Latest in Astros Manager Search, Dubon a Gold Glove Winner, Adios Enoli Paredes

On this edition of the Crawford Boxcast presented by Karbach Brewing, Ross Villarreal and Chris Gordy discuss the latest in the Astros Manager search as Craig Counsell is off the board, Mauricio Dubon is a Gold Glove Winner, and we say adios to Enoli Paredes!

Episode Transcript

(00:10):
Astros fans cheers, Rocky Lackey,Welcome to the Crawford box Cast Houston Astros
crowd leadboard for you by Crawford Mackfrom Carmack Brewy. You're getting da bear.
Oh my godness, the Crawford boxCast starts now here we go.

(00:30):
Here's Chris Gordy and Ross via realand what has happened? Everybody? Welcome
into a off season edition of theCrawford box Cast. Chris Gordy, Ross
Veril, presented by Carbock Brewing kindof doing a dual episode here for our
podcast on the free iHeartRadio app andalso airing on Sports Talk seven to ninety

(00:54):
where there's been a lot of excitementin Houston sports going on with the Rockets
playing much better basketball c J.Stroud and the Texans having exciting wins.
But Ross, it's funny, youknow, on our social medias and stuff,
even with the Astros season having endeda couple weeks ago now, people
are still fired up with all thingsAstros. And look, there's a lot

(01:15):
to discuss, everything from the managerialsearch to you know, who's going to
be back with this team. Wehave some free agents and all that.
But how are you doing on thislovely days we count down the I mean,
it's crazy to think Ross we're alreadyalmost into the second week of November
and like spring training will be herein February. It really is. The
off season gets shorter and shorter everyyear. Yeah, it's it's definitely going

(01:38):
to be something that I feel willfeel quicker and before we know it,
we'll be into pitchers and catchers reportingin the middle of February and stuff like
that. But it is, it'sa big off season for the Astros.
That's why we're seeing a lot ofpeople talk about it. That's why you
know we're gonna We're going to keepa close eye on everything, and we
have all the news coming out today. For example, Council even though our

(02:00):
good friend Bob Nightingale said that hewas either going to end up with the
Brewers of the Mets, apparently reversecourse and he went with the Chicago Cubs.
Maybe that's what spurred the Cubs toup their offer to an insane forty
million dollar contract over five years.So you have that domino falling. Well,

(02:20):
let's start there, because I thoughtthat was one of the big names
that was floated out there as apotential and as we know, you know,
I think we talked about last podcast, but they had the big ceremony
for Dusty Baker and he bid hisfarewell. He's retiring as a manager,
but not necessarily retiring from baseball.He may wind up in the front office
somewhere. And I know Jim Cranedid the respectful thing where he goes,

(02:42):
oh yeah, I mean, Dusty, You're welcome back anytime, but it
was more like, appreciate what youdid here, but yeah, best of
luck. I think it was timeto move on both sides. I think
Dusty Baker is he mean, youknow, he went on that podcast with
with Charles Barkley and earn It andsaid that he wasn't liking the criticisms crazy
thirty year olds. I know it'snot the case. I know it's not

(03:04):
the case, but Dusty literally madeit sound like criticism from bloggers and thirty
year olds made him entire and tweetersdon't forget tweeters and tweeters. So yeah,
I mean that was something that said, you know what, I don't
want to deal with this anymore.I'm too old. And he even said
in that podcast basically, if Icould just show up, manage a game
and go home. That that wouldbe cool. But you know, he's

(03:24):
got twoday availabilities with us on theMatt Thomas Show that he came on every
week. He's got to be inthe dugout before every game. He's got
to speak and get criticized basically behindevery post game. And that's part of
the job in sports and sool baseballbasketball. You meet with the media before
every game, and you meet withthe media after every game. And sorry,

(03:44):
sometimes you have to explain your decisions. And if you're a manager,
you should have thick skin and youshould stand by your convictions and go,
well, look it did work out, but that was just a decision I
made the moment, and that's fine. But Dusty had this weird thing of
having to feel like he was defendinghimself all the time. And it was
a thing where I don't think peoplewere questioning his decision making. They just
wanted it. Well the media,right depend just wanted an explanation for the

