Speaker 1: Is The Matt Thomas Show with Ross ten o'clock at
h Town. Good morning, and welcome to a Wednesday edition
of The Matt Thomas Show with Ross. Day number three,
our final get together here from West Palm Beach, Florida
for Astros twenty twenty six spring training coverage. Today on
the show, you will hear live visits with Astros General
manager Dana Brown. Christian Walker is gonna come by as well.
I had a chance this morning to catch up with
Jeremy Paniel. You'll hear that coming up in the first
hour of the show as well, and some of our
best stuff in the final hour of the show, as
we continue to bring you hope to be a very
successful twenty twenty six Houston Astros baseball season. That is
one that was a quagmire twenty minutes ago. Now a delightful,
sunshiny day in West Palm. This is the epitome of
Florida weather. Rain, yes, hard for about ten fifteen minutes,
and then you don't see a cloud in the Scoular's clouds,
but it's definitely starting right up here. Beautiful and breezy
it is right now. Yeah, Yeah, we had to get
our the media scrum with Joe Spotta under the canopy,
right right under the tent. It feels like you want
to get like a George Benson song on Don't You
It is? Yeah, nice, a nice r and b soulful
George Benson song basically one of the one of the
pioneers of yacht rock, George Benson type. There he takes
the royalty checks that he does no rock artists. Oh,
he loves being on the hot rock channel. I know
that he's not a yacht rock her. Is he still
alive George Benson? I will say, don't look, we do
believe or not? Next time, well we use George Benson
is a believer too late. Okay, I'm too curious. Okay. Uh, yes,
he's alive, eighty two years young. Okay, so he's still
got time left of go on a tour if necessary. Right,
we are here again from West Palm Beach, where, honestly,
not a whole lot going on. Today was VIDI was
a photo day with the guys put their uniforms on.
Take the photos that you'll see in publicity promotional ads,
the game programs, the you know, the life, the wall
size thing against Dyke and Park, the kind of stuff
gets shown up that way, so they haven't done a
whole lot. They've had to alter their practice schedule a
little bit today because of the weather, which obviously is
just cleared up beautifully. So maybe they will be good
getting back on the fields as they thought they were
going to. But a lot of stuff was gonna be
in the cages and all getting ready for Saturday's opener
spring training against the Washington Nationals, which is here at
Cacti Park. Again, for those that don't know, the Astros
literally share a complex with the Nationals. The Nationals are
their practice facilities are on the first base side. We
are on the third base side where the Astros are,
and so they'll play each other, I don't know, eleven
twelve times. It feels like during spring training it's it's
the shalk pick. It's easy travels schedule. It's a seven
game set between the Astros and the Washington national They
don't play for you like a super booter. They do that.
They should actually play for the palm beach. Yeah, like
a palm trophy. Yeah, oh yeah, I like that. It's good.
It's a good idea. You know what a good idea? Man, man,
let those marketing people know you should, all right, So
we will again have the live astro guest coming up.
As far as headlines are concerned, there wasn't a whole
lot going on in sports yesterday, and the NBA is
still on their All Star break, so we have to
get to back to baseball. And something that kind of
dropped late in our before the show started early moments
was unfortunately to Yesterday was supposed to be the day
that Tony Clark, the Major League Baseball Players Association chief,
the union chief, was supposed to start his rounds around
Major League Baseball. He goes to every ballpark in spring
training all thirty I mean, he's got to be done
in thirty days, essentially to kind of get the lay
of the land of the labor situation. Well, yesterday was
supposed to be the Cleveland Guardians Day and they canceled it,
coming to find out that he was expected Tony Clark
was expected to resign. Then a report comes out from
Jeff Passing a little bit later after that saying, well,
there are some improprieties with some investments that the players
Union had made with a variety of business ventures, and
that there was maybe some the books were being cooked
a little bit, yes, they're being investigated. And then a
little bit later after that, ROSSI, we come to find
out that Tony Clark now only may be cooking some books,
but he's cooking his sister in law. Come on, man,
you know to say it like that, how would you
let me say it? Then they're not cooking, matt Oh,
they're doing some eating up some Marri Naden making a rue.
All right, that's enough, I'm sorry. Yes, union chief Tony
Clark in an inappropriate relationship with his sister in law
who is also a union employee. Okay, So that that
added additional layers to it, making it a much more
salacious story, and the first thing out of people's minds,
at least on the social media streets and certainly those
that were talking about it was okay, that's terrible. But
was it his wife's sister or was it his bro's wife?
And come to find out it was the sister's wife. Oh,
the the wife's sister. I should say, I'm gonna pregnant.
Pause this Oh great, man, it feels like we need
some soap opera music for this. Yeah, Jonathan, give us
naughtiest theme. It is the theme song to the Young
and the Restless if you can find naughtiest theme. When
you find it, just start playing it, because well, well
we'll wait here in just a second. It's a very
popular soap opera song. Yes, instantly recognizable. Yeah, I mean
even if you don't watch Young and the Wrestlers great
Henry Mancini. Yeah, but yes, and once performed on the
Mike Douglas Show by David hasself. He actually put word
to the so I don't believe you do you go
look it up on YouTube. My son actually found it, okay,
because he thinks not he seems is a banger really
like I mean, not like in banging form. Well, Tony
Clark thinks it's a bank er. Two. Okay, here we go,
Here we go. He found a good job. So not
that there was a right thing to do on this.
This feels all wrong, but the prevailing thought was if
he was going to have an issue. Oh god, this
sounds even terrible to say. Go ahead. The lesser of
two horrible evils is that. Okay, that's right, if you
are the lesser of two horrible evils. Was that it
was his wife's sister as compared to his bro's wife
because huh, that's blood, right, I guess that's what I'm saying. Yeah,
I think there's I think there was a lesser of
two horrific access, and he chose the lesser of the two. Well,
I don't know if he had a choice. I mean,
I don't know. Did he try to make a pass
at his brother's wife, I don't know. I don't know.
I don't even know if his brother's married. His brother
apparently played basketball at University of Washington. Go Huskies. I
don't care if they go or not. So not only
was he working on some shady financial deals with some
other companies that, yes, allegedly allegedly, he allegedly was having
a relationship with his wife's sister and thus the young
and apparently, in Johnny Clark's case, very restless. These are
the days of our lb PA live. As I said
that wrong show, it's close enough. Let me ask you
this question. Why are we running into so many league
players so siation deals with but unsavory leaders. The nfl
PA guy to get let go because he was spending
money on strip clubs. Remember that, I did, I do
remember that?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: What is up with that? Why do these players, I
mean players, excuse me, it's the players associations.
Speaker 3: If you were thinking of that too. I saw that
on Twitter. I chuckled, Why why.
Speaker 1: Can't we not behave ourselves with our findings, with our
team's finances and trying to get away with things?
Speaker 3: This is because they're they have this high power position. Well,
you eventually get caught.
Speaker 1: You just do. I mean, I would say in general,
there's corruption. Oh, put it this way, I guarante power.
My guess is there are other unions in America that
have had shady financial deals. Yeah, this is not foreign
to just NFL and the Major League Baseball players. So
you're bringing up Jimmy Hoffa. Is that what you're going
I'm just saying that that And again, I don't know
if BU a W has these issues, But my guess
is you been far If I typed into Google search
union leader resigns in disgrace, how many hits am I
gonna get caught a few related? Politician designs and resigns
in disgrace, president designs and risk grade coach. Yeah, I
mean it's it's it's a lot of places. This certainly
feels like an old timer. It's your wife's sister and
an employee of the union, and you're getting investigated. And
how is it Thanksgiving dinner going to go this year?
About family functions? That's yeah. I don't think the sisters
are going to be Christmasing together or vacationing. I you
know what, that's Easter Sunday passed. There is a sadness
to it. I mean, those obviously those sisters. I don't
think the sister would say again, everybody's different, but I would.
I would imagine the sister would not say, let by
guns be buy guns like except your apology. I mean,
my guess is probably not not gonna unless the marriage
was not great to begin with. Maybe at some point
she will forgive, but she will never forget. Oh god, no.
So there is a dissolution, dissolution of a sisterhood. That's
that's that's Matt's tragic number one marriage and a marriage.
And Tony Clark's got that long, frothy white beard going that.
Apparently he's gonna find himself in some legal and moral
ethical questions underway for sure. Wow, the day he's supposed
to meet with the Cleveland Guardians. So when Tony Clark's
name was brought up yesterday on the show. I thought,
I said Ross, I said, We're not gonna give us
a whole lot of time because I don't think the
average person really knows what Tony Clark does or necessarily
particularly cares he is a union chief. We're gonna obviously
find out more about the union chief whenever it comes out.
But this was not the headline I was expecting. Twenty
four hours. If we first brought hes up, it got
it got even more salacious. I mean, it was pretty
major that he was on the day he was supposed
to meet with the team because of an investigation that
was that was beadnep as it is. Yeah, this is
not even icing on the cake. What is like a
second cake? Well, apparently Tony Clark had his cake. Here
we go.
Speaker 3: I saw your gears turning. That wasn't as bad as
I thought you were gonna go. Well, what did you
think I was gonna say?
Speaker 1: I saw folks, I saw Matt look up, so I
saw that the hamster wheel turning like he's gonna say
something he should, But that wasn't bad. The key, the
key to the show is pregnant pauses. Occasionally you don't
say something that's gonna get you in trouble. Oh goodness,
all right, Well there's your first segment the show that yes,
we're gonna hear from a Jeremy Paine to the bottom
of the hour love it talk about his impending marriage.
Good for him, Yes, and WBC a little bit. It's
breaking hearts all over Houston. And I did ask him
towards the end of the conversation, what you want to
listen to? You know, Look, you and I have talked
about it, you more me more so than you. I'm
aunt to WBC. Jeremy is fired up for WBC. So
we'll let you have a chance to here straight from
the guy who's gonna be part of the WBC seven
one three two one two five seven nine if you
want to get in today seven one three two one
two five seven nine zero. Apparently, former Houston Chronicle beat
writer John McLain is basically saying, if CJ. Straw gets traded,
he will run naked through a major intersection in Houston.
I will not be there, Uh intersection. I don't want
to be within. I don't know one hundred and fifty
miles of it, Okay, I can I don't know why
John wants feels like the need to get naked for
any reason. I mean, obviously showering would be one of
the reasons, but not to go in public with it.
So yeah, let me just give you all a little
little behind the scenes. Don't do anything that would uber
embarrass yourself. I've been guilty of these things before, and
I've learned my lesson. That's why I make food bets. Okay,
instead of painting your head. Correct, that was a good time.
Once you do that, people will never get that out
of their minds. And normally seven one three two one
two five seven ninety seven one three two one two
five seven ninety Matten Ross with you from West Palm Beach.
This is sports Talk seven ninety. Yeah, this is West
Palm Baby, it's nice. This is yat Rock Stop seven
ninety I thought it was there, it is, matter of fact.
Can we where're driving back to the airport to tak
Now listen to yat Rock No, because I could pump
it into my channel. You listen, You listened to the
same four hundred yacht rock songs your entire life. That's correct.
So for one hour you can step out. You know,
I'm gonna I'm actually gonna pick something. What we want
to put on? A good kid Mad City from Kendrick Lamar. No,
I don't want to that sucks. It sucks. Yeah, it
literally was named one of the top five albums of
all time by whom by Apple Music. I don't trust
Apple Music. Matt Music says it sucks. Okay, well it's
it's in the it's in the top of albums of
all time. I think on the role you're saying, let's
sounds Beach Boys, followed by Kendrick Lamar. Yeah what he
won a Pulitzer Prize. Matthew twenty seven time Grammy winner.
You know what, there's a lot of Academy war movies
out there that sucked too. I don't I don't care.
I don't need I don't need awards.
Speaker 4: How about it?
Speaker 1: If I like it, it's what I okay? How much
have you listened? Many hours?
Speaker 4: Yeah? None?
Speaker 1: I hear it on rocket planes all the time. And
do you see how you're being closed minded here? All right,
You're gonna put on for five minutes and I'm gonna
say it sucks and I don't like it. You're gonna
get mad at me. That's how it works. I'm not
gonna get mad. Yeah you will, Yeah you will not
anymore than normal. All right, it is about Thomas show
with Ross. We are here in West Palm Beach. You'll
hear from Jeremy Paine at bottom of the hour. It
right now, we're gonna go. I don't know have we
ever talked on Ebenezer before on the show? No, okay,
I'm before we get to he wants to talk about
the astros. Uh is this? Are you really, Ebeneezer?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 1: How old are you? Ebenezer?
