Astros Beat Writer Chandler Rome Talks All Things Astros This OffSeason

Astros Beat Writer Chandler Rome Talks All Things Astros This OffSeason

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's spend ten calling minutes with Chandler. Roma's not mess around.
He's got a flight to catch. Hopefully he's in first class. Chandler,
let's just knock out the coaching stuff first. Anything interesting
about the new hires are still to be determined about
how this organization shapes up. On guys behind Joe Spotta, Well.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
I am an offensive coordinator, Matt, So you're gonna have
to alter your pre show tweets. Now you know you
can talk. You can talk about Nick Kayley and then
whoever you can talk about Nick Cayley and Anthony Ioposse.
Who is going to be the Astros I'll send Actually, no,
Dan Hennigan is the Astros offensive coordinator. He's a guy
that's he's a biomechanics guy. He's a new age kind

(00:41):
of coach. He's been in the organization for a year.
He's gonna be in charge of like game planning and
advanced scouting and kind of a data side of things.
Victor Rodriguez is the number one hitting guy. He is
the lead hitting coach. And Anthony Iopasse you will work
alongside him. So one thing Dana said yesterday is they
wanted to have to find roles for these guys. They

(01:03):
wanted to have a clear hierarchy of responsibilities, of duties,
of things these guys do. That's something that with Troy
Snicker and Alex Centron they didn't really have. They just
kind of shared the hitting coach title and kind of
divided their responsibilities pretty evenly.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
Let me ask you this because I've been telling the
audiences and if I'm wrong, please correct me. Uh, it
was it harder to get really good guys because of
the lame duck status, so of both Dana and Joe.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
I mean, it's certainly not nothing, but you know, you
do look at the two guys that they hired. You know,
Victor Rodriguez, Mike Schilt retired with the Padres, so he
needed a job. Anthony Ioposse was not returning to aj
Hinch's coaching staff and Detroit so again needed a job.
You know, look that they talked to, They talked to
a lot of different guys. They talked to a lot

(01:49):
of you know, current hitting coaches elsewhere. They talked to
guys out of the game. You know, I don't know
that the lame duck status had much to do with it.
I just you know, My feeling, Matt, is you know
the play so the ones swinging the bats, the players
are the ones playing the game. Like you could tell
me that they hired any hitting coach Joe Smith, John Smith, whoever. Like,
it's up to the players to go out there and perform. Now,

(02:10):
can the messaging and the philosophy and kind of what
they're putting in their ears and their eyes, could that
improve or could that be streamlined? Sure? But at the
end of the day, this is a player's game.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
I read your tweets NonStop from Las Vegas. I was,
I don't want to say blown away, but I was
more than just normally surprised about the health of some
really important people, namely Jordan Alvarez and essach Peredes. Eastside
did everything he could to come back and at least
pinch hit in DH for this team. But when you

(02:39):
said he may not be ready for the start of
spring training, is there any second guessing of maybe he
should have just gone ahead and had the surgery, so
maybe he would have been ready for the start of
next season.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Well, no, if Matt, if you'd had the surgery, they
were looking at a six month recovery for that surgery,
so he would have definitely not been ready for the
start of the season had he had the surgery. Okay,
you know, I think part of it too is just,
you know, these guys don't the minute the offseason ends,
these guys kind of rest a little bit. So a
lot of this may just be these guys have rested,
you know, when the season did end, and now they're

(03:10):
just kind of ramping up activity. And so with Jordan
Alvarez jogging sixty five to seventy percent, that's just his
gradual ramp up. You know, Paradus was always going to
probably be a little bit behind going in the spring training.
I don't think they're concerned that he won't be ready
for the season, but yeah, you could see him maybe
a week or so behind people when they get to camp.

(03:31):
But that was to be expected, and I think it's
even more admirable now in hindsight that he came back
and gave them what he could that last two weeks
of the season.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
General Athletic Astros Beat reporter whether it's from Las Vegas
at the general manager meeting, So for the audience that
doesn't know give the essence of a general manager's meetings
as compared to the Winter Meetings, which will be coming up.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
So it's kind of the same thing, but it's a
little bit on a smaller stage. At the GM meetings,
you know, but the Winter meetings, the managers go, the
clubhouse attendants go, the traveling secretaries go, everyone in baseball
goes to the Winter meetings. The GM meetings is a
little bit more low key. The gms are there, obviously,
all the agents are there, and it's just a little

(04:14):
bit more of like a foundation laying thing. You know.
This is where you go and teams will meet with
all the agencies there and they'll start saying, oh, okay,
well this free agent's looking for this years and this
kind of money. They'll meet with other teams like, oh
this this guy's available in trades. So they'll kind of
lay the foundation here and then over the next month
keep working toward it and then you know, the Winter

(04:35):
Meetings is where you see transactions happen. But yeah, it's
it's a lot of standing around, a lot of networking,
a lot of late nights, it's watering holes because everything
everything happens around the bar. So yeah, just it's it's
kind of the kickoff of the off season. If you will.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
Aam Smith finished his twelfth and the Rookie of the
Year and the American League side of things, and then
your quotes and your story to today is about the
fact that he may not be guaranteed a roster spot
heading into spring training. Those are not words that you
put into Dana's mouth, but I'm curious the context behind it.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Yeah, that was probably to me the most newsworthy, kind
of revelatory thing he said yesterday. You know, it certainly
wasn't a situation where Dana was being negative or down
on Cam Smith, but you know, he said, look, this
is a production game and he's got to produce, and
we've got to be open mind. This was Dana's quotes.
So we have to be open minded to the thought