(04:09):
fans on why you did this exactlylike we said when we were covering in
Minnesota and we covered that Alds series, like Rockobaudelli, he was asked questions,
hey, why are you going withthis guy in the lineup? And
he didn't take a fence. Hedidn't feel like it was a personal attack.
He said, well, these arethe reasons that I'm doing this,
And we got that a lot fromaj Hinch before him. It was more,
hey, okay, I understand you'regonna create You know, it comes

(04:31):
with a job no matter what.You're the manager, whether you're the manager
of a Wendy's or you're the manageror a head coach anywhere, you're gonna
get questions and people are gonna thinkthey're smarter than you and question your decision
making. It's up to you toarticulate why you made these decisions. And
I think, yeah, Dusty Bakerdid feel like he was taking personal offense,

(04:53):
like, hey, I've got nineteenhundred hits, I've got a World
Series championship as a player and amanager, you shall not question me.
I do think there was some ofthat hardened attitude that he had, and
right or wrong, it was somethingthat irked him and rubbed him the wrong
way and probably did help contribute tohis exit. But also the fact that

(05:14):
he was just the age that hewas the good thing is the more time
goes on from Dusty and we willlook back fondly on the years he had
here. He's wanted two managers toget them over the hump and win a
World Series. Yes, he willbe beloved in Astro's history for that.
Aj Hinch and his has the asterisknext to it, you know, tru
that not Baseball puts on it,but baseball fans. But bet Dusty won

(05:36):
the clean one, and so hewill in my mind years from now he
will always be remembered. Back forthe twenty twenty two World Series, the
legacy was cemented. They whether theywant to admit it or not, you
kind of needed that. We asAstros fans, like we needed that to
say, oh, you can putall your asterisks on whatever you want.
The twenty twenty two Astros are WorldSeries champions. You can never take it

(05:57):
away. And GM James Click gota world and now he also got his
exit papers. But so now weturned the page from that. Ross and
Craig Counsel was one of those namesthat was thrown out there, and then
Jeff Passon put out a report.This all happened very quickly, did It
was like Creig counsel will not bewhack with the burrs. Okay, well
you kind of heard that it's verydodgy, like he's gonna be then Ken
Rosenthal right was dropping ahead Rosenthal andpassing both put out he will be a

(06:19):
manager somewhere else, somewhere, andthen they were like and somewhere that already
has a manager. You're like,wow, it is. But I thought
the initial passing tweet, I thought, oh, I wonder if this is
gonna be Jim Crane jumping in andgoing, let's go get Craig counsel.
Because here's the other story that cameout over the weekend from our friend Bob
Nightingale at USA Today. He putout a report, he did a whole

(06:42):
article about the GM meetings Get itstarted in Arizona this week. Yeah,
and then he did like a wholebunch of just little like bullet tidbits at
the bottom of the article. Andone of the bullets was, according to
sources astros GM, Dana Brown ispushing for Joe Aspata to be the next
manager. I thought it was sofunny because at the bottom, the very
bottom of the US Today article,it just kind of falls on you know,
it's just like white noise. ButI took that and went, that's

(07:05):
that's a big deal. There is. Yeah, that Dana Brown is in
that building fighting for SAT going tototal or going to bat for saying I
want Joe Spot as the manager.And it was just funny because it coincided
with this news today and I thought, oh God, is Jim Crane overriding
this and going, I want CraigCouncil. Well, then we find out
Kark Counsel is the Chicago Cubs manager, and that's that. Yeah. See,
that's the interesting thing. And anytimeanything leaks out like that, or

(07:28):
any news comes out, you haveto think about who is this source.
And that's what I'm kind of wondering. Is this Dana Brown or somebody who
represents Dana Brown or somebody with DanaBrown kind of putting out there because I
think Dana Brown doesn't like the whatwe saw reported. Right when the season
was over, you had Brian McTaggart, you had Channel of Rome, you
had others saying this search is goingto be spearheaded by Jim Crane and Jeff

