Speaker 1: Let us gentlemen, We've got some breaking news here on
the show. Connor, that's one.
Speaker 2: That's two. Oh we're going three. You want to go four?
Speaker 1: Oh you're going Wait now, this is not a five.
I'm stopping you right here. According to Ken Rosenthal and
Chandler Rome, the Astros and free agent first baseman Christian
Walker are in serious talks and are progressing towards a deal.
Speaker 2: We'll discuss that next.
Speaker 1: Christian Walker an Astro and the best part is he
was not offered a qualifying offer, which means they don't
have to give up a draft pick, or he declined
the qualifying offer, so they'll lose the first round pick.
They will lose their second and fifth round selections in
the twenty twenty five class.
Speaker 2: Who Cares?
Speaker 1: Details on Christian Walker next eleven forty four on Sports
Talk seven ninety seven one three two one two five
seven ninety seven one three two one two five seven
ninety more Matt Thomas Show with Ross Now on Sports
Talk seven ninety Another one's on its way. Christian Hacker
has taken over Tomser Stadium.
Speaker 2: There is no explanation for this.
Speaker 1: It just goes on and on and on.
Speaker 2: It's amazing. He's not even cracking a spile.
Speaker 1: This defies all logic.
Speaker 2: My goodness, stay in that bubble, Christian Walker.
Speaker 1: According to Jim Bowden of MLB Network, Chandler Roman on
it as well Ken Rosenthal, Uh, it sounds like good
and Bowden says, as long as the Astros and Christian Walker,
the physical goes okay. He is now a Houston Astro.
Reports were he was looking for a four year deal.
Whether or not that is what the Astros gave him,
we do not know. They are not particulars being reported
at this point. But Christian Walker is your new first baseman.
Isach Peretties, who the Astros got in the Kyle Tucker
trade is your new third baseman? And Ryan Hollins that
will officially, I shouldn't say officially, but that basically closes
the door on Alex Spregman possibly coming back to be
Houston Astros. So the new Astros infield apparently is set
for twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: That's huge, man, and you know what it says. It
shows you how serious the Astros are about winning. And
some were worried kind of with the free agent of
the trade. Rebelings that you know was this the group
that just gonna kind of tear it down and start over.
The Astros said, no, no, no, no, weird gearing up to
go after another World Series. Man, this is exciting news.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The numbers for him last year two fifty one batting average.
He had twenty six home runs, drove in eighty four.
His OPS was eight oh three, which is considered good.
His ops plus where our friend Rossvillereral, if you're one
hundred year considered an average player, his OPS plus was
one twenty one. He's thirty three years old, he is
a first baseman. His career ops plus is one fourteen,
his career ops is seven ninety three, and the Astros
apparently are going to be grabbing him now. I want
to make sure I'm clear on the compensation. Nothing that
really matters. If it indeed is true, the Diamondbacks will
be owed from the Astros a second and fifth round
pick in next year's draft. Traft picks, especially in professional baseball,
are diamond Dozen. You want him to hit, obviously, because
you're replenishing your minor league system, but you don't have
to worry about John's ingleton playing majority of first base.
You don't to worry about Eastsik Perette is being the
first baseman, trying to figure out what you can do
at third base.
Speaker 2: Your infield is set. So it has been an interesting week.
Speaker 1: Last Friday, Ryan, they got rid of Kyle Tucker, and
that certainly sends shock waves. Letting a guy go with
a year love in his contract. You got a third
basement in return, now you replace it with the first baseman.
While again it's good news because you're not adding another
power hitting guy to a corner infield spot. Bregman now
has one less team that would be going after him.
I think the dollars and cents were there. My guess
is that Alex Bregman's representation told the Astros thanks, but
no thanks, and now it's going to be down to
some other teams. So we can now can officially be
mentally prepared to see Alex Bregman wearing a different jersey
in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: It's a part of the business sometimes. Yeah, you know,
obviously we don't know sure some level of those reports
are going to end up coming out, but heads off
to Ashole's because a lot of times, man, you can
up in a free agency and while you might say
this is not the perfect pick, but you.
Speaker 2: Can swing and miss.
Speaker 3: So to come out with the best defensive minded you know,
first basement in baseball right now, I think that's huge.