Speaker 3: Forty five?
Speaker 1: First of all, thank you for calling the show. Secondly,
I'm assuming you don't run into a bunch of other
Ebenezers when you're hanging out with friends and family. Correct.
Speaker 6: No, but I'm the only one.
Speaker 1: Okay, Ebeneezer, fire away, my friend? What do you got today?
Speaker 5: I got a question? Is Cavin Biggio?
Speaker 1: Is that just wishful thinking or do they see something
in him that he hasn't displayed already. Honestly, Ebenezer, I
think it's just a camp body. It would be my guess.
You know, where is he going to start out?
Speaker 7: Is he going to start out triple or where is.
Speaker 4: He going to start out.
Speaker 1: They have not said it yet. He would have to
have an incredible spring to make the team. And apparently
from what he said a couple of days ago when
he first arrived, he's two weeks away from playing games.
So I don't know if he's just behind schedule with
all variety of minor ailments, But this to me was
a let's try to catch light a bottle. He plays
multiple positions, he has some major league experience. It just
has been not the kind of career that I think
has been able to, you know, stay with a team
for a long period of time. So yeah, I think
it's a camp body. And if somebody gets hurt, depth
doesn't hurt. It doesn't make any kind of money. Plus
the Bisuo name certainly doesn't hurt either. Right, all right,
thank you, thank you. Ebenezer. Ebenezer. That was not a
name that crossed my mind when I was thinking about
naming my boys. And he didn't know in the top
five it was on a finalist. Yeah, okay, I don't
I don't think it was. I mean, I only know
if one Ebenezer, well two Scrooge and Ecubon. Oh that's true.
And now we have a through we've a listener, So
thank you, Ebenezer. You're always welcome to call the show.
Forty five years old too.
Speaker 4: All right, there you go.
Speaker 1: So mom and dad were thinking something outside the box
back in what is forty five years ago?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty one? Yeah, okay, you can be retort, Ebbs,
I like that. Okay, what about just easy like it's
an easy e kind of may he rest? Yeah, Eric
Wright got you? All right? Uh yeah, I don't know.
I don't know much about him except that he's just
been just a guy's a major leaguer and that's and
I don't mean to be We're not trying to be disrespectful.
Its just that the name carries o clop because the
last name we brought up his name. First of all,
we felt old because of how old he is. But
also that'll tell you how much of a sought out
after sought after. He's not some young, up and coming prospect, right.
You think of that because we think Craig Biggio's son.
But Kevin Bigio has been around a long time. He's
also taken the Astros deep though at one point he's
going to be thirty one in April. Yeah, that is
so crazy. I know, you know, I when I was
first calling NBA games to be able to say that
I called Kenyon Martin's senior when he was a college
shoot at Cincinnati, and then I'm calling his son's game
in the NBA. That made me feel old. Watching Tim
Hardaway Junior and Tim Hardaway Senior play this. You're not
at the same time, but watching them both play, yes,
makes you feel old. And then Cavin Biggio, who I
remember winning, helping to win a state championship in the
private schools for at Saint Thomas when when dad was
coaching there, makes you feel old. Lebron James is on
the team with his son. It's ridiculous. Yeah, but that's
that's that's nepotism. Okay, he's still on a team with
his son. That's true. Son is of NBA age. His
son is twelve. That would be odd if they draft
him when he was twelve. Well, there were some kids
that recruited out of the fifth grade. Apparently he's of
NBA age and they used like the fifty fifth pick. Yeah, yeah,
all right, We're gonna let you hear from Jeremy Panya next.
He is going to be a husband. Soon he'll get
to a thought or two about the Astros season, the
differences in the clubhouse and WBC. That's all straight ahead. Oh,
we're actually early. I thought it was ten twenty nine.
Has a mistake on that. You're right, we're still hear
from a minute. Well, I can'd see the screen very okay,
it's fine. What nothing?
Speaker 4: What else?
Speaker 1: You guys just laughing at you saying it's fine. That's
a figure catch. It is one of my everybody uses it,
Oh everybody does, yeah, it is what? Yeah, it is fine.
What else going on? Headline? As why there was nothing
in sports going on? It was college basketball, but that's
nuver Gonne. Well, I mean, well, you want to spoil
the news at noon is in ninety minutes away. But
I would say the top that supports news items would
be item would be Patrick Mahomes restructuring his big deal.
And it was a huge deal back then, but there
have been deals that have been trump since then. Yes,
fifty four million of his salary is restructured into signing bonus,
so his cap number is now reduced to thirty five
million basically, so that's probably not even a news item,
except for it's just moving around the count. Look, it's
the average person's like, Okay, what does this do for me?
Does this mean he's going to play longer? Does it
mean that opens now? Obviously what production means. Deducing that
means there's probably gonna be some cap room of the
the Chiefs currently have now. So but that's all I
can take out of it. We'll get to mke cronin later. Oh,
we gotta talk about mc cronin. We'll play that probably
in about twenty minutes from now. Mc cronan, for those
who don't know, it's a coach at UCLA basketball team.
He's a jerk, always been a jerk, no matter wherey's coach,
He's been a jerk, And you can be a jerk,
Rossie when you win, When you get your ass kicked
and you're still a jerk, you're going to feel the
wrath of the social media streets. Yes, that feel about
right on that. Yeah, absolutely so we'll let you hear
a little bit from that as well as Again, he's
just a'm a sweet fella. So when a guy gets
ultimately fire, which he will be, there'll be very few
tears shed in at Paul Pavilion. What happened to UCLA basketball?
What happened to UCLA period? Football teams sucked. They're in
one of the most beautiful cities in the world. They've
got a glorious campus, excellent academics, and it used to
be basically in the West Coast, it was UCLA and
USC fighting for everything, and then everything and then everybody
else got third and fourth. Well, Oregon said, I'll take
some of that money. I'll get some of those athletes.
Washington started to get involved. The Arizona School's got going
on a little bit too. So yeah, but uh yeah,
UCLA basketball is not what it used to be for sure,
all right, as promised Jeremy Pina Up next seven one
three two one two five seven ninety seven one three
two one two five seven ninety Welcome back to Matt.
Speaker 8: Thomas Show with Ross Here on a sports Talk seven
ninety Matt Thomas and ross Villerea with you until two o'clock,
broadcasting live from West Palm Beach, Florida and Astros spring training.
Speaker 1: We got some great interviews coming up for you later
on the show. We should have Ashros general manager Jada Brown.
Christian Walker unfortunately had something pop up yesterday couldn't make it.
He should be joining us later today and also earlier today.
Matt Thomas caught up with Jeremy Paana so some great
stuff with JP three, talking a number of different things,
including the WBC the upcoming season for the Ash Shows,
but started off talking about a personal announcement from one
Jeremy Pania. First of all, congratulations in the engagement. It's
going to event put off season for you. What made
you decide to ultimately this was the time to do it.
Speaker 9: I mean it's something I've been wanting to do for
a long time. Yeah, and you know, I was in season,
she was in season. I feel like the off season
was only the only appropriate time. I didn't want to
do it when she was still playing, you know, I
wanted her to focus on her season and then once
her season was over is green light?
Speaker 1: So who's handling all the marriage plans? Is that going
to be after the season? Are you guys going to
try to talk it out during the year.
Speaker 10: I will talk it out during the year. We'll definitely
plan it during the year.
Speaker 9: And we're kind of both going back and forth both
given inpust but she's doing Muscle Clark.
Speaker 1: I've been married a long time to let her do
all the repular things. Whoever man it have worked out
for you this camp. I mean, you're now one of
the older guys and the team. Is that kind of
crazy to think.
Speaker 9: It doesn't feel like that, you know, I still feel
like like I'm that young kid, you know, with you
coming into my first spring training. You know, I have
all the energy in the world, I have all the
ambitions in the world, and you know, we have a
great team, and I'm excited to be around these guys.
And I still I get excited to be around some
of the guys, you know, learn from that and pick
their brain.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it had to have been I think it
was shrill for everybody, especially you guys. It's October.
Speaker 5: You're not playing games. I mean, did debts How long
did that take?
Speaker 1: The sink in and was there a level of frustration disappointment?
And I got to come back on the field as
soon as possible.
Speaker 9: I mean, I feel like our goal is always to
get into the postseason and make a run in the postseason.
You know, we didn't achieved that last year, which was
tough for us as a whole as an organization.
Speaker 10: But at the same time.
Speaker 9: You know, it's it's time to turn the page, you know,
rober than spring training and you know we have a
new season upon us, and it's time to bounce back.
Speaker 10: You know, it's time to get back into the playoffs
and make a run.
Speaker 1: How was it? It looked like to me watching you
guys that your relationship with Carlos at their base or
was amazing.
Speaker 5: I mean, it took no time for you guys to
transition together right right.
Speaker 9: You know, Carlos has been great to me since the
first day I got to the organization, you know, spring
training twenty nineteen, and I got to hang out with
the team quite a bit.
Speaker 1: You know, Joe A.
Speaker 9: Spota kind of took it upon himself to get me
playing time with the mob games in spring training. So
I would come from the minor league side and hang
out with the big leaguers, and you know.
Speaker 10: It was pretty cool, Pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Does that happen a lot? I mean, that's a pretty
special situation for you to be able to be with
those guys so early in your career.
Speaker 9: I mean, guys usually get the opportunity to come up
and play back up some games, but I feel like
Joe was make me back up almost every single game.
You know, I feel like I was barely in minor
league spring training, and I feel like I was over
and I didn't play much. You know, I would come
into the eighth inning, get one, not back. I was
coming to ninth in just play defense. But just being
around those guys, man, it was special because you get
to pick their brains, you know how the big leaders think,
you know, and.
Speaker 10: It's exciting for me.
Speaker 1: So do you look back at that and go, Man,
I made some mistakes when I was younger, or I
just kind of just soaked everything in.
Speaker 9: I mean I try to soak everything in. Yeah, you know,
if you look back at the team we had twenty nineteen,
like it was unbelievable.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 9: I had guys like Michael brand Lee around me. You know,
I had guys like Josel Tuve around me.
Speaker 10: It was it was special, special for sure.
Speaker 1: Do you find younger guys coming to you asking those
same kind of questions that you were asking four or
five years ago.
Speaker 10: I feel like they asked better questions than I did.
Speaker 1: I was just quiet.
Speaker 9: I feel like these guys are very confident. You know,
they know what their game is. You know, they love
picking people's brains. But I was more shy, you know,
I was kind of just they're looking trying to learn
by scene.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 10: I was never want to just approach someone and.
Speaker 9: Ask them a question, you know, But if they open
that door for me, then I felt the confidence, you know.
Speaker 10: Keep talking about it.
Speaker 1: Got more questions here with Jeremy Pineau, Jose's back at
second base primarily, and look, I think what he did
last year in volunteering himself in the left field, everybody's
going to do that, and maybe ten years down the
road they may ask you to go to third base
something like that. What is that like watching a guy
like that go to a new position for the good
of the team. But you know, in his heart hearts,
he wants to be a second base.
Speaker 9: I mean, it says a lot about the type of
person he is and the type of player he is.
You know, he's a player that's always going to do
what's you know, best for the team. He wants to
see the team do good. You know, he wants to
see the team win. You know, he's been here through
the ups and the downs of this team. You know,
from when he first got to the big leagues to
winning the world multiple World Series, you know, so I
feel like Altuva is very.
Speaker 10: Is very inclined to help in this team win two.
Speaker 9: Is a player that you know, he tries to make
everyone better and if that meant last year, trying to
move to left field and makes the team better than
you know. He's a guy who just put in the
lineup and he's gonna find a way to help the team.
Speaker 1: What do you want to get accomplished here? I know
that Joe mentioned a few weeks ago that maybe some
of the older guys won't have to play as much
as spring training. Have you kind of mapped up a
schedule what you'd like to see done for yourself in
terms of playing time.
Speaker 10: I mean, I'm gonna have to play quite a bit.
Speaker 9: I'll be playing pretty early spring training because of the
World Baseball Classes, so you know, I'm preparing a little
earlier than.
Speaker 1: I usually do.
Speaker 9: But yeah, I'll be playing right away and join my
Dominican Republic team and go from there.
Speaker 5: How amped for you for that? Because here's the thing
we argue about this on my Radiaro show about the
importance of it.
Speaker 1: I can't be in your skin because some man of
your guys like yourself in other countries have said, this
is such an important event. So to wrap this up,
what makes this WBC, even though it's every three years,
so important for guys like yourself, I'm.
Speaker 9: A special It's special. I feel like you grow up
admiring these guys that represent our country.