(07:53):
Bagwell, and then after the dustypostgame presser, you had Dana Brown saying,
I think Jim is gonna let medo this. I think he's going
to give me the opportunity to makethe higher And then now you had this
leaking out from pot. I'm justguessing, Like I said, I don't
know. I'm guessing Dana Brown's campsaying he watched Jim Crane's probably from texting

(08:16):
Bob Knightingale sad I would imagine itwas my pick. It would be Joe
a spot. Now I understand ifJim Crane wants to do his due diligence
to go look. And I've saidthis from the get go. Dusty was
one you had to make on thespot kind of because it was we fired
Aj. It's already January, wego to spring training in four weeks,
and we need somebody to step in. So it was very quick. It
was like Bruce Bochie. All thesenames got thrown out there and they very

(08:39):
quickly settled on Dusty. This search, I almost feel like you can take
your time a little bit because thecar is still loaded right, the ferraris
in the garage, the Astros isstill very much set up for success.
But whoever you hire here, Ross, I don't need another rental. I
want to hire somebody that can maybebe the astro's manager for the next decade,
especially if you go younger and aspot of fits the Bill Joe a

(09:01):
spot of fits that that description.But like, don't you get that vibe
that if Crane makes us higher likethey want to, they want to make
sure this guy's going to be hera long time, that this isn't two
years and we're looking for another managertwo years down the road. Well I
hope, Yeah, they're not gonna. I would like somebody under the age
of seventy that would be cool.Apparently Buck Showalter now they're saying is a
finalist for the Angel's job. That'swhat JP Morosi is putting out there.

(09:26):
Yeah, I'm okay, Like,just take him off the Ashos list.
I'm sorry. Nothing against Jim BuckShowalter personally, who was Manager of the
Year last year, but I justdon't want another old guy who's who's a
retreat personally, Like somebody more younger, more forward thinking, all those types
of things. So, uh,you can say, yeah, you can
take all the time you want,but what if other guys that you want
are getting hired away, Like ifCraig Counsel was one of the top guys

(09:50):
that they were looking at. Well, now he's gone and you're probably not
matching that money that the Cubs gaveanyways and making him far and away the
highest paid manager in baseball, andfeels like that was what was making him
end up as as the Cub's manager. But yeah, I don't know.
And if it was going to beJoe Spotta, then then what are we
waiting for? And who did you? I mean, you know who Joe
Spotta is. Who did the Metsjust sire Carlos Mencia that would because or

(10:15):
something Mendoza for the Mets. Sorry, And then there was with the Phillies,
got a Ramos Yessar Ramos, Wellthat's bullpen coach. Actually, you're
trying to keep a track of themall. They they have what's his face
there for a while. So butno, the Mendoza apparently was very well
respected with the Yankees and uh beenin baseball while so he'd been there bench

(10:35):
coach, I believe for the lastfour years. Yeah, So the Mets
get Carlos Mendoza, the Cubs getCraig Counsel. So now Milwaukee's got to
find a manager and the Guardians arestill looking for somebody that the Guardians just
got Stephen Vogue. Oh so theydid. Yeah, so yeah, that's
another thing. If you wanted Stephenvote they interview vote yes, yes,

(10:56):
the the Cleveland Guardians and then theypost stayed like a very f Scott's Fitzgerald
font on their thing. For whateverreason. I don't know why. They
look like they're making like an artdeco nineteen thirty. It'still weird. Like
hiring catchers. It's so weird,Like a catcher retires and within two to
three years a manager. Let's go, those are the guys. Those are
the guys, thoose are the guysyou want? Well, the Cubs just

(11:18):
moved on from Ross. You knowA J. Hinch was a former catcher.
You know, it's just more andmore these It's like it's like middle
linebackers cash. You have the guythat's scanning the field, is game planning,
that is the coach on the field, that type of thing like,
okay, that interviewed Martine Meldonan I'mnot saying uh, I would say I

(11:43):
would be shocked if that happened.Yeah, but it's been whispered. I'm
not even joking. All right,Well, coming up next, we are
going to get into part two ofthis live edition of the Crawford box Cast.
Chris Cordy Ross verreal. We gota Gold Glove winner, we got
a forty man transaction move, wegot plenty more. We got to get
to talking all things out Astros.Here on a live edition of the Crawford
box Cast on Sports Talk seven toninety And for those of you listening on

