May 1, 2024 • 12 mins
The Athletic's Astros beat writer Chandler Rome joins The A-Team for his weekly visit. He talks about how much we could actually see Joey Loperfido playing first base. He also talks about the course of action for Jose Abreu heading down to West Palm Beach.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
And as promised, Chandler Rome ofthe Athletic here for his weekly appearance.
So I was I was dying tosee your reaction, Chandler, because after
our conversation about Joey Lo Brafito lastweek, I just knew that people are
waiting to hear what you had tosay about a guy that you said is
not going to be part of theireveryday plans at first base or anywhere.
(00:23):
And what did he do last night? Had a clutch hit? And now
you are going to be so wrongaccording to Astro's Twitter right, right,
And has he played first base yet? They have? They after one Dawst
base. I love I love youso much for doing that that everyone thought
he was gonna be because some peoplethat bought verified Twitter accounts think that and
(00:46):
what they're talking about. No,turns out he's not a good defender at
first base. It turns out he'sgot to get better. He can get
there. It's not it's not hopeless, but he's got a lot of work
to do. They've got to gethim better at It's not it's not that
he can't do it, it's thatthere's some nuances at the position that it's
(01:07):
just it's a hard position to play. It is not just stand there and
catch relay throws. It is notlike you got to nowhere to be for
cuts and relays. You got tobe able to know how to where to
go when you're holding a runner,when you're not holding a runner, when
you're playing the line, when you'renot playing the line. Playing next to
Jose Altuve is a is a differentkind of adventure. And then you know,
(01:27):
without the shift, now, there'sa lot of stuff that goes into
it. And they didn't want toput this on this kid right when he
comes up. They wanted to easehim in, making as comfortable as possible,
and he is comfortable. He ismore natural in the outfields as an
outfielder. I'd even wager to saythat Trey Cavage, who came up today
(01:48):
for Jose Abreu, he's a morenatural fit at first base. If John
Singleton keeps hitting the ball, ifJohn Singleton keeps hitting balls four hundred and
fifteen feet, I think he'll lockthat position now. But I can see
a platoon situation happening, like maybestart Mauricio Dubon against some right hand against
some left handed starters. You know, the Guardians have a lefty going tomorrow
(02:09):
night. I would not be surprisedif Mauricio Dubond's at first base, so
they can mix and match here,but no, Joey low Prafido is never
going to come up and play firstbase. And that has been echoed what
you're saying by the two people mostin charge of A getting him on the
roster, Dana and B putting himat first base. That's shoe a spot.
(02:29):
And they've said the very same thingover the last twenty four to forty
eight hours. They saw him allthrough spring training and obviously have had eyes
on him during his time with theSpace Cowboys where he's tearing cover off the
ball and for the most part playingin the outfield. To that part of
it, does he give them atotally usable option in center field? If
Dubond's at first, Singleton is notat first or in the lineup, could
(02:53):
we see an outfield configuration of Tuckerand Alvarez or maybe yeah, Tucker and
Alvarez on the corners and him incenterfield. I don't think. I don't
think they think he's a plus defensivecenterfielder, but he's good, He's adequate
out there. Like he can holdthe position now. Jake Myers is a
better defensive centerfielder than he is.I'd even wager say Mauricio Dubon is probably
(03:15):
a better defensive centerfielder than he is, but he's a more natural corner guy.
And I'm not, again, thisis not trying to pile on the
guy. I'm just trying to kindof be realistic here about what he is.