And that's something Again, you got an organization that's still
very serious about winning. Now going into the dark age,
it's not gonna, you know, go step backwards, you know,
and you gotta be excited for the For the Astros
fan base, this is this is big time.
Speaker 2: This is great news. Mm mmmmm.
Speaker 1: Now again Jim Bounden saying it's based off of physical
being completed. And again I don't I don't know much
about his history. He is thirty three years of age,
he played on I'm gonna take a look at his
career numbers. You just see what he has done the
last few years. That's my computer tries to refresh here.
Six feet two o eight throws right place, first base,
right handed. Obviously, let me look at his bioinformation here.
Speaker 2: It's terrible.
Speaker 1: Meant to look at the internet while I'm trying to
a radio show at the same time. I know this
is not good. It's not good, Okay. In twenty twenty three,
he batted, had thirty three home runs, one hundred and
thirty one hundred and three RBIs. He's had won two
to two thirty plus home run seasons. He had a
twenty six home run year last year with Arizona. He
had twenty nine for the Diamondbacks in twenty nineteen. He
started his major league career very short amount of time
at Baltimore, but the majority of his career from twenty
seventeen to twenty twenty four as a member of the
Arizona Diamondbacks. Okay OPS plus OPS career, baut I have
seven ninety three. His high water mark of OPS was
eight twenty five in that twenty nineteen season, act and
twenty twenty three and OPS of eight thirty dropped a
little bit this year. Played one hundred and thirty games
this past season, the year before that one fifty seven,
the year before that one sixty, So it's been fairly
durable as a major leaguer. We'll give you more detail
on him as we move along here. Ryan, I appreciate
you hanging out with you today.
Speaker 2: It was fun.
Speaker 1: A little baseball breaking news in the middle of the
show was interesting, uh you learning about bull riding was interesting,
and we did get video of Vanessa actually on the
video bull riding a couple of years back. So I
hope you get a chance to see that.
Speaker 2: Where where's this video at? It's on my Twitter? Can
go look it's on your Twitter? Let me go, Yeah
go look that's her. Wow. Very talented, right she is? Yeah?
All right, and please.
Speaker 1: Bundle up because you're gonna're gonna be in Toronto tomorrow.
I'm gonna freeze our rare ends off. You know this, right,
stir fry. Maybe I've told the audiser for how much
you love the stir Fry.
Speaker 2: It's it's what you live for.
Speaker 3: I do, I do. It's with you, Matt.
Speaker 2: It's our thing.
Speaker 1: It's it is our thing, it is our thing. You
are my guy too. Thank you, Ryan, Well to see
you on the plane tomorrow, friend, thank you for visiting.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 2: That's Ryan Hollands a Space City Network. All right. So
we got a lot to get the news, and noon's
going to be chock full of stuff.
Speaker 1: We got Texans, we had the Rockets winning last night,
and we had the Astros apparently ridiculously close to grabbing
a new first basement. Eleven fifty six is our time.
If you want to jump in on not only Christian
Walker coming here. But this is it for Bregman. Are
y'all mentally ready to him to sign somewhere else? Now
it's there's no chance, it's it's zero percent chance.
Speaker 2: Perette's at third Walker at first.
Speaker 1: Provided everything works, you know, on the semantics of the
contract and whatnot, We're done.
Speaker 2: That's it. Alex Bregman is no longer going to wear
an astro Ji uniform. Let me know how you think
about that.
Speaker 1: Seven one three two one two five seven ninety seven
one three two one two five seven ninety.
Speaker 2: It is the Matt Thomas Show with Ross. The News
at Noon is coming up in a minute.
Speaker 1: We are going to wake the strippers up, maybe some
more Christian Walker highlights.
Speaker 2: Do you think of the News at Noon?
Speaker 3: Connor?
Speaker 2: Will that be a part of the U the opening conversation?
I can do that. We can do that.
Speaker 1: We gotta get people ready for it, especially if Robert
Ford's gonna be calling a lot of those home runs
for him. Seven one three two one two five seven ninety.
So Christian Walker apparently is super super close to signing
with the Houston Astros to replace whatever combination of first
base the Astros had last year. Especially after the Jose
of Braved situation went so bad seven one three two
one two five seven Nintye