(12:07):
the podcast, we continue on witha live edition of the Crawford box Cast
presented by Carbock Brewing. And look, just because the season is over doesn't
mean you guys need to stop drinkingthe Crawford back. It goes great with
football, goes great with basketball,it goes great with everything. But if
you have a bit out there,the weather is absolutely beautiful out there at
Carbock Brewing right now. So headon out there, sit in the beer

(12:28):
garden, enjoy some bruise, andenjoy that Crawford Bock. As we count
down the days to the start ofspring training in Ross some more Astros tidbits
coming out of the weekend. Ofcourse, the managerial search still going on.
But first and foremost, shout outto Mauricio dubonn nyes A Rawlings Golden
gold Glove Award winner as a utilityman. That man played just about every

(12:50):
position for the Houston Astros this year. Sixty six starts at second base,
of course, in the absence ofthe injured jose L Twove to start the
year, twenty three starts at centerfield, nine starts at shortstop, six
starts in left field, and twostarts at first base. What an absolute
stud who was a great defender atevery spot he played. Yeah, I

(13:11):
mean, if you're talking about liketwo guys that are Astros MVP or unsung
MVP, it's probably Mauricio Dubon andJP France and Dubon what he did at
the play early on in the season, hitting over three fifty all that type
of stuff, and he did comecrashing back down to earth and was more
around his season averages or I wouldsay career averages, but still above and

(13:31):
still pretty solid. But that wascrazy to see how good he was at
second base and how he blossomed intosuch a good defender out there. He
improved at center field as well,and I mean to the point where when
he was at like three point fiftyand playing as well as he was at
second base. We literally took calls, Now of course they were weird Yahoo's,

(13:52):
but we took multiple calls of peoplesaying, all right, what do
you do with Jose al Tuve nowthat Dubond's taken over at second base?
It's okay you put al Tuove backbecause he's Jose al Tuove. But that's
how that's a testament to how goodhe was playing and how good he looked.
So, I mean, for aguy that what was it? Was
it? Michael Propierski? Yeah,was that the guy traded and then immediately

(14:13):
let go by the San Francisco Giants. I mean credit to our man James
Click for making that move and gettingDubon, who some people wanted off the
team last year but continue to growand get better at the plate and in
the field. Yeah. Two shoutoutsto James Click on today's podcast. A
few other notes here the uh freeagency is about is getting underway. The

(14:37):
Astros did have several players elect freeagency a week ago. That includes Martin
Maldonado, Michael Brantley, Phil Maton, and Ryan Stannik. And then on
Saturday, Ross Hector Narrows had aplayer option with the Astros. He opted
out of that obviously because he's gonnamake a lot of money hitting in the
open mart. So those are thefive guys I think we talk about heading

(14:58):
into free agency. The Astros liketo have any of them back. I'm
sure you know Mayton and Stanic,maybe you could get back on a relatively
cheap deal. Hector and ir isgonna cost a lot of money. But
the way Dana Brown talked about itwith Randy mclvoy KPRC two was basically like,
yeah, we're gonna have to replacethese guys. He didn't make it
sound like they're gonna bring anyone back, and the other two no brainers.

(15:20):
Look, it's time to move onfrom Aldonado because he can't hit, and
it's time to move on from MichaelBrandley. You love what he did here,
but he was on the one year, multi million dollar deal. Anyway,
you were gonna move on from himtoo. Yeah. I would like
to see an outfielder for the future, whether it be via free agency or
in a trade that the Astros aregonna have. I mean, they have
a plethora of arms. I feellike that they could possibly trade away because

(15:41):
you're not gonna be. We're gonnatalk about like eight nine guys that can
be possibilities for the rotation come nextyear, depending of course on the long
term health of Lance Colors Junior andLuis Garcia. So I would love some
outfield help. And then as faras those arms, it's unfortunate. I
think the best of them, ofcourse was Henaris. But you also are
talking about a thirty four year oldwho is coming off a career year,

