes gathering
himself for throws was that just took forever just picking
up the ball and throwing it into second base, making
a good throw to third or at home. The arm
strength is there, the accuracy is there, but the timing,

(02:27:17):
with the footwork and your body movement, it just wasn't
really there. And you know, you work with your outfield coaches,
you work with some of your defensive coaches, and I
think he has the makings of an elite right fielder.
I know he was a finalist for the Gold Glove,
which I know the numbers and metrics they look at,
but there's a lot of metrics and other things that
they are eyeballs they don't look at. There's just no

(02:27:39):
way he was one of the three best right fielders
in the American League this past year, even though he
was very good in year one.

Speaker 3 (02:27:44):
What else do we have?

Speaker 9 (02:27:45):
Congratulates are in order into Danil Hunter, who not only
had probably the best game of his Texans career, he
had a career high three point five sacks, seven tackles,
four tackles for loss, also had six quarterback pressures, and
he forced fumble in the Week ten victory over Jacksonville
and the NFL's paying attention because if they named him
the AFC Defensive Player of the Week. On top of

(02:28:06):
having one point five sacks on the fourth quarter, he
helped set a franchise record for the most sacks in
a single game at three point five. The three point
five sacks were the second most among any player in
the NFL this past week, while his four attackers for
loss were a crew. I mean, we're a season high,
joining Miles Garrett and Tulley Tulipowe Tuat Tulupowe as the
only players in the NFL to record at least three sacks,

(02:28:29):
and he forced fum on a game Demiko Ryans had
major props to give to the five time Pro.

Speaker 5 (02:28:34):
Bowl I mean, one of the best games I've seen
him play since he's been a text and it's it
started for me in a run game when I saw
the way he was set in the ends in a
run game like That's what sparked it for me. And
then when he was rushing like he was, he was
getting off the ball, he was playing explosive violin and
the tackle had no chance and so you know, for

(02:28:56):
him to get the plays he made and also he
had one so he had a two play sequence late
in the game where he goes underneath the tackle, gets
a tackle for loss and then he gets a huge set. Yeh, Mart,
And that was such a huge two play sequeens in
the game to knock them back, and it was it
was big.

Speaker 9 (02:29:14):
With the three and a half sacks that now puts
him at seventh currently in the NFL with seven and
a half sacks, though let's be real, he probably should
just have eight because of that last act really saw him.

Speaker 4 (02:29:23):
Yeah, if you are listening close, so you could probably
tell that came from the Texians in house media that
usually occurs right after he meets with us on Mondays.
Daniel Hunter is right there, not just this year but
the last several years. With the best edge rushers in
the NFL, three players have fourteen or more forced fumbles

(02:29:46):
since the beginning of twenty fifteen, himself, along with the
Marcus Lawrence and Miles Garrett games with three or more
sacks Miles Garrett, Aaron Donald, TJ. Watt, and Daniel Hunter
each with six such games since twenty fifteen. He obviously
had that sixth such game with the work they did

(02:30:08):
yesterday or Sunday, excuse me against Trevor Lawrence. And oh,
by the way, you will never guess who sits atop
the leader board in times sacked in twenty twenty five
among NFL quarterbacks. Anyone, anyone out there want to make
a guess, Oh yeah, it's cam Ward thirty eight sacks

(02:30:29):
in his first nine starts as an NFL quarterback. Twice
his team has allowed him to get sacked twice. Every
other game he's been sacked four or more times. Texans
Titans on Sunday.

Speaker 2 (02:30:42):
The eighteen on Sports Talk seven.

Speaker 4 (02:30:44):
Ninety get you a little bit closer to the evening's
game activities. Here on the iHeartRadio family of networks mentioned earlier,
we got three games for you around our platforms. Right
here on Sports Talks seven ninety, we have the Longhorns
basketball game seven o'clock tip off. Six point thirty will

(02:31:05):
begin coverage of that six forty five. Coverage begins for
the seven o'clock tip off over on nine point fifty.
For Cougar's basketball, the number one team in the country,
and of course the Rockets are playing tonight. We'll have
that game on News Radio seven forty KTRH six point
thirty four Rockets Countdown. Matt Thomas and Adam Klanton have
the game for you beginning at seven o'clock. I'll be
back with you after the game over on seven forty four.

(02:31:29):
Rockets wrap, presumably after they win their seventh game of
the season and hand the Wizards yet another defeat. They've
had one in every game but one so far this season.
They are one and ten. Mention, last segment, We've got
tickets to give away. Those tickets, a pair of them
to see Jack Johnson live on the Surfle Music twenty
twenty six tour.

Speaker 3 (02:31:49):
That's August twenty eighth Woodland's Pavilion.

Speaker 4 (02:31:51):
Tickets for that event go on sale Friday at ten
am via ticketmaster dot com. You win those tickets by
answering this question. You know the answer this question from
listening to the show, so we appreciate you listening and
give you this opportunity here at seven one three two
one two five seven ninety seven one three two one
two five seven ninety Recently on the show, as in

(02:32:12):
on today's program this afternoon, we mentioned somebody apparently is
just about to take to jump outside of sports broadcasting,
where they have been for a long period of time
and are very well known and very well respected, and
about to take the leap outside of that to join
the political realm, not even just necessarily to speak about it,

(02:32:33):
but maybe potentially to run for office. To actually be
long rumored, but now a story today said likely after
the college football season, ding ding, it will happen. Who
is that person? Who is that very well known mouth
that is reportedly set to say goodbye to sports broadcasting
after a lengthy and successful career so that he can

(02:32:56):
run for office. Help our country out be in the
political sphere? Who is that person? Seven one three two
one two five seven ninety seven one three two one
two five seven nine ye often referred to as the
mouth of the South. Tell me how this headline hits you?
Astros fans, If the Astros want to talk Hunter Brown

(02:33:19):
extension agent Scott Morrow says, we'll certainly listen to what
they have to say. Well, yeah, well of course you will.
I don't think Hunter Brown would want his agent to say,
I do not want to talk to the Astros about
a contract extension. I know we're not going to sign it.