He's not plus defensively really anywhere hecould get there, but he's not
there right now. But yeah,if I mean, like he's playing left
(03:37):
field here, they can, theycan. They can put him in some
smaller outfields in centerfield maybe, youknow, I think they'd prefer to keep
him in the corner. And onthis team, one corner is always accounted
for in Kyle Tucker, so he'llprobably see a lot of his action in
left field. They can. Idon't think they're not hesitant to put him
in center by any stretch the imaginafan. I just think they have better
(03:59):
defensive options. You know, withVerlander on the mound, you want your
best defensive outfield out there, andI think you've got that, you know,
with a ground ball pitcher on themound, when Fromber starts, when
Renel Blanco can get not Renel Blanco, but when Fromber starts the ground ball
pitcher, maybe you'd experiment with himback there. So but no, when
(04:19):
Christian Hoavier is pitching, when Josekeaty Justin Erlander fly ball guys, I
think they'd rather opt for defense firstin center field, especially if the lineup
keeps performing how it is, like, if they keep producing and it kind
of doesn't matter who's in there,then I think they would offer me shed
some light from you know, abouttwenty six hours ago when Dana Brown met
(04:40):
with the media on the Jose brayou situation to what he had to say,
who you've talked to since then withJoe Aspada has said since then,
and obviously what his teammates have describedsince then, the situation with Jose A
Bray, What does it all entail? How involved would the Astros be with
him in fla, et cetera.Yeah, it sounds like like, you
(05:00):
know, he's gonna get a coupleof days here to to take a little
bit of a blow. His familylives in Miami, so I think he's
gonna go see his wife, seehis kids. Maybe decompressed for a day
or two, and then Joe Spottysaid today it sounds like they're gonna get
him ramped up in the next dayor two at that the spring training facility
in West Palm Beach, and therestill really isn't much of like a concrete
(05:23):
detailed like this is what he's goingto do every day. They have extended
spring training games there, so he'lltake it bats there and they can manipulate
like those aren't like they're real games, but like they can manipulate them how
they want, Like cose a Brad, you can lead off every inning if
they want to, just to getas it bats in. They can hit
him ground balls things like that.They're gonna work with him on his swing,
(05:44):
on his timing, you know,I'm sure you heard yesterday that they
think the bat speed's still there.They think it's a timing issue. And
I think part of this too,I think maybe you know, I've seen
some people asking, you know,why why not just demote him to an
affiliate and make him play in theminor leagues, Like I think they just
kind of wanted to get him outof kind of the spotlight, kind of
(06:08):
get him out from under this microscope. Like if they was sent him in
a round rock or not round rock, if they just sent him to Sugarland,
if they just sent him to Corpus, then the media circus, you
would have just followed him down there. Yeah, yeah, I mean I
probably would have. No, Iprobably would have, because I mean it'd
be a dereliction of duty not to. Yeah, but yeah, it would.
It would. It would have justbeen I don't think it would have
(06:29):
accomplished what they wanted to accomplish.And I think if you read between the
lines here too, like yes,the on field production is not good,
like they need to get that fixed. But I mean it's pretty obvious that
he was wearing this like it washe was really struggling to kind of cope
with what he was doing, andit was he was carrying out to the
defense, he was making defensive blunders, and I just think they wanted him
(06:53):
to clear his head to kind ofstart a new get a fresh start,
clean slate. How long that willbe, I'm not sure. I don't
think it's going to be just aten day thing. I think it's gona
longer than that. But yeah,I think they just wanted him to go
down there and just you know,work without any pressure, without any people
like me or media people asking questionsor constantly like you know, his bat's
(07:16):
becoming a micros all of his batsbeing under a microscope band too. I
mean in the nine games under fivehundred, like, they couldn't afford to
keep running them out there. Androster spots are valuable, and he was
taking up a roster spot and aslong as he was on the active roster,
he was going to have to playin some capacity and they just couldn't
keep doing that. Well. AndI'm gonna be very careful about how I
(07:39):
say this so as not to offendall the sensitive parties involved, but you
know, and again I'm not makinga joke here, and they do right
themselves, I guess. But like, did you think it was interesting when