(16:04):
and you made a mistake. Ifeel like last year when you had it,
what is he with? What's Montero? Thirty two, thirty three years
old and was coming off of acareer year. So I like Nerris.
He came up in huge moments,but look think about how many times he
put so many guys on base andjust magically got out of a situation that's
hard to sustain year over year.So his er number was hugh of not

(16:29):
huge. It was also great.It was extremely low. But if you
look at some of the other numbers, the field in't depend in pinching and
stuff like that, it wasn't asgood. So you kind of look underneath
the hood and maybe Hector Naris didn'thave as good of a year as as
the RA number says, so youfeel like if he continues to play with
that fire and gets a year older, I'm actually I know this might be

(16:51):
unpopular. I'm okay with moving onwith Hector Naris because of the career year
that he had and then the otherguy's standing in Mayton. You'd like to
have them, but it just feelslike the easiest thing to replace in baseball
is middle reliever type of guy,like six seventh inning guys. I would
like to have both of them.I would like to have all three of
them back, but it depends onwhat numbers, And like you said,
sounds like Dana Brown has basically mentallymoved on from all three. A quick

(17:15):
roster mote note made on Monday,the Astros outrighted Eno le Paradas their reliever
off, taking them off their fortyman roster. They they sent him to
Triple A. He pitched all theyou know, the whole year in Triple
A sugar Land last year and theIRA of around four eighty. Now it's
a hitters the league in the PCL, but not not great numbers. Did

(17:37):
he did he have a good Septemberor something? Because it was way worse
than four eighty. Yeah, Ithought, Yeah, there was a couple
outings he pitched better in, butI think fifty two games he appeared in.
That was a guy that was reallyone of those fun stories of twenty
twenty. Uh huh where in theCOVID year the bullpen really pitched well that
year and it was a bunch ofrandom guys. It was him, who's

(18:00):
my other guy with the beard,the white guy Blake uh oh, Blake
Taylor or Milake Taylor. Yeah.Yeah, he came out of nowhere,
and I mean Luis Garcia emerged thatsea. But Paradus was like, whoa
who is this guy? He was? He was great and then it just
never really clicked after that. Intwenty twenty one, he got some opportunities

(18:21):
with think he locks too many guysand the look, yeah, the control
and it was funny. I talkedabout him and Blake Taylor and guys like
that to pitch so well in twentytwenty, but never really repeat it.
I thought Andre scrub Yeah, Ithought Andre Scrubb. I thought the no
fans in the stands was a loteasier for those guys to pitch coming up
from Triple acas like, ah,there's no pressure, and then like when
there were fans back in the standslike, oh god, the pressure is

(18:42):
getting to me. But anyway,we say, we say audios to Noli
Paradis. Uh, we'll see ifhe opts for free agency. That's when
a lot of people are saying,you know, they they quote unquote outrighte
him to triple A. But hecan go where he wants now, or
you can stay Sugar Line if helikes it there. But now, the
Astros roster ross at thirty seven playerswith their forty man. I did see

(19:06):
Force Whitley is still on the fortyman, so we'll we'll see what happens
happens with him. But one namethat I completely missed this. This happened
about about two weeks ago. TheAstros picked up a twenty seven year old
Dominican reliever named Oliver Ortega and hewas with the Twins last year he got
hurt. He was in their minorleague system. I think he made his

(19:29):
debut with the Angels. I wantto say about a year two years ago.
But anyway, it's the guy's youknow, twenty seven. He's not
a spring chicken. But this pitcheda little bit in the big leagues,
but his numbers in Triple A lastyear actually pretty decent. I think like
two eighty three era. So justa name to keep an eye for when
we get the spring. But heis on the forty man But him,
Luis Garcia, and Lance mccullors areall in the IL technical okay, and

(19:52):
I figure Bennetts su'sa pitched very wellfor the Astros down the stretch. He
wasn't eligible for the postseason roster,but he was. Honestly, he was
elect Love to see good, loveto see him back with the Astros and
see what he can do. Butit's it's just so fascinating us because they're
so loaded with so many pitch,so much pitching. I saw people on
social media saying, let's go getBlake Snell, let's go this. I'm