(02:33:39):
I absolutely don't want to be here. Do not talk
to them. No, he would say, sure, Scott, if they
ask you and pick up the phone and text you
or call you and would like to talk about an
extension for me, tell them on my behalf as my agent.
We're all ears. What do you got for us? Of
course he's going to say that, Tell me how this

(02:34:01):
hits you. These are the quote from Scott Boris in
the article on the Chronicle from Matt Kawahara, Astros beat writer, Well,
certainly Hunter's now achieved the stature of cy Young voting.
He's in a very special category of performances. Is among
these side type pictures. Dana is fully aware of that.
He's referencing Dana Brown obviously Astros GM And certainly, I'm

(02:34:24):
sure they have a strong desire to keep him. What
I always tell them, We'll certainly listen to what they.

Speaker 3 (02:34:29):
Have to say.

Speaker 4 (02:34:31):
I feel pretty confident on my recording device, my telephone,
my cell phone, my iPhone, I probably have that exact
same quote from the exact same person talking about negotiations
with the exact same team about Aux Bregman. Previously from

(02:34:52):
this past offseason and from even prior to that offseason,
he was in attendance at an Astro's event honoring Jose
al Tuve JOSEL Tuve Day, and we talked to him
about the future of some of his players here. And
he's always around and he's all General managers meetings are like,
I know, signing contracts for two and three hundred million

(02:35:13):
seem like his super Bowl because he gets to profit
greatly off those with the percentage that he and his
agency take.

Speaker 3 (02:35:20):
His super Bowl is every.

Speaker 4 (02:35:22):
Time the national media gathers at a major event, so
he can talk to them, and that's what he does
at the general managers meetings. Oftentimes he'll do it at
different points during the season, just whenever if an opportunity presents,
and he gets to talk about his clients, and he
gets especially his clients that are free agents, especially his

(02:35:43):
clients that are gonna drive the market. And you see
most every off season he is heavily involved, whether it's
an off season where all of the top guys are
his guys or just a couple. And this is no different.
Alex Bregman, among the most highly sought after and likely
most highly paid free agents this season are in the
They're in the Boris Court, They're under his umbrella.

Speaker 3 (02:36:03):
It's probable that.

Speaker 4 (02:36:06):
Kyle Tucker will land the most actual dollars, put the
pen to paper on a contract for the most dollars
that anybody signs this offseason. But in this free agency
period for Alex you kind of have to add the
forty million he got last year. What if he signs
a five year, one hundred and sixty million dollar deal,

(02:36:28):
le's basically a six year, two hundred million dollar deal.
It's probably still quite a bit less than what Kyle
Tucker is going to get. He opted out of forty
million from the Red Sox for next year, which then
also put him off the table for forty million dollars
the following year. Because his initial contract was one year
at forty million, with an option year for the second
year at forty million and an option year for the

(02:36:48):
third year at forty million. He opted out of both
of the final two years and is back again in
free agency off of an interesting season. Bregman was extremely
productive before he got hurt. He was not nearly as
productive when he came back. They had a little bit
different makeup to the team. The guy who finished third
in the Rookie of the Year voting, Rowan Anthony, had

(02:37:11):
now made his way to the club and was a
bigger part of the club until he ultimately got hurt.
But Bregman was just clearly not the same offensive player.
He played elite level defense and all of the intangibles
we discussed here as to why it would make sense
even though it feels like an overpay for Bregman for
how much of his career has already been played at
an elite level and it's likely not to be played

(02:37:33):
on the backside of this contract. I think there's a very,
very small group of players that have unbelievable locker room value.
Baseball players. It's hard to make your teammates better in baseball.
It's easy to make your teammates better in football. It's
even easier to make your teammates better in basketball. Making
your teammates better in baseball is hard to do. You're
not at the plate, you're not in the field. You're

(02:37:55):
your own person there on the other side of the field.
You're in the dugout, you're not playing that whatever it is.
It's all the other stuff, all the nuances of the game.
He helps pitchers, he helps hitters, he helps defensive players,
he helps them all. Korea is very similar. I actually
think Alex Bregman is like number one in baseball at
doing that, and I think the Red Sox saw the
benefit of it. And I still think as free agency

(02:38:18):
is open, as GM meetings are ongoing, and as negotiations
are kind of starting, Alex Bregman's gonna get an unbelievable
deal to stay with the Boston Red Sox for far
far more guaranteed dollars than the eighty he would have
otherwise had had he just opted in so smart play.
He was good enough last season even with the injury,

(02:38:38):
and even though he's now been injured multiple times for
significant amount of time during his recent seasons, I don't
think that's a big enough to trent for him not
to have multiple suitors, which also means the Red Sox
now have to at least outbid other teams for his services, which,
like I said, I think they will do. I got
all those games in front of you here on the
Family of iHeartRadio Network. Will be back with you at

(02:39:00):
two o'clock with another edition of The A Team, Don't
Go Anywhere Here. We got the Nightcap coming up immediately
after this program, which is now

Speaker 2 (02:39:10):
The A Team on Sports Talk seven ninety

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