you heard and it was kind ofput out there almost intentionally, that he's
gonna go to Florida. He's gonnawork comedy's gonna work on and we're gonna
(08:01):
send Jeff Bagwell down there to workon him. In in all seriousness,
that is a guy who is agood hitter, a great hitter as a
matter of fact, and he's aHall of Famer, but you know,
he is tied to jose A.Bray You in a lot of ways as
well, like as in a lotof people think he's the main reason why
he's on this roster. So didyou think that was interesting or just basically,
what do you think of the factthat they're going out of their way
(08:24):
to tell us that Jeff Bagwell willbe checking in on the progress. I
mean, it didn't surprise me justgiven how much influence Jeff Bagwell has in
this organization, given how much influencehe has over baseball operations decisions and decision
making, and who knows, youknow, the Mason Reggie Jackson and the
four or five person decision group thatwe heard about on the New York Posts
podcast a couple of weeks ago.I don't know. But no, it
(08:46):
did not surprise me at all becauseI mean, also, you know,
Jeff Bagwell worked with Joseo bray Youhere like we saw it like in batting
practice before games this season. Hedid it in Milwaukee last season before a
series. He was there filling infor Jeff Blum on AT and T and
he was working with a brave andpre game batting price. So no,
(09:07):
I mean, it didn't surprise meat all. Dana Dana Brown said he's
gonna go down there too, AndI think that's I mean, I think
it's I think it can be valuable. I mean, Jeff Bagwell is a
really good, really really good player. Like he's got a lot of insight,
and he's got a lot of knowledgeto share and a lot of and
(09:28):
a lot of experiences to pass on. Like I don't, like, I
think there can be value there.There can be value if if a Brave's
open to listening and all everything I'veunderstood he is, Like I mean,
he was open doing this, heaccepted an option. So it didn't surprise
me at all. Just given thehistory and given that we've already seen it
happen up here, clearly there's muchmore to the Astros than low Perfido and
(09:52):
a Bray who they've won three ina row. Justin Berlander throws to Victor
Caratini tonight, first time for thathering to be out there. It's only
his third start, and I'm sureboth catchers will catch him quite a bit.
Alex Bregman hit his first home runof the season last night. Both
of his first two at bats lookedlike he had a little bit something different
in his swing and that he nearlyhit one in his first at bat,
(10:15):
very prematurely, but it almost seemsworth asking do you envision him maybe having
figured some things out over the lastmaybe week with the three games and off
days, the Astros, in youropinion, done anything differently other than happened
to win games. To lead youto believe something immediate in the future is
on the plus side of winning morewell. I mean, I think their
(10:37):
leverage relievers pitched well last night.You know, Rafael Montero gave up the
homer, and you know Brian A. Braidy didn't look great in his inning,
but he got through unscathed. Imean, I think that's the first
thing. If they can get theirleverage relievers pitching like, pitching like they
know they're capable of, then Ithink that helps. You know, Hunter
Brown getting them into the sixth inning. I know he didn't get out of
(10:58):
the sixth inning, but after allowingthree in the first inning, getting them
into the six I mean that thatkind of went under talked about because he
didn't his line wasn't good, butthat was that helped getting him into the
sixth inning. And then I mean, this team was always this team is
always going to be a run productionteam. This was never going to be
(11:18):
a team that was run prevention.So like, this is a team constructed
to produce runs. And they scoredten runs plast and I think as the
offense goes, this team will go. And they had some good at bats,
runners and scoring position. They wereable to do some small things well
and a lot of it again,a lot of it's not even just hitting
home runs, Like it's hitting aground ball to the right side when you
(11:41):
have to advance a runner. It'shitting a fly ball with a runner at
third and less than two outs toget him in. Like there's so much
that's Like, yes, home runsare great, Like they could do so
many more little things better. AndI think, I mean it didn't really
manifest last night, but I thinkin the last couple of weeks they've done
a lot of little things better thanthey the beginning of the season. As
(12:03):
Chandler Rome of the Athletic here onSports Talk seven ninety he makes his weekly
appearance with us good stuff as always, and at least the team's playing a
little bit better these days. Hopefullythat continues with Verlander on the Mound tonight,
and we will catch up with youagain about a week from now.