(20:12):
down there. Are not overpaying fora starting pitcher, No, they're probably
not doing that. You do,I mean, but you do have you
have a lot of pitching arms,But how many dependable arms do you have?
Because by the end of the postseason, we were we were it was
a forty year old. It wasthe only guy. We were like,
Okay, this is good, butbleep the bed. You're not moving on

(20:32):
from from bar Valvez. You're notmoving on from Hoveer like you gotta just
you got to figure it out.Is moving on? Getting a new pitching
coach in here maybe the answer.I know a lot of people want Brent
Strom back. Now, my god, Well Josh Miller was They were number
one e ra A the year.But a year ago Josh Miller was still
here. Well, what happened wasyou had a bunch of guys like Ronel
Blanco and Brandon b Lack and andno disrespect to him, JP France,

(20:55):
but he pitched very well. Butdid you know these numbers inflated at the
end of the season, and andor Brown. You had all these young
guys that you weren't factoring to bea factor at all. And then but
the bullpen was good. So Imean the pitching coaches they know how to
work with relievers, but they don'twant to wear with starters. No,
when you had your guys last year, they were the best in the business.
Well, we will have all offseason to discuss. Uh, you

(21:17):
know what, who how this teamwill shape up when get the spring training?
Who they get in free agency andmost importantly Ross, who they get
as the next manager. And bythe time we do the next Crawford box
cast, we may have a newmanager. With the way the speed of
all these teams, I mean allthe teams who made managerial hires already,
it's moving very quickly. I thinkwe will win win, win's the next
one next week, next week,Okay, you know what, I will

(21:40):
gut feeling that we will have anew manager. As say, they are
going to take their time, butwe'll see. Before we get out of
here, Ross, I do needto send a big bleep YouTube Corey Seeger
and the Texas Rangers. They hadtheir World Series parade last Friday. Parade.
I mean some people showed up.It was about two people deep.

(22:00):
I've seen Marty Marty Gras parades havehad bigger crowds, but they're in trucks.
They're literally in truck beds. There'snot any fire engines in the whole
city of Arlington or any double deckerbuses. It was embarrassed. I was
embarrassed for them. But as weknow, when the Astros won the division,
they had their clubhouse celebration. AlexBregman got up addressed the team and
said a lot of people wondered whatit would be like if the Astors didn't

(22:22):
win the Division. He said,I you know, I guess we'll never
know, and he spraysed the champagne. It was a great moment. Well,
Corey and the Rangers, like theyjust kept using that line back on
the Astros. The Corey Seeker gotup there in front of the fans on
the mic on Friday and said,you know, a lot of people wondered
it would be like if the Rangersdidn't win the World Series. I guess
we'll never know. Look, Igive them credit for trying to be funny,

(22:44):
but that doesn't make any sense.It doesn't apply here because no one
everyone thought the Astros would win theDivision, and so when it looked like
they might not, Okay, thatmade sense. No one thought the freaking
Rangers are gonna win the World Series. So it's not applicable. It doesn't
work. I wasn't wondering it'd belike if we're going to win the World
Series. Nobody was whatever, Sobleep you Corey, Seeger, We'll see

(23:06):
you in a week the ring andit hurts, We'll see you in week
two. They come, we goto the Arlington week two, and then
they come here week three, sovery quickly we will see the Rangers.
And guess what Astros play really wellat Globe Life Parks So globeal Field,
I think, whatever, it doesn'tmatter. The old one was Globe Life
Park, the old aluminum shed.Yeah. So uh, anyway, that's

(23:27):
good to do for this edition ofthe Crawford box Cast. If you're listening
on the podcast what are you waitingfor? Go grab a Crawford Bach from
our friends at Carbock Brewing, anduh enjoy the Astros off season. If
you're listening here on Sports Talk sevenninety, we've got some ut Longhorn basketball
Huge one seasons underway already, Sothat's coming your way right here on Sports

(23:48):
Talk seven ninety. But for Rossv Real, Chris Gordy, we'll talk
to you next week on a newedition of the Crawford box Cast. Keep
you up to date with all theoff season conversation from your Houston Astros