Speaker 11: You know.
Speaker 9: You admire the arbrapool Holes, you know, the Miguel Tahadas,
you know, and they never had a problem with putting
on that uniform and represent our country, you know. And
you know what they did in two thousand and thirteen,
I believe when we want the w B money, Yeah,
two thoy thirteen, when we were in the WBC, the
whole country, it was like a big celebration, you know.
And I remember I was in I was in high school,
and that's memory, vivid moment for me, you know, core memory.
You know, Robinson Cano, like, I admired all those guys,
you know, and they brought the trophy home and it
was special for us, and I hope to you know,
kind of give the country that same glory. You know,
we have a great team to do it, and they
were going to go enjoy ourselves and compete, appreciate, Thank you, we.
Speaker 1: Can't live in their shoes. They all live in ours.
We don't live in There's the competitive juices for national
bragging rights and pride is immense. I can't find anybody,
even with among Team USA players that just aren't completely
amped about this thing. I'm just scared to death. I
think it's abnormal for a spring training to be interrupted
by such high level games. There isn't a good time
for it.
Speaker 4: But I I don't like it.
Speaker 1: But we do a segment on Thursday's called I just
don't get it. Yeah, I get it, I get it. Yeah.
I mean it's it's not our decision to make. We
come from the lens of Astros fans, and we also
come from we've been burned before, to where jose Al
Tuve unfortunately had a situation where he broke his hand,
and it could happen in spring chaining, could happen anywhere,
but it happened in the WBC. So because of that,
we're scared about our Astro players getting hurt. But they
are human beings with their own thoughts and feelings and
wants and desires to play for it, to represent their country,
which I totally get, and so they Jeremy Panne wants
to do that apparently. You know, Korey and al Tuve
wanted to do it as well, but they ran into
some insurance issues and and all that stuff. And Jeremy
Payne is going to play for the Dominican Republic. I
wish him the best and I wish him health. Yeah,
that's the last thing you want is for a guy
that's going to be giving it is all diving for
a ground ball to hurt, a strain of rim muscle
or anything like that. Just come back healthy, That's all
I gotta say. I just think in fandom for what
first we can you know how people sometimes get mad
when a certain player goes out after a big loss, Like, yeah,
they're human beings. They're gonna go like like you've talked
about as well, Matt, like these guys don't wear things
the way the fans do at all, And when they're
not wearing an Astro's jersey, it's just it's hard to
maybe wrap our heads around about them playing for Dominican
Republican having the desire to do that because we're just
seeing it from a different lens. Well, I'll say this,
and to the argument that has brought up all the
time about well, this injury could happen in a spring
training game. That indeed is accurate, But there's something less
i mean, flippant, more reassuring to say, well, at least
he was in our camp. At least it happened while
he was wearing our gear, as compared to going to
somewhere where that was just truly optional. And I think
that's what the mentality should be, is that, you know what,
if jose L Twoba pulls a hamstring while running the
bases in a spring training game, You're upset about that, clearly,
but at least he's doing it because he's getting himself
ready for an astro season. These WBC have way more
elements of here and now in championship and playing hard
when you're gonna burst, use that kind of energy. Ross
you want the energy to be used for playing for
your home team, not necessarily for the country in which
you are from or you're representing. Then that's what the
Olympics are for doing that. It's just these guys love it,
and I'm still trying to comprehend it. They love it
as much as it does. It's hard for me to
love something every three years, but then the Olympics has
loved every four years, so it's newer and it's different.
I mean, the first WBC was what in two thousand
and five or two thousand and six or whatever, and
the Olympics have been around for one hundred years. That's
more ingrained into us. But it's ingrained into him. He
talked about it how he had this core he said
it called it a core memory of Albert Poohols and
Robin Robinson Cano and the boys bringing the trophy home
to the Dominican Republic. They like it. So what what
can we do except just say, go have a good time,
play your best, and most important to come back healthy
and stay safe and stay safe. But they're gonna love it,
they they and they'll be games in Houston that you
will see a fire and belting in those teams playing
in March that you would never see at any point
because they are playing it like it's a game seven.
I'm gonna try to tune in more because it's like
it's pretty intense and a lot of the fans get
into it and stuff too. I will say this, while
I have not watched much of the Winter Olympics, just
because it just doesn't resonate with me. Yeah, I have
watched a lot of WBC. Not like I I will
make an appointments any but if there's nothing else on,
I'll put it on just see how it goes. Yeah,
Mi was it Mike Trout versus Shoho Tani. That was
good theater last time. There is something in theater to it.
I just don't know. And maybe the answer is, you
know what, Matt suck it up once every three years.
There's just never a good time for you don't want
to do it during the All Star Brenk. You certainly
don't want to do at the end of the season
when the guys are either in the postseason or they're
just plumb tuckered out. Let's get to back on the phones.
We'll talk to Stan. We'll talk to you at seven
one three two one two five seven ninety Bad and
Ross with you on Sports Talk seven ninety seven one
three two one two five seven ninety seven one three
two one two five seven nine zero. If you want
to visit with us through Twitter, you may do that
as well at sports MT at sports r being. Our
Instagram account has been moving along nicely. I mean three
people to get me to the magical thirty two hundred. Wow,
going up and up and up, Matthew, So great job.
If you feel like it's a great day to be
alive and appreciate it. I actually the things that are
important to you. Wow, be following me on Instagram. Ah, okay,
people are gonna like you more at the office and
you're a cres promise. There's a chance you go to
the drive through to your favorite raw Rocks and get
a free coffee as a person in front of you bought,
and all you have to do is follow me on
inpen Never in my life, Oh, have you ever bought
for somebody behind you?
Speaker 2: I have?
Speaker 1: I have McDonald's. Really that's nice. I don't that I'm
against it. I mean I would do, I just I've
never done it yet. So again, if you think the
person in front of you might buy you a coffee,
the key to that would be follow me on Instagram.
At sports empt false promises at sports empt. Let's talk
to Stan on seven ninety at eleven fifty, I make
a ten to fifty one.
Speaker 7: Hello Stan, here you do, I'm at I was talking
about the WBC and the injuries. If I remember correctly,
all the not every pitcher that pitched for the Astros
in the last one ended up injured and on the
DL during the season, because I think it's Luis Garcia
or Katie and Farmber all had arm problems that year.
I'm more concerned about that because they get ramped up
and they're throwing harder than they normally would be at
this time of year. You know, I'll tu be that's
a freak deal. Position players, that is. But the starting
pitching and pitching is where it seems to have impacted
the Astros more than anywhere else.
Speaker 1: Fromber started thirty one games in twenty twenty three, finished
ninth in the Say Young voting. I don't think he
was really much effected by the WBC. No, I don't believe,
and again not that we can paint with a broad
brush on this, John, Stay excuse me. There is no
correlation to guys playing hard in the WBC and having
a struggle. It's a maximum seven games, or at least
if I'm going off, I don't know if they changed
the format in twenty twenty three. You play four group
games and then you go to the knockout rounds where
you can play quarterfinals, Simmis Simmy's Champions, so that would
be three games. If you make the finals, you're playing
a maximum of seven games.
Speaker 7: They just seemed like it seemed like there were some
arm injuries that year for the Astros. I don't remember correctly,
but I know how Tuvay was out. It seemed like
there was a couple other guys that either struggled after
that or they had arm injuries it and it seemed
to affect the Astros a little bit more than normal
for the first couple of months into the season.
Speaker 1: That just maybe I may be wrong, so uh or
or Katie played for WBC. Uh, But that doesn't that
that that injury did not happen as soon as this
early this season. I I don't. I don't have a correlation,
and stand if there is one, I will be happy
to look that up down the road or maybe something
correct us on it and I will give you might
have gotten hurt. I think Luis Garcia got hurt as well.
Fromber was fine from also seeming all seemingly always fine. Yeah.
How many innings? How many innings that did Josey her
Katy throw in the WBC? I don't know, Yeah, I
just I do think stand it's just one of those
situations that maybe you saw somebody that got hurt and
you maybe that was a one off, but I there
has been no Frank trend among any baseball players. It
says WBC competition uh exhibit adds to a possibility of
getting hurt early in the year.
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, I know. Well I think that one is
the year that Diaz got hurt as well for the Mets,
the closer.
Speaker 1: So you'll remember this too. This WBC will be done
and they'll go back to their respective teams in another
week and a half, two weeks of playing.
Speaker 7: So oh yeah this season, Yeah, I know, just with
the with the way everybody is coddeling their pitchers nowadays,
it's kind of interesting for them to let them go,
you know, do this when they won't let them, you know,
pitch a certain number annis but they'll let them go
do this. So it's it's interesting.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty Thankstan Okay, the pitcher that pitched the
most of the WBC innings wise and twenty twenty three
was sho Heyo Tony. He pitched nine and two thirds
innings over seven games. That's not even very much, honestly,
that's that's what you would now. The only difference is
you could pitch nine and two thirds over seven innings
in a spring training game and you're working yourself back
into playing when you put the nine and two thirds
innings into seven WBC games In theory, I don't know
how many games you play I pitched. I mean, I'm
sure he didn't do seven. No, no, But I mean
those are going to be more stressful performances. You are,
you are doing something to your arm and asking your
arm to do things that normally would not be doing
that time of year. But Shoh has had injury issues
for quite a bit of his career, even in non
WBC years. He's had Tommy John twice. Right, Yeah, look,
I'm gonna I'm not gonna change my stanans on this.
I'd rather see my astros not involved in it. You
know what, After realizing it's only seven games, Okay, it's
not ideal, but clearly we're up to me. But clearly
the insurance is either too high or they're not going
to pay it, Meaning if those guys get hurt, they'd
be in a difficult spot to get their money as
a major leaguer. So they're not gonna take that risk either. Well, yeah,
I mean insurance is always gonna screw you, but I
mean overcharge you. They could Carlos Corey could say, well,
I forget the insurance, I'll take my chance, and nobody
would the don't want to do that. Why would he
do that? That's what I'm saying. The WBC is important,
but not that important, right, You don't want to cost yourself? Yeah,
it's the The risk of ruin is too.
Speaker 4: High, all right?
Speaker 1: Seven one three five, seven ninety. We're here in West
Palm Beach where it is ridiculously breezy right now. It
feels good.
Speaker 3: I like it.
Speaker 1: It's not nearly as toasty as it was breeze yesterday.
Got a little son of them on the legs yesterday.
Not much. Still pasty white as all get out. That's good.
I'm glad you didn't go lobster style. They are the
They do call me to paisty gangster.
Speaker 11: Uh huh.
Speaker 1: We'll hear from Christian Walker coming up in the next hour.
I believe, as he was supposed to be done at
the cages at uh, he's gonna hit in the cages
at noon our time and then come over and say
hi to us. Wonderful, We'll get Dana Brown and we'll
have our final hour of the show because we got
to buck out early to go to the airport. Yes,
we're gonna play some of our best stuff over the
handful of days'n be great stuff, so be ready for that.
So lots of spring training coverage between now and two o'clock.
It is Matt in Ross with the word four Big
City Wings and we have a wing story to get
to today on the show, and yes we do. Did
you see it yet?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 10: Okay?
Speaker 1: What it was like a national story? It is a
national everything. Okay, I mean with the chicken wings of course,
But why would you want to worry about a national
chain that serves crappy wings. We can get a Houston
base for wing Joint that's gonna de serve delicious wings
to you. And that's Big City Wings with fourteen Houston
area locations. It's the Matt Thomas Show with Ross. Well,
continue with the Matt Thomas Show with Ross here from
West Palm Beach. Our time is eleven zero two. We
have a couple of live guests coming up with us
in the next couple of hours. By the way, all
of our favorite things I like to do during the week,
the gut feelings and the shut your ball masses up.
We're gonna put We're gonna push back, shut your ball
mass up till tomorrow in the show as I will
be coming to you from Charlotte. You'll be back in
the warm, cozy confine at the Houston Studios. Yes, I
can't wait. And then Friday will be with you from
New York City. So three cities in three days. That's beautiful, Matt.
That's why they call you America's travel person. You want
to say, whoor now, I was gonna say, demon, I
need a gambling it's been a while getting the itch.