Chandler, thanks again for the time. All right, thanks guys. Chandler
Rome here on Sports Talk seven ninety
And as promised, Chandler Rome ofthe Athletic here for his weekly appearance.
So I was I was dying tosee your reaction, Chandler, because after
our conversation about Joey Lo Brafito lastweek, I just knew that people are
waiting to hear what you had tosay about a guy that you said is
not going to be part of theireveryday plans at first base or anywhere.
(00:23):
And what did he do last night? Had a clutch hit? And now
you are going to be so wrongaccording to Astro's Twitter right, right,
And has he played first base yet? They have? They after one Dawst
base. I love I love youso much for doing that that everyone thought
he was gonna be because some peoplethat bought verified Twitter accounts think that and
(00:46):
what they're talking about. No,turns out he's not a good defender at
first base. It turns out he'sgot to get better. He can get
there. It's not it's not hopeless, but he's got a lot of work
to do. They've got to gethim better at It's not it's not that
he can't do it, it's thatthere's some nuances at the position that it's
(01:07):
just it's a hard position to play. It is not just stand there and
catch relay throws. It is notlike you got to nowhere to be for
cuts and relays. You got tobe able to know how to where to
go when you're holding a runner,when you're not holding a runner, when
you're playing the line, when you'renot playing the line. Playing next to
Jose Altuve is a is a differentkind of adventure. And then you know,
(01:27):
without the shift, now, there'sa lot of stuff that goes into
it. And they didn't want toput this on this kid right when he
comes up. They wanted to easehim in, making as comfortable as possible,
and he is comfortable. He ismore natural in the outfields as an
outfielder. I'd even wager to saythat Trey Cavage, who came up today
(01:48):
for Jose Abreu, he's a morenatural fit at first base. If John
Singleton keeps hitting the ball, ifJohn Singleton keeps hitting balls four hundred and
fifteen feet, I think he'll lockthat position now. But I can see
a platoon situation happening, like maybestart Mauricio Dubon against some right hand against
some left handed starters. You know, the Guardians have a lefty going tomorrow
(02:09):
night. I would not be surprisedif Mauricio Dubond's at first base, so
they can mix and match here,but no, Joey low Prafido is never
going to come up and play firstbase. And that has been echoed what
you're saying by the two people mostin charge of A getting him on the
roster, Dana and B putting himat first base. That's shoe a spot.
(02:29):
And they've said the very same thingover the last twenty four to forty
eight hours. They saw him allthrough spring training and obviously have had eyes
on him during his time with theSpace Cowboys where he's tearing cover off the
ball and for the most part playingin the outfield. To that part of
it, does he give them atotally usable option in center field? If
Dubond's at first, Singleton is notat first or in the lineup, could
(02:53):
we see an outfield configuration of Tuckerand Alvarez or maybe yeah, Tucker and
Alvarez on the corners and him incenterfield. I don't think. I don't
think they think he's a plus defensivecenterfielder, but he's good, He's adequate
out there. Like he can holdthe position now. Jake Myers is a
better defensive centerfielder than he is.I'd even wager say Mauricio Dubon is probably
(03:15):
a better defensive centerfielder than he is, but he's a more natural corner guy.
And I'm not, again, thisis not trying to pile on the
guy. I'm just trying to kindof be realistic here about what he is.