(05:30):
that if he doesn't produce and he doesn't have the
adjustments that we need him to make this offseason, that
we could send him to Triple A. And that you know,
you watched him last year toward the end. If that
team wasn't as injured as it was, and if that
team didn't have a lack of options behind him, I
think Cam Smith would have probably been in the minor leagues,
you know, toward the end of last year because he

(05:50):
really fell off in the second half. It was a
snowball effect of a lot of things. But which fascinates
me though, is like if he is not penciled in
as the everyday right fielder, and if he's not going
to spring training with a guaranteed roster spot, like you know,
they can't just they've got to have some insurance behind him.
Does that mean they're in the outfield market. Does that

(06:11):
mean that they may be, you know, trend toward keeping
Hey Sus Sanchez instead of you know, maybe trading him
or non tendering him because they need that some insurance
behind Cam Smith. Does this mean Zach Cole is a
bigger piece of the puzzle. Just means maybe they're reticent
to trade Jake Myers, who they're getting a lot of
calls on because his value has never been higher. It

(06:32):
opens up a lot of questions as to kind of
how they're going to proceed this offseason. Sounded listen, Dana yesterday,
It sounded like they have some work to do in
their outfield. His exact words, when they need to firm
up the outfield. I'll be interested to see kind of
what how Cam's status how that kind of affects what
they do on the open market.

Speaker 1 (06:50):
A couple more minutes here with Chandler were surprised that
Christian Walker was poop pooed by Dana about being a
trade target.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
I would read that quote a little more carefully. Nowhere
did he say I'm not trading Christian Walker. All he
said was, we haven't talked about Christian Walker in trades,
and Christian Walker's our everyday first basement. Both of those
things can be true. On November eleventh, I still think
they're going to have to find a way to solve
this infield logjam I personally, barring an injury, I personally

(07:23):
can't see how they carry both Paradis and Walker and
get them every day at bats. And for the money
you're paying these guys twenty million to Christian Walker and
about ten million to Escoc Paradus, those are guys that
need to be in the lineup every day. And you know,
Dana was a little more forceful and a little more
assertive that they don't want to trade Escock Paradus. His

(07:45):
quotes on that were very a little more illuminating and
a little more You can tell they had some weight
and some heft behind them. I think the Christian Walker one.
I think, quite frankly, it was a non denial denial.
It was on November eleventh. Yes, maybe they haven't discussed
Christian Walker in trades, and maybe he is. And he's
certainly as of today is there everyday first basement, But

(08:07):
that certainly could change.

Speaker 1 (08:08):
Yeah, I saw that too, and I'm like, wait a minute,
that doesn't I don't care who you want to get
rid of, you Eastark Prady should be the first basement
of the team next year. I mean, I don't know
any other way to say it. And again, the only
reason why you would not pencil him in today obviously
is how his hamstring is. But that's something for down
the road. Okay, Look, Dylan Sees was on the radar
for the Astros of the trade deadline. It did not happen.

(08:30):
But you know, in wrapping this up, Chandler, when Jim
Crane's got somebody on the mine on the brain, he
goes after guys I E. Josh Hater, I E. Justin Verlander.
How serious do you think at the end of the day.
It doesn't mean they're gonna grab him, but how intense
do you think Dylan sees conversations will be with the
Houston Astros.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
I think they'll check in. I mean, certainly, if they
had interested him at the trade deadline, then obviously, you know,
they haven't lost interest in the two months since. I
find it hard to believe that they'll get to the
years and the money that Scott Morris will want for especially,
you know, this is an organization under Jim Crane that
the most they've ever guaranteed to a pitcher and free
agency is ninety five million dollars, and that was the

(09:09):
Josh Hater who pitches one inning. You know. The most
they've ever guaranteed the starting pitcher in Crane's ownership ten years,
eighty five million dollars to Landsome Colors. It's going to
take more than that. It's going to take years. It's
going to take money. And I'm here to tell you
they don't want to go over the luxury tax, at
least not right now. They don't want to go over
the luxury tax this winter. So that's another reason why

(09:29):
they're probably gonna have to trade some of these guys
just to get some payroll flexibility, to get some arms
in here. I think there certainly will show interest in dlencies.
I don't see them going to the lengths that Scott
Morris will will want for him. I think you mentioned
Justin Berlander. I think Justin Burlander is a more realistic target,
and I think maybe someone kind of in that middle,

(09:49):
kind of a tour or a free type starter is
probably more what they'd be looking for, maybe other than Dylancy's.

Speaker 1 (09:56):
And very last question, how interested will Hunter Brown be
in the amount of money be Asters and I'm pitching.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
This off season. I mean, look, Scott Boris said it yesterday.
You know they'll listen if the Astros come to them.
But here's the thing, like Scott Boris doesn't. You don't
hire Scott Boris to do a pre ARB extension. You
don't hire Scott Boris to do a pre free agency
extension the Astro's And also it's not as if Scott

(10:21):
Boris won't do an extension. The askers are just gonna
have to blow Hunter Brown away. They're gonna have to
blow the market value away. They're gonna have to give
him a reason to say I'm going to skip free
agency where thirty other teams can bid on me and
the Astros under Jim crane like and it's worked, but
they've never been the team that's gonna blow anybody out

(10:41):
of the water with their contract offers. So I see
this going a lot like how all the other homegrown
superstars have gone, and it's just going to you know,
he's going to play out his kind of final couple
of years and then he's going to head into free
agency where he can get one of those long, big
deals and have thirty teams interested in his services.