You'll be all right, that thing that that that thing's
going well for you, Okay, doing really well? Okay you
mean the itch or just gambling the gambling? Okay, yeah,
Well you're staying away from the craps table, right, Oh yeah,
that's good. Probably, yeah, keeping you away from the craps
table especially, oh whatever, you I did not play with
you for multiple years and used tore off crabs at
least twice since I've not played with you, So if
you're blaming me, you need to look internally Matthew, that's fair,
all right, real quick before we get to the phones,
and we were just adstant a commercial for the great
folks at Big City Wings. There is a ruling that
I've been sent no less than a hundred times. Really, uh,
concern I'm going to guess that's the concerns boneless. It
does consider concern boneless. Okay, So let me make sure
I want to get the story right here. By the way,
let's give out the numbers again if you want to
join us. Seven one three two one two five seven
ninety seven to one three two one two five seven eight.
Now Ross and I have our Have we argued about
this much. I don't say it's wings. I say you
can call it whatever you want. I don't call it.
I don't make the menu, okay. I don't sit there
and say, hey, big City Wings, which says boneless on
their menu, it says boneless wings, Hey, whatever wing joint
you can think of. I don't write boneless. I order
boneless depending on the situation, of course, because it is,
in my opinion, a higher quality cut of chicken. It's
easier to eat, and it's delicious, and it's more consistent
and Chrispy Fried and I've never had a weird dark
vein and bone with a bunch of weird stuff in
my boneless I love the bone. I've never had a
boneless wing with a feather on it.
Speaker 3: Okay, now I've had bone in it with feathers on
it on accident and other weird stuff going on the feather.
Stop you're if you want a munch on chicken elbows,
that's great, you can do that.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna hate you. I like to eat them too.
I like the crispy skin, but I like to go
boneless when you know, seven times out of ten. So
we're not arguing about that. We're arguing about the fact
there was. Here's where the legal system needs to just
to kind of check themselves a little bit on this.
A judge in my Internet is going down here. So
this is not working out here.
Speaker 4: It is.
Speaker 1: Apparently Ruffalo Raw Rings, which is a very below midplace.
Oh oh, the service is terrible. The food sucks, it's heavy,
it's very expensive. But Ruffo Raw Rings can keep calling
its menu item boneless wings after a lawsuit that claimed
the name amounted to false advertising was dismissed. It was
a ten page ruling apparently page by some judge in Illinois,
allowing the chain to continue it calling its menu boneless Wing.
After a Chicago man followed, they lost it, accusing a
restaurant of false advertising, saying the boneless wings were overpriced
because they're essentially chicken nuggets. Now, there has been only
one person in America that calls him executive chicken Nuggets.
I think it's a great name, and I'm gonna I
feel like I should trade you, honestly need to. Now
that is a I think it's a great name. It's
way better than whatever that other stuff you're trying to trademark.
Trademark crush sitting just took it for a decade. Vote
for you is terrible name that was not And so
I mean, the Executive Chicken Nuggets is an actual good
idea Tharp in the report and his judge, STARp said
the following Hamlin, that's I guess the dude did not
quote drum up enough factual allegations to state a claim
the way he's standing to bring the claim because he
plausibly alleged economic injury. He does not plausibly allege that
reasonable customers are by a ruffalo raw rings use of
the term boneless wings. There is not a single human
being yeah that believes there is such a thing as
a boneless wing. If you're eating a boneless wing, you
know you're eating a chicken nugget. You just plus you're
like seven. Yeah, No one goes to it. And look,
but our friends at uh big Cities do the boneless
two everybody, I mean they do. They're delicious, all white meat,
hand breaded sauce and toss the way you love it
and fried crispy. Yeah, they're excellent. And I like him too.
Ross and I have gone many a time to have
a boneless day because sometimes Ross is tired of taking
the bone eat it. Yeah, you like bones.
Speaker 3: Matt loves the bone in, all right, Matt can't get
enough of the bone in. He loves bone in, and
he says, give me some more bone in.
Speaker 1: I'm like bone in wings. Yeah, you like getting boned. No,
I'm not getting bone. I'm eating the bone. You like
the chicken, you like it bone And that's fine. I'm
not here to judge. Here's more of the report from
the judge.
Speaker 3: Boneless wings are not a niche product for which a
consumer would need to do extensive research to figure out
the truth.
Speaker 1: This judge is like, you wasted my time. I'm gonna
give you ten pages about this.
Speaker 3: Boneless wings is a common term that has been existed
for over two decades.
Speaker 1: This judge annihilates him. I like it said. He did
not drum up enough factual allegations to state acclaim.
Speaker 3: This guy Tharpe says, a reasonable customer would not think
the foods chained boneless.
Speaker 1: Wings were truly to bone. Chicken wings reconstituted into some
sort of frankin wing is how he's describing it. Oh
my god, So there is no deception coming from any
chicken joint, even as mid as ruffalo raw rings is. Oh,
this is a good one too. A boneless wings on
the menu would not leave the restaurant was warranting the
absence of bones in the items, and believe the items
were made from chicken wings, just as a person eating
chicken fingers would know that he had not been eating
severed fingers. For instance, Does this eliminate the fish sticks
complaint coming up? No, they're not fish fingers or fish wings.
You can get fish fingers, fish fins, steak fingers also
not the fingers of a cow.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 1: You're not eating cow fingers. You're basically taking a chicken
fried steak and cutting it into slices. It's a little
bit of a different argument, though. I mean, if you
just want to be super mega literal, I understand the lawsuits.
What I want to know is this dude sues the change,
the judge has to hear this, and then the judge
has to put together a ten page essay on it. Yeah,
how about get your mom ass out in my courtroom
and pay legal fee?
Speaker 3: Are you saying we're too much of a litigious society? Man,
I'm saying that that judge probably has bigger fish to fry,
see or chicken to fry?
Speaker 1: Yeah? What about that one? I think we're done with
our puns for the day. Probably not, You're right, but
come on, why would that dude do it?
Speaker 2: You?
Speaker 1: You chicken boneless wings was not just invented three years ago,
it is, I guess the judge the last couple decades.
I don't remember from way back in the day. No,
But I mean, like I don't remember Faiedas as a kid.
I grew up here and I didn't I don't remember
for heat is until about nineteen eighty five. Yeah, well
they call what did people call fahiitas in nineteen seventy
nine they called them fajitas. I think what were they
invented around then? What they call like like a skirt
steak and somebody chopped him up in stead let's call
him fia absolutely, I mean it was just a look
it's it's a lesser cut of steak that has got
commercialized and is now well over priced. And essentially here's
the bit. They cook the steak on the grill. It
comes off the grill, okay, yeah, but they take the pan,
not the pan, the grill. They bring to your table.
They pour some water and make it steem so it
comes across the oh hot, the heat has just served
for you. Now, performative. They've have been sitting there ten minutes. Yeah,
it's all. It's all in a marketing scam. But yo,
I don't normally order fietas unless I got a gift card.
I do like I do like the carnassata. I just
like to make it one as a strip steak itself,
and I can like I can sizzle it myself. It
used to be cheaper at the store. Same thing with uh.
I mean lobsters used to be. They give it them prisoners.
It was prison food. Don't get me started on how
much brisk it is nowadays. I know all the the
barbecuers out there are not in their head. It's two
super fatty muscles of a cow slapped together that you
need to cook. You need to at least cook for
twelve hours to make it edible. And that's the reason
why it's just okay to me. No, you just describe
what do you just describe perfectly? Why it's year ago? No,
but when it's done correctly, it's delicious, it's amazing. But
I'm not gonna wait twelve hours for our single meal
because you're not ey. Because it takes you twelve hours
to make it. That's why it's cheap, not because it
doesn't taste good when it comes out. Yeah, that's good.
I mean, it's fine. Whatever. Yeah, you know you're a
you're a brisket hater and you don't want to get
you the worst mister you know what you can mean,
Mister Florida, be whore, you miss I'm team Ribs. That's fine, okay,
go to Memphis, all right, we don't need you in Texas.
I like Texas ribs. I like Texas. Meach in Kansas City.
All right, you're in Texas. You eat brisket, all right? Yeah, okay,
we know you love sausage. All right. Uh Mick Cronin
is the coach at the University of California, Los Angeles. Yes,
he's not a nice dude. We'll give you an example
that next it is the Matt Thomas Show with Ross.
We are expecting live astro man this compared to dead
astro guests, live astro guests coming up in the next
uh hour or so seven one three two, seven ninety
If you want to chime in on our conversation as
media as has been, all right, we're going to Aggie
Lamb for a minute. You're okay with that? Sports Harvey
go on to the Dixie Chicken or what you know
who The first radio show ever done on the Dixie
Chicken was no me? Is that true? Was it? So
you went like John David Crowe, No, it was. I
want to say that I do the show with Darren
Jones or Jim kozmar I forgut which one it was?
But it was in the nineties. Uh, first ever morning
radio show ever in that tobar a special guest Dante
hall uh No. I think it was like the assistant
ad for parking or something. Okay, that sounds huge, get
sounds great. Try to get Arci to come over and
do it. Busy coach, it's fine. One is an aggiland
gigab one? What's going on?
Speaker 12: Hey?
Speaker 6: So I listened to the radio when I get to work,
and the little kid on the show before you guys,
he makes me mad, so I turn him down.
Speaker 4: And now I listen to y'all.
Speaker 6: I'm trying to find a good vet so my wife
doesn't get mad at me for betting money. And now
all I hear is chicken nuggets. Bones are no bones?
You guys getting bones or not getting bones?
Speaker 7: What's up with that?
Speaker 1: I need?
Speaker 6: Give me an underdog to bet tonight?
Speaker 7: Thank oh?
Speaker 4: You want?
Speaker 3: What do you want to?
Speaker 1: Why do you want an underdog tonight? There's no basketball?
What are you looking for college basketball?
Speaker 6: Because I'm I'm down like one fifty.
Speaker 1: You're down one hundred and fifty dollars or fifty k?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 6: And I need to buy some you want cards?
Speaker 1: What one? Did you take some gummies?
Speaker 2: Too?
Speaker 1: One? Are you hanging out revelly too long.
Speaker 6: Revelle man, I will what's the name beaver would stick revee?
I war my Texas hat around here or my fam
Houston had around here?
Speaker 1: What does that get you? Where are you?
Speaker 6: I works for Texas A and M from Brian.
Speaker 1: But where are you now? I'm at work and you're not.
Let me tell you something. You are not wearing Texas
gear at work. There's zero chance of that's you're lying
to us.
Speaker 6: Okay, I'll send you all a picture.
Speaker 1: No, you don't have to. I don't want see girl
an send me a picture. There's no way give me
what that's right you should want? Let me tell you
you work for you? Do you work for the school
or do you just work for our company and Brian?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 6: No, no, I work for Texas A and M your life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's no chance you're were into Texas at zero
chance you're out, You're fired? No chance.
Speaker 6: Hey, I'm a marine veteran.
Speaker 10: I can do what I want around here.
Speaker 1: Yeah you dann Well can't thank you for your service,
my man, thank you for the phone call. He needs
a bet. You probably also needs to name they sleep
that off one? You know one? Well Ross, why don't
you give a college put basketball selection. You are a
college you know what? I'll go with Creighton pluses fifteen
and a half. With they plan you con creating plus
fifteen and a half? Sure, why not? The game is
where is it? Omaha? Oh no, no, no, no, stay
away from that one. You know one I have you
go ahead and make something up. Actually no, this is
actually the formula. Folks. We've talked about this, Matt Matt's
random bets hitting r. Yes, listen to me one, very carefully.
Listen to Matt.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: I cannot bet and give you NBA selections, because as
an NBA employee can.
Speaker 11: I do that?
Speaker 1: But I can give you a college basketball selection. Okay,
let's go after deep consideration. I'm going to go with
Oh my god, come on, hold on, drama building. Okay,
I guess the drama is building, Ladies and gentlemen. Yes,
the MT on a recorded line lock of the Week
Kansas giving the six and a half at Oklahoma State.
He said he wanted an underdog. Oh, hold on, that
doesn't do me any good. He want an underdog?
Speaker 3: You want Kansas given the six and a half. I
want Kansas given the six and a half. But he
wants an underdog. He wants another dog. I'll give it
another dog.
Speaker 1: Yeah, who's your dog of the week. I'll give a
dog of the week. I'm gonna go with uh. Okay,
is it that dog of the week on a recorded line?
USC plus the nine and a half against Illinois? Oh
my go Okay, there it is on a recorded line.
I'm writing this down. Seriously, everybody write this down. I
gave you two picks, Okay, I gave you.
Speaker 3: Tonight Kansas minus six and a half at Oak State.
That's my favorite lock of the week in the the
dog favor of the week. Yeah, is USC plus.
Speaker 1: Nine and a half against I'll swear to 'all we'll
be in Vegas and that'll be like I got the
Pirates in the first five innings. I'm like, who's throwing?