He's not plus defensively really anywhere hecould get there, but he's not
there right now. But yeah,if I mean, like he's playing left
(03:37):
field here, they can, theycan. They can put him in some
smaller outfields in centerfield maybe, youknow, I think they'd prefer to keep
him in the corner. And onthis team, one corner is always accounted
for in Kyle Tucker, so he'llprobably see a lot of his action in
left field. They can. Idon't think they're not hesitant to put him
in center by any stretch the imaginafan. I just think they have better
(03:59):
defensive options. You know, withVerlander on the mound, you want your
best defensive outfield out there, andI think you've got that, you know,
with a ground ball pitcher on themound, when Fromber starts, when
Renel Blanco can get not Renel Blanco, but when Fromber starts the ground ball
pitcher, maybe you'd experiment with himback there. So but no, when
(04:19):
Christian Hoavier is pitching, when Josekeaty Justin Erlander fly ball guys, I
think they'd rather opt for defense firstin center field, especially if the lineup
keeps performing how it is, like, if they keep producing and it kind
of doesn't matter who's in there,then I think they would offer me shed
some light from you know, abouttwenty six hours ago when Dana Brown met
(04:40):
with the media on the Jose brayou situation to what he had to say,
who you've talked to since then withJoe Aspada has said since then,
and obviously what his teammates have describedsince then, the situation with Jose A
Bray, What does it all entail? How involved would the Astros be with
him in fla, et cetera.Yeah, it sounds like like, you
(05:00):
know, he's gonna get a coupleof days here to to take a little
bit of a blow. His familylives in Miami, so I think he's
gonna go see his wife, seehis kids. Maybe decompressed for a day
or two, and then Joe Spottysaid today it sounds like they're gonna get
him ramped up in the next dayor two at that the spring training facility
in West Palm Beach, and therestill really isn't much of like a concrete
(05:23):
detailed like this is what he's goingto do every day. They have extended
spring training games there, so he'lltake it bats there and they can manipulate
like those aren't like they're real games, but like they can manipulate them how
they want, Like cose a Brad, you can lead off every inning if
they want to, just to getas it bats in. They can hit
him ground balls things like that.They're gonna work with him on his swing,
(05:44):
on his timing, you know,I'm sure you heard yesterday that they
think the bat speed's still there.They think it's a timing issue. And
I think part of this too,I think maybe you know, I've seen
some people asking, you know,why why not just demote him to an
affiliate and make him play in theminor leagues, Like I think they just
kind of wanted to get him outof kind of the spotlight, kind of
(06:08):
get him out from under this microscope. Like if they was sent him in
a round rock or not round rock, if they just sent him to Sugarland,
if they just sent him to Corpus, then the media circus, you
would have just followed him down there. Yeah, yeah, I mean I
probably would have. No, Iprobably would have, because I mean it'd
be a dereliction of duty not to. Yeah, but yeah, it would.
It would. It would have justbeen I don't think it would have
(06:29):
accomplished what they wanted to accomplish.And I think if you read between the
lines here too, like yes,the on field production is not good,
like they need to get that fixed. But I mean it's pretty obvious that
he was wearing this like it washe was really struggling to kind of cope
with what he was doing, andit was he was carrying out to the
defense, he was making defensive blunders, and I just think they wanted him
(06:53):
to clear his head to kind ofstart a new get a fresh start,
clean slate. How long that willbe, I'm not sure. I don't
think it's going to be just aten day thing. I think it's gona
longer than that. But yeah,I think they just wanted him to go
down there and just you know,work without any pressure, without any people
like me or media people asking questionsor constantly like you know, his bat's
(07:16):
becoming a micros all of his batsbeing under a microscope band too. I
mean in the nine games under fivehundred, like, they couldn't afford to
keep running them out there. Androster spots are valuable, and he was
taking up a roster spot and aslong as he was on the active roster,
he was going to have to playin some capacity and they just couldn't
keep doing that. Well. AndI'm gonna be very careful about how I
(07:39):
say this so as not to offendall the sensitive parties involved, but you
know, and again I'm not makinga joke here, and they do right
themselves, I guess. But like, did you think it was interesting when
you heard and it was kind ofput out there almost intentionally, that he's