I don't know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Have been in it.
Speaker 4: Hits.
Speaker 1: It does hit, it hits, So I'm just saying, yeah, yeah, yeah,
all right, man, it's a Rando lock of the week.
What I will not be betting on is UCLA basketball.
So Mick Cronin went to what took his UCLA Bruins
to Michigan State yesterday? Yes, and they got beat like
a drum. That's unfortunate. One of UCLA's top players and
I don't know his name. It doesn't really matter for
the sake of they are got a flag or foul. No, no, no,
nothing to do with that. Oh. One of UCLA's star
players is a former Michigan State Spartan. Oh. Okay, the
student section at Michigan State was calling out the guy's name, saying,
we're kicking your ass. You're playing at UCLA. You're Steven Jamerson.
The second Okay, don't really matter, point being, you had
an ex spot in now playing for the Bruins, and
the Spartan fan base was yelling at this kid during
the game. Reporter covering the game between UCLA and Michigan
State asked Nick Cronin about the student section at Michigan State,
and here's how it went. What was your thoughts in
the student section channing Hooker's name.
Speaker 10: I could give a rats ass about the other team
student section.
Speaker 1: I just got a overall the way that I would
like to give you a kudos for your worst question
I've ever been asked. R.
Speaker 4: Did you like this should take it the preparation?
Speaker 1: Do you really think I'd care about the other.
Speaker 13: I don't care about they. You are here, you are
come on, dude, no reason yess you were. Everybody's standing
here listening to you. Everybody this is on camera, they
can hear you.
Speaker 1: I answered the question. I could give a rats ask.
Speaker 13: About the other team student section if I coached Ucla.
I don't care about Michigan State students.
Speaker 3: Who cares?
Speaker 4: All?
Speaker 1: Right, ROSSI, that's the first time you heard is I
wanted you to hear it organically. Thank you. What are
things going through your mind as you heard that interchange
between reporter and UCLA basketball coach mccronin. I think the
first part, I mean it's it was pretty normal the
first to cutting off, like I don't care about the
other team student section. You're talking about a guy who
just got his ass kicked by Michigan State. That first
of all, I wouldn't call that over the line. But
that's rude for sure, to cutting off a reporter and
saying I don't give a rats ask what you're asking
about in the first place. It's very rude. But where
it really got out of not out of hand. He
also said it was the worst question to ever be asked.
It's the he's he's obviously very pissy and very angry,
calling it the worst question it's ever been asked, which
I one doubt that's the worst or stupidest question he's
ever been asked. Right, So then then push it further,
and then the accusing the guy didn't raise his voice.
Now he's not yelling at him. He's speaking a little
bit louder, like, Okay, I was gonna ask it or whatever.
The guy starts to say, and then he's and then
he that's the thing that I don't like. And that's
what people do far too often. Where you came after
this guy, you said you don't give a rats ask
about his question, and then you say that he is
the worst question ever asked. And then you go to
the victim card. Uh, you're raising your advoice. Hit me.
Everybody can hear. You're yelling at me, You gun and
shield and immediately flip into the victim. That's where I
have a bigger problem with what mc cronin just did
right there. That is weak sauce. That is terrible, and
that is something that happens way too much in life,
in politics, with these coaches and these players, to where
you come after a guy and you say you don't
give a rats ask about what he's talking about, and
then he does his got a little bit louder. But
he wasn't yelling at you. He wasn't calling you an
idiot like you just were to him. And then you
play the victim card. That's ridiculous, Agree, Mick Cronin. If
you didn't give a rats ass about it, you would
have said the one thing and then moved on. That
would have accentuated what you said originally. But instead you
came back at him. You wanted to make sure you
wanted to embarrass the guy. Now, look, I don't know
what the kind of reaction he was supposed to give,
but it was a little bit of the storyline of
the kids of Michigan State yelling at the former Michigan
State spartan. It's an ascid answered, It wasn't the dumbest question.
It's not going to lead a sports cast. He wasn't
trying to bait him. He was simply saying, was that time.
My presumption was was that was that tough on the
kid to have to hear his name being talked about
by the school in which in which he was once
a student of and played basketball exactly. You don't even
let the guy finish his question. You cut him off. Okay,
that happens. You call it. I mean, then you're really
pushing it. Call in the stupidest question you ever heard. Like,
you know, Matt, if you and I are talking and
you disagree with something I'm saying or I'm disagree, like
we're just gonna we're gonna go, We're gonna keep talking.
I'm gonna say, well, how could you say that about me? Now?
Or now you're raising your voice like, oh, everybody's scared.
Everybody can hear you? Like, no, you he put his
dukes up. What Mick Conan did was he put his
dukes up and he threw a punch. Okay, and when
he's about to get countered, then he went and cowered
in the corner and went to the year raising your
voice at me. Card, No, sir, if you gon start something,
stand on that business and be ready to argue, don't
do that and then play victim. That was weak sauce.
So so when when Mick Cronan said, that's the worst
question ever been asked, and he goes, I'll take that,
and I'm sure you will take I mean, it was
just yeah, it was combative.
Speaker 14: If you want to start something, let's go, Mick, don't
say in the corner you five.
Speaker 1: One thing, but I won't kick you right now, let's go,
let's go throw him. Don't start something and throw it.
You know what that is. That's like you're in class,
somebody throws something at the back of you, and then
then and then they're they cower away when you're like,
all right, who did that? Let's go, let's go, let's go.
You want to argue, let's argue. How about you want
to discuss you how your team got your asking by
thirty points? Is that what you rather discuss? You're raising
your voice in me? Everyone can hear you raising your voice.
Come on, man, that's hilarious. I didn't know that happened. Yeah,
it wone hurts you. What do you mean? Yeah, we
did hear it. He wasn't raising his voice, he elevated it,
but it was we know what they're raising a voice? Yeah,
I raised my voice. Yeah, that's hilarious. Oh, Mick, May
you enjoy your future career at Albany State coaching your
next spot because you ain't long for UCLA.
Speaker 4: All right?
Speaker 1: Eleven twenty nine on The Matt Thomas Show with Ross
seven one three two one two five seven ninety seven
one three two one two five seven nine zero rosson like, no,
go ahead, this is funny. You said wow. And when
when someone says wow to you, especially the person within
one footage, you turn and you go and then you
put your hand up like it's nothing. I can tell you.
So this, I am very much a person. This happens
to me with everyone now with the only you mad,
it's anybody that I are alive. I can I have
like you know, I don't Tourett's obviously a serious uh
mental affliction. I'm not talking about like, but I sometimes
just say things out loud without thinking and realizing that
I'm talking out loud. I got you, so yes, right
before we came on, I said wow, uh but we
can talk about it. Jalen Brunson is eligible to sign
a five year, four hundred and eighteen million dollar extension.
That's what made me say wow. So yeah, that's it's nothing,
so get it so off. So yes, this always happens
to me. To where we're sitting together, I'm like, oh
my gosh, or wow or or I laughed to myself
and he's MAT's like, what what is it? And I
was like, oh, it's nothing. So but you're not the
only person, doesn't okay if you walk around and oh damn,
like I think, okay, oh, it's fine. I was just
thinking I forgot to turn the coffee maker off exactly. Okay.
Speaker 3: It's generally something innocuous that I don't want to even
spend time talking to you about, Like, for example, the
fact that Jalen Bruntson is ineligible for a fort It's
twenty million.
Speaker 1: That's not going to move the needle here on show. Okay,
sounds fine, So I understand we're like, oh, what happens everybody? Okay,
did somebody get hurt at camp? Is there some uh
eas hip prayers get traded? No, just Jalen Brunson's extension.
That's no, that's more on me.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, No, that's okay, that's okay, But I mean you,
it was the raw of emotion at coming out of
seeing an NBA player making eighty million dollars a year.
So I don't know enough of the deets on this,
but Mark Cuban basically the last couple of days said
it's okay to tank that Why is the NBA getting
all mad the Utah Jazz and the Indiana Patris for
tanking when the way that the NBA structures its roster,
if you lose a star player or you want the
only way you really get better is by getting younger players.
So what's the point of being thirty and fifty when
you can improve your draft chances if you're fifteen and
sixty seven. Yeah, they are playing the game the way
the rules are set. The rules are set by, especially
if you are Utah, if you are Sacramento, if you
are one of those teams that isn't going to be
a major free agent destination or to where you can
even afford to overpay well into the luxury tax. You
got to get a top pick, and you're going with
this draft and you're going with this lottery. So you
got to accumulate as many ping pop balls as you can.
And if you have a high priced player that gets
hurt or under a performs, you're stuck. You can't get
out of it because you can't move that player. It's
impossible to guarantees. Yeah, you can't. You can't NFL, you
can't rid them. You can't release them prior to their contract. Yeah,
you can't eat dead cat money. That's what you were
so to choose. There are some things about the economics
of sports that I really embrace and get into. That
to me, that they dug their own grave on that
that's never and I don't get it when when a
team is tanking. When you talk about the Utah Jazz
sitting everybody out, I get it. It's supposed to be
a stacked especially top of the draft this year, they're
talking about five legitimate NBA stars in which one of
them will be in Houston, Texas or is right now
Kingston Flemings bu way, Uh, we're gonna have a Dana.
Kevin Sampson joined our show on Friday A one thirty
looking forward to that. So yeah, uh, if you got
five guys that are I mean that that means any
one of the five could be stars, legitimate franchise changing stars,
and you get them on the cheap world speaking, Yes,
you're not paying for heavy forty fifty. Just like it's
just like quarterbacks. NFL teams have to thrive. If you've
got a star quarterback and he's on a rookie deal,
you need to thrive if you've got a young player
who is making off of his rookie contract. Absolutely, and
especially especially in the NBA, one franchise player can I mean,
what's what's the value of the San Antonio Spurs been
the last few years now that they have Victor Winbinyama?
I don't even know. I'll put it this way, if
the Rockets were to lose Kevin Durant for injury or
his career was to suddenly take a downturn, the money
that is being spent on him hampers the roster construction
because you've got so much money spent on one player. Now,
you can still win. You can still hopefully get something
in the draft, or hope that the guys you have
paid for that are still on their rookie deals, like
a Men Thompson. You know, maybe you don't break the
bank on Tari Easan. Maybe you know you're happy that
Jabari Smith is relatively cheap. Auburn's making really good money,
but it's not bringing But if you have one or
two megas, one gets hurt, one doesn't perform to that,
it cbs. It cripples your franchise and the only way
you get out of that is by tanking, having a
high draft pick and hoping catching and lightning in a bottle. Yeah,
and it's not only making you better, it's changing the
How much more valuable are the Detroit Pistons now since
they got Kate Cunningham. Now you have to build around
and they have to be good and you have to
hit on the pick. But uh, we talked about the
Rockets could if you went by worst records, the Rockets
should have Kate Cunningham and Palla ben Carro. It'd be
a different complexion of the team.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: You have to get these ping pong balls and then
you or Victor Women Yama, they were they for worst
in Victor Women Nam. I can't remember there, maybe second
worst or something like that. So I mean, yeah, this
is the way to change your franchise, and especially in basketball,
one impact player can change everything and then you go
from there. I was listening as you were to the
A team on our iHeartRadio app after the Ball after
the show a couple of days ago, and the question
was brought up, why doesn't the NFL have this issue
like the other two sports do well, mainly basketball. The
worst team in the NFL gets a number one pick.
But we never worry about teams tanking. I think we
do talk about it a little bit when guys down
to the level of the NBA. I mean, we were
talking about when the Jets and there were what was
that the name of that terrible quarterback Cooper something around
what was that jet there? They were trotting out there.
It was terrible because they were trying to lose, and
you're there calling it. When the Giants, Giants are playing
late against the Raiders, I think there were some talk
about them tanking. I think it has been discussed.
Speaker 3: Remember how about this when the when the Texans and
Lovey Smith went and beat the Colts and everybody was
upset about that.
Speaker 1: But the problem was the Texans didn't fall the rules.
They got their dreamboat quarterback seege is drown. Yeah, I
think maybe, I especially the players. You can't can you
not sit everybody? I guess you can sit some The
players are out there are gonna try. I'm not exactly
sure what the difference is, except for for sure that
one of the big differences is eighty two games is
way different than seventeen. Because I don't know the Jazz
are taking right now. I feel like you don't have
guys sit benching everybody week eight in the UNFL, well
you can bench players in the NFL. I just I
have I don't know what it is. I can't put
my finger on it, but I think there is a
tangible difference in the intensity of a team that is
two and thirteen when I watch in the NFL. Then
when I see a basketball team who's twenty and fifty seven,
I just see it.
Speaker 7: I just do.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's because guys are fighting for
spots next year or non guaranteed contracts, or they're trying
to play for playing time the fire. Everybody always plays hard.
But even if you're tanking in basketball, I mean, Christian
Wood was playing hard, Kevin port June was playing hard.
It's just got very good. Yeah, but you made a
conscious decision to not assemble a team that you knew
could win on the day in and day out basis.
And if teams are have injured players that have forced
you to go deeper to your depth chart and know
that you can't win, then you know those guys are
gonna play hard. But Brady Cook, that's who they're going with.
Who was the Jets quarterback that was especially justin Field
or Trod Taylor. And then they were going they were
going with Brady Cook, who was the BYU quarterback having
relations with ol Of Wilson, Zach Wills with all his
mom's friends. I don't know if that's the correct characterization.
I think it was one hundred percent accurate.
Speaker 3: I think it was alleged that it was one of
his mother's friends. One can you know more about this
than I do?
Speaker 14: It?
Speaker 4: Apparently?
Speaker 1: So what is your question about him? The question was
whatever happened to him? He was backing up in Where
is Zach was? Where was he backing up somewhere in
the West Coast? I feel like, was it? Oh, never mind, No,
he's he wasn't with the Dolphins before last year? Oh
he was with the Dolphins last year, Zach Wilson was.
That's right, Okay, sure, why not? Behind Quinn you weres? Yeah,
be careful, Quinn you Weres buddies, Longhorn legend, long horned legend,
All right? Eleven forty four is the time it is
The Matt Thomas Show with Ross seven one three, two,
one two five seven ninety seven Analysts for Turner, NBC,
ESPN peacock. Yahoo, it will be a some someplace for
you to go far down the road, far down the road.
He wants to club another on hundred and fifty home runs.
Fre He calls at a career how many you got
all together?
Speaker 11: Now?
Speaker 1: I don't know, to be honest with you, Ye, okay,
how about this. You look it up and okay, try
to guess I got.
Speaker 3: One fifty over the course of last year during the
first half.
Speaker 1: This is a terrible guessing game.
Speaker 3: Now, I'd say one seventy one, one seventy four. I'm
glad I guess close though.
Speaker 1: That's good. Yeah, I didn't guess. It'd be weird if
you say four and fifty or something. Then you gotta
get to two hundred this year. That's it. That's that's
he's that's low hanging through right there. Right, that's first half,
first half stuff. Baby, Come on, now, let's hope. So okay,
uh so I asked you in the clubhouse how you
lost the weight, and grown ass men usually don't do that,
but we just did. So you did you make it
a concerted effort to say I'm caring too much weight,
I want to drop ten pounds or how did you decide,
you know what, I'll go a little leaner this offseason.
Speaker 3: Uh yeah, I mean a little bit of both. Step one,
I was having a baby. We had a baby last summer,
so first off season.
Speaker 1: With you were losing baby weight. She was probably dad strength.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well apparently men hold on weight too, because there's some
hormone rest your body's prepping for sleepless nights or something.
Really I heard some Yeah, I was like, oh, that's
my excuse, so.
Speaker 4: I go with that.
Speaker 14: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But wanted to embrace parenting and not I feel like
so many people survive and you know, obviously the baby's
behavior has so much to do with that, more than
you know we think. But just just wanted to really
make sure I had a grip on my discipline. Wanted
to make sure I was eating right, sleeping right, hydrating,
training to benefit obviously myself, but to be in a
good spot to be a dad and to be a husband,
and you know, parenting is a is a fun thing.
So that was at the forefront of my brain and
wasn't necessarily to like lose weight or I thought I
was playing too heavy last year, but you know, me
playing it too fifteen to twenty I think is a
is a much cleaner spot than you know, maybe mid
two twenties or something.
Speaker 1: Have you noticed it so far running into some of
the drills out there at this point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think my fault works a little cleaner.
Speaker 1: Hard to tell.
Speaker 3: It's it's you know, when you spend time with it,
it's you don't see the big changes, is my But yeah,
I think I think long term too, maybe a little
less weight on the legs and helping recovery and all that.
Speaker 1: All right, Christian, you were first and second half numbers
were significantly different. Tell me about the first half. Tell
me about the oblique and how much that puts you
behind the eight ball in terms of getting off to
a good astral career start. Yeah, I think, you know.
Speaker 3: As much as I don't want to admit it or
using it as excuse, I think it's it's very much
a thing. These at bats during spring training are important,
having these, you know, low stress environments to explore some
timing things and feel a different direction and play with
your approach with the plate. You know, I felt competitive
when I came back, but I think there's there's the
being able to compete side of things, and then there's
trusting your body and proven that you have the reps
and you've build up the volume. So I think, you know,
looking back objectively, maybe I was caught in between. I
felt like I was in a spot to help the
team win, but maybe not just quite as you know, competitives.
I wanted to be right like I it was. It
was an embarrassing first half. I'm not sitting here trying
to like justify it or make excuses or anything like that,
but it is also part of the game. By far,
the start the slowest start I've had to a year,
but you know, to be honest, I'm proud of myself
for still putting up some some okay numbers and the
slow came back around. The average climbed a little bit late,
and and I've seen a lot of guys start with
a really slow first half like that and you know,
give up and pull the shoot. And I wanted to
finish strong and I did that. I proved to myself
that I could bounce back even with a really tough start.
So you know, overall, I'm proud of of you know,
how owt finished.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like you learn something about either either
both physically and mentally, with those struggles that you went to,
would you learn about yourself? I think.
Speaker 3: There's always time, you know. I think it's okay to
have some stretches that are slow, that the baseball season
is so long. You have a really good month, like
it's like, no matter what you do, you're going to
have a really great month, and you're gonna have a
really bad mouth, right, and then those those handful in between,
it's like are you on the two eighty side of
things or are you on the two twenty side of things?
So I think just being really you know, realistic, I
think giving myself some grace. I'm hard on myself naturally.
I take this thing really seriously. So I think look
at myself in the mirror and saying it it's okay,
Like you're you're working as hard as you can, You're
preparing the right way.
Speaker 1: It's the game's tough. Yeah, Was that something that you
do that more in season?
Speaker 14: Or more?
Speaker 1: Maybe more as you look back. I think I was.
Speaker 3: Forced to in season, Yeah, because I felt great about
how I was preparing and I felt ready to compete.
I felt prepared to play and help the team. It
just it wasn't showing up on the field as consistent
as I wanted it to. So you ask yourself, like, Okay,
what can I do different? Like, I'm not gonna sit
here feel bad for myself? So how do I get
out of it? How do I make it better? What
should I be doing differently? And when I prepare the
right way and I train the right way and I
feel like I'm living right, there's there's not much else
to do but whether the storm, trust the work, trust yourself,
know that you know how, I got another three hundred
bats on the table. I can do a lot of
damage in that amount of time.
Speaker 1: You came into camps that I want to play one
hundred and fifty games. That's what you normally have done
for most of your career. You've won the gold Gloves.
There's you get an outstanding resume, But you know, look,
Twitter streets may not be accurate, but the reality is
names get brought up. Yours was brought up a little
bit here and there. Do you take that with a
grain of salt? Do you go all right, I gotta
change things a little bit, or do you go, you
know what, Unless my agent here's something, or I talked
to Dana, I'm not gonna worry about any of that
outside noise.
Speaker 3: I'm in that in the ladder there, I'm a less.
Speaker 1: I applaud you for that, because he and I are
we have terrible self esteem issues. Congratulations for that.
Speaker 3: Now I've done my fair share of armchair GM and
to your share. But sure, yeah, honestly, it just it
it gets exhausting for me. It's it's there's so many scenarios,
there's so many possible outcomes, and none of it is
in my control. Like, yeah, if I would have come
out last year and hit three hundred with forty, like
probably wouldn't be talked about getting traded, right, So that
side of things isn't my control. But the business side
of game is of the game is very real. So
for me, I actually I deleted all social media off
my phone for a while, like jealous. Yeah, not avoiding things,
but it's it's just a smoother day to day if
if I'm not aware of all that stuff, if I
trust Dana, the line of communication between me and Joe
and me and Dana is is pretty solid. I think
if something had some traction, you know, I'd expect that
somebody would reach out, And I understand it's not personal.
Speaker 1: It is what it is.
Speaker 3: But never never heard anything serious. So I just kept
on with my business.
Speaker 1: Your off season is in South Carolina, that's not the
epicenter of media in the world. So can you can?
Can you really decompress from everything finking about what looking
at your But just what is it like for the
news cycle? I mean, do you watch the World Series?
You're not? I don't know if you're running to a
Columbia Sports barn eight or nine playoff baseball games around
you know what I mean? You're heard at SEC territory there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very much a Gamecock football season when I
get home in the fall, for sure. But I love
high stake sports, you know. Obviously the tide of baseball
was there. I enjoy watching the postseason. I think it's
something that we've grown to appreciate. I got a taste
of the World Series in twenty three. It was a
big part of why I came to Houston.
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 3: It's fun. It's why the Olympics are fun. I don't
know the rules of the half of these events and sports,
but I'm into it. I'm like, I'm hanging on every moment.
It's you know, when you're playing with something on the line,
it's just fun to watch. And I think as a
professional athlete, I just I really respect something about that.
Speaker 1: All Right, So you've lost the weight. Two stolen bases
last year, eleven career high. What are we thinking for
twenty twenty six?
Speaker 3: I'd like to sniff double digits again. But I think
what's important about last year is Paradis had zero and
I had two. So I just got to remember that
as long as I steal the greatest, then he can't.
He can't talk crap.
Speaker 1: So who was the slowest player on the team, not
counting catchers because they don't they get a free pass.
That's catchers, man.
Speaker 5: It might be Paradis.
Speaker 3: I'd like to think I'm faster than I look, but
maybe we need a race.
Speaker 1: You know, well, we can probably look fine. The feet
per second, yeah, the max. At least we had a
big mattress guy. He'll find it, don't worry. But no,
this just keep you trotting, hit it over the fence
and then you can try like Ron uld doubles. We
love too. We had zero issues with that Jose before
let you run. Jose looks like he's gonna be back
at second base. Uh, he's not gonna say it, so
we're gonna interpret it as you know, he did what
was best, what he thought was best with the team.
But I think naturally you know this too. Guys want
to be in their natural possession of positions. What will
be like to have consistency within that infield, at least
for twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's important that consistency. I think just as
a player, I've tinkered with learning in a new position.
I played a little bit of left field in the
miners coming up, and I think it's like one of
two things that either really frees the guy up and
they think like, well, there's no pressure because I'm not
supposed to play this position and it can really help.
I think the other camp is like, oh no, I'm
learning a new position. I don't want to be the
reason why, you know, we lose a game where I
give up runs for my pitcher or something like that.
So you know, I've seen I've seen both things. I
think Jose did a great great job of flowing into
a new position in the big leagues, like the guy
has done something at an elite level for so long,
and then you ask him to do something new. His
mentality never changed, his energy never changed. He was embracing
left field for us, and he helped us win a
lot of games. That's that's another huge bat to have
in the lineup. And if he's willing to do something
like that, that's you know, as far as like a
team captain and a leader, that's I mean, that's everything
you're asking for.
Speaker 1: Anything else, my man, think I think I'm pretty good.
I mean, well, we're rooting for a lot of ago.
I know, I know it's a little awkward with all
the talk here and there. I just you guys, get
you were so close. Do you think about one game
or do you think it's such a macro sport in
which you play you can't go to one game? Go man,
if we would have just turned that double player, or
if I would have just got that key here, or
we would have scored that last run of the ninth
and do you do you think about that kind of
because it was such a close, uh separation between you
and Detroit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's easy. You could probably pick out
some spots. To be honest, I think when I look
around the clubhouse at the team we had last year,
I feel like it shouldn't have come down to one game.
We should have been a handful of games out in
front of the division, right like we we had plenty
of talent, plenty of opportunities to win the division last year.
Not taking any credit away from Seattle and these other teams,
they did, they did a great job, right, They.
Speaker 1: Did what they needed to do. They're cocky, though, Yeah,
it's I mean, it's good. You know you should be.
Speaker 3: You won the division like good? Yeah, you know it's
it's we had a target on our backs. We have
the target on our backs where we're we have a reputation.
I want other teams to come in and try to
try to knock us off the pedestal. But you know,
to answer your question, no, I don't think it's fair
to anybody or ourselves to try to pick one spot.