gonna go to Florida. He's gonnawork comedy's gonna work on and we're gonna
(08:01):
send Jeff Bagwell down there to workon him. In in all seriousness,
that is a guy who is agood hitter, a great hitter as a
matter of fact, and he's aHall of Famer, but you know,
he is tied to jose A.Bray You in a lot of ways as
well, like as in a lotof people think he's the main reason why
he's on this roster. So didyou think that was interesting or just basically,
what do you think of the factthat they're going out of their way
(08:24):
to tell us that Jeff Bagwell willbe checking in on the progress. I
mean, it didn't surprise me justgiven how much influence Jeff Bagwell has in
this organization, given how much influencehe has over baseball operations decisions and decision
making, and who knows, youknow, the Mason Reggie Jackson and the
four or five person decision group thatwe heard about on the New York Posts
podcast a couple of weeks ago.I don't know. But no, it
(08:46):
did not surprise me at all becauseI mean, also, you know,
Jeff Bagwell worked with Joseo bray Youhere like we saw it like in batting
practice before games this season. Hedid it in Milwaukee last season before a
series. He was there filling infor Jeff Blum on AT and T and
he was working with a brave andpre game batting price. So no,
(09:07):
I mean, it didn't surprise meat all. Dana Dana Brown said he's
gonna go down there too, AndI think that's I mean, I think
it's I think it can be valuable. I mean, Jeff Bagwell is a
really good, really really good player. Like he's got a lot of insight,
and he's got a lot of knowledgeto share and a lot of and
(09:28):
a lot of experiences to pass on. Like I don't, like, I
think there can be value there.There can be value if if a Brave's
open to listening and all everything I'veunderstood he is, Like I mean,
he was open doing this, heaccepted an option. So it didn't surprise
me at all. Just given thehistory and given that we've already seen it
happen up here, clearly there's muchmore to the Astros than low Perfido and
(09:52):
a Bray who they've won three ina row. Justin Berlander throws to Victor
Caratini tonight, first time for thathering to be out there. It's only
his third start, and I'm sureboth catchers will catch him quite a bit.
Alex Bregman hit his first home runof the season last night. Both
of his first two at bats lookedlike he had a little bit something different
in his swing and that he nearlyhit one in his first at bat,
(10:15):
very prematurely, but it almost seemsworth asking do you envision him maybe having
figured some things out over the lastmaybe week with the three games and off
days, the Astros, in youropinion, done anything differently other than happened
to win games. To lead youto believe something immediate in the future is
on the plus side of winning morewell. I mean, I think their
(10:37):
leverage relievers pitched well last night.You know, Rafael Montero gave up the
homer, and you know Brian A. Braidy didn't look great in his inning,
but he got through unscathed. Imean, I think that's the first
thing. If they can get theirleverage relievers pitching like, pitching like they
know they're capable of, then Ithink that helps. You know, Hunter
Brown getting them into the sixth inning. I know he didn't get out of
(10:58):
the sixth inning, but after allowingthree in the first inning, getting them
into the six I mean that thatkind of went under talked about because he
didn't his line wasn't good, butthat was that helped getting him into the
sixth inning. And then I mean, this team was always this team is
always going to be a run productionteam. This was never going to be
(11:18):
a team that was run prevention.So like, this is a team constructed
to produce runs. And they scoredten runs plast and I think as the
offense goes, this team will go. And they had some good at bats,
runners and scoring position. They wereable to do some small things well
and a lot of it again,a lot of it's not even just hitting
home runs, Like it's hitting aground ball to the right side when you
(11:41):
have to advance a runner. It'shitting a fly ball with a runner at
third and less than two outs toget him in. Like there's so much
that's Like, yes, home runsare great, Like they could do so
many more little things better. AndI think, I mean it didn't really
manifest last night, but I thinkin the last couple of weeks they've done
a lot of little things better thanthey the beginning of the season. As
(12:03):
Chandler Rome of the Athletic here onSports Talk seven ninety he makes his weekly
appearance with us good stuff as always, and at least the team's playing a
little bit better these days. Hopefullythat continues with Verlander on the Mound tonight,
and we will catch up with youagain about a week from now.
Chandler, thanks again for the time. All right, thanks guys. Chandler
Rome here on Sports Talk seven ninety
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