The season's long for a reason. You got nine guys
on the field for a reason. It's it's very much
a team sport and we're playing the long game.
Speaker 1: Lastly, playing in West Sacramento, is that like playing in
Triple A, like PCL, Like I can swing with one
hand and hit the ball four and fifty feet. That
place looks like that he and I could hit a
home run in that ballpark. I love it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's awesome. I wish we obviously played twice as
many games there. No, it's it's uh, I mean it's
it's a hitter friendly park for sure. I don't know
what it is other than that, like it's good Win.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: If I don't know, like know where the altitude is.
Speaker 1: If you're really grown, you should switch on the other
side of the player. Run scam.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to make them count.
Speaker 1: I gotta get ready. I love it. Chris to thank
you very much for the time. We wish you know
about the very best graduations on the baby enjoy that beat. Juice,
Eve had Juice, Rosey, Get you going and night I
know where, Get me going. We'll be on vessel dilation.
We'll not be doing it in the show much longer.
Christian Walker here to start the final hour of the
of the Mad Todmas Live program. We're gonna be with
you tillwo o'clock today here on Sports Talk seven. Ettie,
thanks us, Thanks, He's the Matt Thomas Show with Ross.
Matt and Ross with you here, final hour or live.
We're gonna go the best of our stuff. In the
one o'clock you'll hear from Joe was Spotty, you'll hear
from Jeremy Paniel, here from Spencer Arraghetty, and you'll hear
from Hunter Brown all in the final hour of the show.
Right now, we are joined live by the general manager
of York Houston Astros. It is Dana Brown. Dana, thank
you for the time. I don't know how many other
general managers get talked about in the other twenty nine cities,
but my man, you have carried a lot of conversation
for the Houston sports show known as Matt and Ross,
so we thank you for that.
Speaker 4: I love it.
Speaker 15: I love it, guys. I'm excited to be here. Let's
talk some baseball, all right. So I could bury it
towards the end, or I can put it right in
the beginning. I'm gonna go right at the start because
there's other things I want to get to. Used to
hit that hard, so you're right. I've usually signed a
soft play, but forget not this time around. I've got
a segment of a population.
Speaker 1: Okay, Dana, you've got an extra great hitter who doesn't
have a spot. Why would you get rid of them
because the nature of the beast of a six month
baseball season says, somebody's gonna get hurt. Then I got
a segment population and says, how do you keep a
guy like that not in a position. So I don't
know what's going through your mind. You've not let me
look at your text message, your phone calls. You're probably
not going to but state of the still crowded infield
at this point as you see it today here in
spring training.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so this is what I would say.
Speaker 15: It's always good to have depth, and it's always good
to have power, you know, with that part part of
part of that being depth, you know, part of that
being depth is your power.
Speaker 4: So look, we.
Speaker 15: We we know we have extra infielders. We think that
it's gonna be very competitive. You know, if we get
an opportunity, uh, you know, when we can make a move,
we'll talk about it. But right now as it stands,
we welcome the depth. You never know when you're gonna
hit up an injury. We think that we can get
these guys a lot of playing time there are you know,
we got some older guys on our roster that we
have to you know, kind of give a breather too,
and I'm just not excited about trying to give away
a really good hitter. And so, look, if there's something
that's a match, you know, maybe we'll consider it. But
other than that, we'll just roll with the depth.
Speaker 1: You have that you've got a lot of young outfielders.
I mean, I'm we played GM on the radio all
the time. I would think that if there's a deal
involving somebody in the outfit that could obviously be a
guy you've always been talking about a left handed bat,
that may perk your interests up a little bit. But
let's get to the outfield a little bit. Zach, call
out great September ham in a great March. I've said
this before, I've heard it from a lot of baseball
people that I trust. You don't trust March. You don't
trust some temper a whole lot. So tell me about
what you think and what is expected of those corner outfitters,
in particular, knowing that you don't have a lot of
people behind them fighting for it. But maybe that's situation
that could obviously change.
Speaker 15: So look, let's talk about the left hand bat first,
since you brought it up so it would be nice
to get a left hand bat. We would be excited
about right If we get that opportunity, I think we
would probably move on it because I've been talking about
a left hand bat for a long time forever. It's
just it's that hard to acquire a left hand bat.
They're not growing on trees and no one's trying to
give up a good left hand bat. It's just very
difficult to do and you probably have to give up
something to get a left hand bat.
Speaker 4: So is there a chance that we can get a
left hand bat. Sure, there's a chance.
Speaker 15: That's why we're having conversations now as it relates to
the left the the young outfielders. I would say, look,
we're gonna give them a good look in the spring
and see what it looks like. We have some things
in our thought process that we feel like those two
guys have to make adjustments Cole and Smith, and so
we're gonna give him a close watch and see who
makes the adjustment from last year that we think that
they needed to make. And so if they make these adjustments,
they could be part of the club. If not, you know, uh,
it's not too bad to have a guy starting triple
A and build his way back up. So both talented
enough to certainly make this team, and I would be
excited if that happens. That means they're lighting the ball up,
So you know, we we welcome that, but you know,
at the end of the day, we want to see
them make adjustments that you know that's fitting for the
major league level, and you know that they're going to be,
you know, pretty good offensive contributors.
Speaker 3: And you mentioned both Smith and Cole, and of course
as a general manager, you know things don't always go
to according to plan.
Speaker 1: But the plan would be for camp Smith to find
what he did earlier in the season and continue, and
then the plan would be for Zach Hole into the
season to keep that going. How do you just talk
about both of those guys, how do you get them
to do that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, look, we got two new hitting coaches.
Speaker 15: We kind of got a new voice down in the
clubhouse one of the guys a veteran, and Rodriguez we
really feel like he's gonna make a big impact with
these young hitters. He's got a rollerdex of working with
a lot of good major league hitters, and so we
feel like he can make the necessary impact and we'll
really be leaning on him a lot for getting these
guys over the hump. They both have teachable spirits, they're
both really good athletes, and they both want.
Speaker 4: To get better. So we think it's a perfect match.
Speaker 15: Now we got to see them execute it, and so
there's a good chance we see, you know, exciting young
players this spring that both could make the team, and
we'll be all thrilled if that happens.
Speaker 1: Even Georgia surplus in the infield right now as we speak.
I think you're we were teasing this Jill a couple
of days ago. Uh, if people want to go see
some future major league arms, you don't hear the commercials
about that. With the Space Cowboys, you're going to have
at least three or four that you would probably make
ninety percent of major league rosters, not front end, but
certainly back in. You've got ten guys here at least
that I could see being a starter for the Houston
Astros in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 15: Pitching, pitching, Pitching is what Jim Crane and I talked
about a lot this offseason, and you know, we wanted
to stock up right and we wanted to be able
to get through you know, this one hundred and sixty
two win a lot of ball games, get back dead
to the postseason, and so that's why we did what
we did. You know, we added four starters and two
relievers and so uh and we're fired up about all
all six of them. And so all all of these
guys throw pretty hard, they have really good stuff, they
have some deception, and so you know, when it comes
to the starting pitching, we feel like it's on right
and so uh and that's going to be led by
a hundred.
Speaker 4: You know, got him at the top.
Speaker 15: You know, you got Hobby here coming back with some
experience and we're looking for him to take that jump.
And then you know, we got some guys that we
added that we feel really good about.
Speaker 1: EMI. When did that conversation come into play? Obviously, you'
the dr has been something that's been important for this
organization for the long period of time. We've been fans
of this we were kids. There hasn't been a pacific
rim connection to this. So when it was first brought up,
what did you think? And then how did you then
implement scouting getting people involved in your department to say,
is this really a guy worth putting some money in
his piggy bank.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 15: So the big thing is, you know, Jim Crane had
the vision of you know, getting more active in the
Pacific Pacific RIM. You know, we partnered with you know, Dyking, right,
and so we were thrilled about getting over there.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 15: We sent you know, our special assignment scout to John Watson,
We sent over Charles Cook, who's assistant GM. You know,
we've had a few of our area guys over there
see EMI. And so you know, when reports came back
that this guy is pretty good, we looked at the
data and the information, you know, you guys saw how
the makeup is. He's a competitor and you know, so
he checked off all three of those boxes, you know,
makeup data and you know, scouting eye, and so you know,
we were thrilled to jump in there. We started talking
to bors, you know, early in the off season, and
then things heated up, you know, right there at the
deadline when we when we got it done, like on
New Year's Day. So we're fired up about him. He's
fired up about being here, and so we're looking for
some big things out of him.
Speaker 1: Astros manager Dana A. General manager Dana Brown with us
here on a Sports Talk seven ninety speaking of the pitching, pitching,
more pitching, What was it like for you going through
the team building of knowing all the injuries last year,
hoping that that's an aberration and not necessarily the new normal,
but not wanting to overreact, but also being prepared for
the possibility of more rastion of pitching injuries.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 15: Look, the pitching injuries last year were excruciating. I mean
it was really really tough to watch. The injuries in
general were excruciating, excruciating, and so you know, we wanted
to be more prepared with depth, and so you know
when we look at this and we you know, we
felt one game short, and we know that we had
a ton of injuries. You guys have heard me say
multiple times that at one point we had our one
two and three hitter out. No other team experienced that
in the course of the season last year, and then
you experienced that along with some starters getting hurt, and
you come up one game short. So you know, it's
not an excuse, it's just the reality that, you know,
the injuries pretty much cost us the postseason, and so
we wanted to make sure that look let's stock up
and you know, let's be prepared that if anything goes down,
we have the coverage right and so, uh, you know,
that's where we are.
Speaker 4: We're locked in. The pitching is a big part of it.
Speaker 15: If you pitch, you were in every game and then
it's a matter of you know, getting a big hit here,
a big hit there, and make a nice.
Speaker 4: Play on defense and and you're you're you're victorious.
Speaker 15: So you know, that's kind of like what our thought
process was, and we wanted to we wanted to stock
up for.
Speaker 1: Let your run. You mentioned Scott Boris. Have you invited
him down for dinner this spring training at this point?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I believe Scott old me a nice bottle of wine.
You know, I'll tell him that too.
Speaker 15: Uh. Now we've we've had we had dinner when we
did the my signing at Jim's place at Potente. Very
good dinner, very good wine. And you know, so we
got a chance to fellowship a little bit and talk about,
you know, even some future things that we may be
doing with Boris. But you know, ultimately, you know, we
got a bunch of guys that are going to be
a big part of the winning season this year. We're excited,
we're fired up. Boris happens to have a few of
our candidates. So uh so we're we're we're locked in
and we're fired up. The guys are fired up. The
the in around the spring, around the cages, and you know,
just having conversations is it's off the hook right now.
So we hope these guys keep that type of energy.
They're locked in and we're ready to go the.
Speaker 1: Crystal ball for Dana Brown need two years when we've
got a new labor agreement, whatever that may be. I
said two hopefully it's one. Hopefully maybe two. Who's is
it gonna have?
Speaker 3: You have to redefine how your budgets look. Are you
going to redefine how contracts look?
Speaker 1: Well? Will it be as big of adjustments for the
teams or for the players?
Speaker 4: Do you think at the end of the day, Yeah,
I have no idea. It's you know, we talk about
it and it's tough to speculate.
Speaker 15: We have no idea. We'll cross that bridge when we
get there. The one thing that I'm quite sure about is,
you know, Jim Crane is definitely dedicated to putting winning
product on the field. We're going to be involved in
whatever it takes to get players signed, and so we're
you know, we're hoping for the best, and you know
we're locked in about that as well. So, uh, but
we have no earthly idea how this is going to
play out.
Speaker 1: It's like it's almost even to take a new math
class or something like that, because there could be Saturday camps,
there could be all sorts of things there. Dana, thank
you for the time. We really appreciate it. We'll see
you back in Houston. Wish you know they've been the
very best this entire season and look forward to hearing
from you often on this radio station.
Speaker 4: Thanks absolutely, Thanks Matt, Thanks Ross that associate you guys.
Speaker 1: Dana Brown joining us here from West Palm Beach. Matt
and Ross continue here from our coverage of Astros spring
training In the moment on Sports Talk seven ninety We
get the news and nude Rossie at twelve twenty four,
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sixty three for Affordable Tree Service. What's going on? Headline?
Why sports Harpy? Yes, Matthew, there's a lot of really big,
heavy hitting news going on in Okay. Fine, if you
want to Tony Clark, it's it's headline a headline. You
just love drama, man, I do love drama. Fine. Tony Clark, Yes,
was dismissed or sorry resigned yesterday as he directed he
was dismissed all right by some Major League Baseball Players Association.
The first thing we heard about was there was an
Eastern District of New York investigation about possibly, or I'm sorry,
an inquiry into what is going on with a couple
of corporations that are partnered with the players Association. And then, yes, Matthew.
The latest would be Tony Clark and a relationship with
his sister in law. Apparently while they were romancing each other,
they were the song we are Families in the background.
Speaker 3: That's mat Come on, they're not listening to Sister Sledge
at the time. Okay, no, you're right, I got all
my sisters with me.
Speaker 1: Put another song sisters doing it for them? So they
are a song like that too. I think there is
a family matters theme either. Oh that's true. There's a
song about sisters. I swear to god there is. We
wouldn't play. Clark resigned after the internal investigation revealed an
inappropriate relationship with his sister in law, who was also,
by the way, hired by the union in at twenty
twenty three. So we've got some kind of nepotism yep,
and some kind of well, I guess it's not incests
because they're not related, but no in law cested, no,
and an investigation by the district attorneys in the Eastern District,
New York. So things going really well for Tony Clark
right now. Yeah, he's yeah, he's they're checking his finances
and they're checking his hotel stays. Yes, all right, Matt.
This actually relates to something we were talking about earlier today,
Canada's Sidney Crosby leaving the Olympic quarterfinal with an injury.
Of course, not playing for the Pittsburgh Penguins, he got
hurt with Canada as he suffered a second period lower
body injury and was ruled out in the game against Chechia.
Canada did advance in the semifinals with a four to
three victory in overtime, but Crosby's right leg appeared to
buckle when he was bracing for contact on a big
hit from Chechia defenseman Rodko Gudas minutes into the second
The Olympics are a little bit of a god. I
don't want to sign hip for critical or two side
on this.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 1: The Olympics have been around for hundreds of years. The
World Baseball Classics fifteen years. I think I can. But
also too, the Olympics are in the middle of the season,
when the athletes have already been fine tuned and doing
They've already playing a handful of lots of games. So
you're asking WBC players to amp it up when they
have been in camp about two weeks. I think there's
a difference. Okay. Plus, the heritage and the Olympics and
the legacy of the Olympics is significantly stronger than the WBC.
By the way, did you know do you know how
old Sid the kid is? Thirty seven? Thirty eight? That
was pretty close. I remember when he was a young feno.
What happened? He still plays the Penguins, yes, okay, uh yeah,
Sentner and captain the Pittsburgh Penguins. Okay, he is not
the Sidy kid anymore? No, all right. Elsewhere in the
news at noon, Matt, the Kansas City Chiefs have reworked
Pat Mahomes's deal to create cap space, converted fifty four
point four to five million of his salary for the
next year into signing bonus and lowering his cap number
to thirty four point six five million dollars. As this
move will create forty three point sixty five million dollars
in cap space for the Kansas City Chiefs fifty seven
million over the cap were the Chiefs heading to the offseason,
so some cap relief and Pat Mahomes converting some big
money into a signing bonus as he has been reworked.
What does this mean for Travis Kelcey and Taylor Swift?
We don't know yet. Yeah, I was thinking that Travis
would leave the field with down on one legg But
he's got things to worry about in his life. He's
got a marriage to get to, a big wedding to plan.
Speaker 3: Yeah, not far from corner under on five years of
that marriage? Five years five, I'll go the over seven
and a half.
Speaker 1: Oh seven under. I think you're right, all right, mate.
Mike Evans plans to return for a final eighteenth. How
intensive it two radio jamokes like you and me? Hey,
I know, jimoke, Okay, going on a radio show and
guessing how long someone's gonna stay married? Hey, I did
that for a radio jamokes. We know how'd that go
turn out? They hit the over. I've been very transparent
about that for them. What else you got, Mike Evans
is going to be returning for a thirteenth NF season,
but his destination has yet to be determined.
Speaker 16: Well, he's Texans cusiness guessing you won't do Galveston ball
Zone Mike Evans and the Texas A and m Aggie
Mike Evans.
Speaker 1: Could he be Matt a Houston Texan one year deal?
Go bring him here, that's fine, I don't care. I
just hate it when everybody gets released. How does he
fit the Texas plans? You know what I mean. If
there's a team that would take a one or two
year fix on a guy, I'd be the Texans. That's
how nickked Sarah does his contracts. But we're gonna stop
doing that. So I mean, will he listen? Of course?
But do I expect the Mike Evans it was a
star for the Buccaneers to come do the same things
he did in Houston. Not likely, Just like Christian Kirk
was just a body for the most part coming out
of playing his days in Jacksonville. All right, Well, you
want some lighthearted and happy NFL news, Robert Woods signing
a one year excuse me, one day contract act to
retire as a Los Angeles Ram. Yes, he didn't want
to do it in Houston. He didn't play anywhere last year,
by the way, in an NFL game. Now signing a
one year contract, two years in Houston, and it was
five years in Los Angeles, four years with the Buffalo Bills.
But a ram for life now Robert Woods Texans legend.
But it is a strong term. He had six hundred
and twenty nine yards in two seasons. My point exactly,
and that is the news at noon. Anything you want
to take away from what Dana Brown had to say,
I have won. Oh, I'm curious to hear it. It's
not super big when we come back, but it just
further pushes my agenda that I think that is the
theme of this year's camp interesting, even though they're not
going to obviously say a public like second one, three, two, seven,
Ross with You, final hour of the show will be
featuring our best stuff. Joe was awesome. I'm rooting for
Joe Hart. I want him to be around. I like him.
I think the players like him. Yes, the results are
in a business of course.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: He needs a clean slate with healthy players. Technic health
will be a lot of the reason why this team
will be successful this year, as in the case of
the most baseball. I think love will keep the Astros together. Matt,
all right, you'll also hear in the hour from Hunter
Brown the staff ace the opening day started. We'll talk
with him. Let's go. We had Jeremys hear and you
say that Astros a Hunter Brown. It's good with Jeremy.
Panel will be a conversation I had this morning with him,
So we'll play that for you. And then Spencer Arraghetty,
we can get him in that rotation every fifth day.
He's a good talker too. It was a good conversation,
so we didn't get feeling. But I'm I'm gonna lock
it in. Spencer Araghedty's in the rotation, and I don't
want to predict in our era or anything like that,
but barring injury, he's in the rotation six man or
otherwise for the for the year. All right, what's up?
So I scared back to the conversation. We went right
to Dana right for the or the not the jugular.
But this the theme of too many infielders. The phone
is going to be turned on the phone. He's not
gonna get ridiculous request, He's gonna get Hey, we see
value uh in paritis, But what do you want? And
I think that's that's the tug of war that you're
currently going through right now. It's no secret the Astros
would like to make a move. It's no secret the
Astros have, at least on paper, a very undetermined, unsettled outfield.
I will say this, if there's a I think it's
something I came away from. It feels like to me, again,
Cam and Cole and Zach don't have guaranteed spots. That's
been crazy. No, he even Dana said making the team,
so that would make a lot of sense. You in
what you just said is what kind of takes away
some of the leverage from Dana Brown, and he's trying
to win that back by making people wait, yeh, the
leverages goes away when you when you when teams think
you're desperate to make a move and think you're desperate
to to to figure out something with this infield long jam,
they're gonna try to pray on that. And that's that's
fine for them to do that. And I think it's
a good idea for Dana Brown to wait for a
possible right offer if it is going That's why it
was silly, frankly for me to say, oh, by the
time the team breaks camp, but by the time the
team gets this opening day workouts, he's got to make
the move that goes I think without saying. But he
doesn't have to make the move just to make the
move at a certain particular time. Yeah. Uh, it's it's
interesting to see how we've been talking about it for
months and months and months and it just keeps on
becoming a storyline that Dana doesn't want to you know,
we have Christian Walker on he doesn't want to be
talking about Nobody wants to be everybody wants us to
be resolved, and it just keeps right. And the reason
for it is, you got to remember they these are
professational athletes we mentioned this a few days ago, that
have been playing ball since they were seven years old,
six years old. They have been at the best of
their position or in their sport for a long period
of time. They have made it to the major leagues.
They have been highly compensated. And when you get to
the big leagues and you make a lot of money
and you want to continue to make a lot of money.
The only way you make a lot of money and
do successful things. Is you actually have to be in
the lineup card. Yes, and if you're having to take
an extra day off a week because you've got one
too many arms or one too many bats, then it
becomes a little bit of a tricky situations. That's why
I mean Lance mcculor is moving into the baseball side.
Lance didn't want to go to the bullpen. He knows
that his future if you will to stay in baseball
beyond the end of this contract, is I can be
a journeyman middal reliever making three four million dollars a year.
Speaker 4: I want to be a starting pitcher.
Speaker 1: I want to be a double digit guy.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: They have their egos in sports, and you could never
forget about that team is very important. But right behind
it is eye. It's built in though. I mean it's
we talk about certain people who rise to the level
of uh, you know, politicians or what you're talking about,
Tony Clark, Like, you have to have a certain something
and to be an athlete that is of the millions
of baseball players in this country and in this world,
to be the elite of the elite of the elite, Yeah,
you absolutely have to have this great belief in yourself
these great abilities and all these different things that come
with that, and be like us, Matt, you're gonna there's
three of you that host has showing them in a day.
We're gonna give one even extra day off a week. Oh,
if you want to be on radio, you gotta have
an ego. I mean yeah, I mean I look, I've
given you a good ego. You you were just like,
I'm happy to be here. Now you can't act that well.
You gotta like you the boss. Uh yeah, I got
a bit of an ego. We all do.
Speaker 4: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: If you don't have an ego, you and surviving anything.
And that's the thing that sales. You don't want to
share accounts. You want them to be your accounts. That's yes,
it's doggy dog world. It's just stockpiling and putting an
awesome player and lay away. I mean it sounds awesome.
But if the astros had six starting pictures that were
all legit starting pictures that had no issues about why
they should be a starter, you did the same exact
thing going on here. Because somebody would be pushing the bullepen.
I guess they would do it, but they wouldn't want
to do it. I guess at this point pretty a
big guy that would not want to be a rotation,
a utility guy or moving around. If Christian Walker struggles
in that month of March, he doesn't want to be
that guy. Nobody everybody wants their positions when they jump
on a plane and go to camp. They want to
know exactly what they are, and then you deal with
the surplus. The question is how long is it gonna
before I start rolling or guys going I don't like
this joke could easily get irritated by this as well,
because he's gonna have to consistently be a therapist for
these guys. I think, especially Christian Walker could get into
the crosshairs cause you talk about, you know, as soon
as somebody's in if they if they make it trade
as soon as somebody's injured, Why did you guys do this?
If they don't make a trade. What if Christian Walker
wants to start the season grade it was a slow
start last year. He doesn't have the oblique thing, so
I'm hoping he hits the ground running. But what if
he starts off like two for sixteen something, Why is
Christian Walker out there? It's just there's a number of
ways this can go haywire, and it'll be interesting to
see what we're even talking about come up in the
day opening day to where we're having a completely different
conversation about the infield and possibly completely different conversation about
the outfield as well. Yep, all right, if you want
to join us seven one three two one two five
seven nine zero seven one three two one two five
seven hoey, We'll get back to more of our normal
shows starting tomorrow. I'll be in Charlotte with the Rockets,
Rossy back in Houston, uh and so we will also
we will do our shut your bomb ass up tomorrow.
Don't all exact time on that because we're worring to
book a couple of things. But you're coming off to
the Palm Beach Airport lady. I don't blame her if
if it's a show on Monday. We found the crankiest
person alive and that's West Palm Beach Airport police girl.
She pick up traffic. She and she wanted to zero
part of you sitting there waiting for your loved ones.
Well I got one for you. It was a really
quick on. Anybody got time for that? Will you go
pick up somebody at the airport. Save the hugs for
when you get out of the airport, when you get home. Oh,
I'm sorry. You have to be disciplined to do that.
I'm gonna tell you that I don't normally do that.
Speaker 4: But that's good.
Speaker 1: No, I'm saying I normally hug. Oh no oh no
no no no no, no, no, no no no. That
police woman would have had you.
Speaker 3: Now, it's not like you're making out if you're if
you're a grandfather, yes, you're picking up your daughter, okay,
and they're three kids, yes, and your son in law.
Speaker 1: Huh, that's five hugs. Okay. Now, I'm not saying that
so hard. So you're saying I'm gonna hug, I'm talking
about what I'm not talking about what I do. I'm
not a grandfather at four kids. But there are grandfathers
here and them single and I don't have children. There
are grandfather picked up by one person, and I hugged them.
The rule is you can kiss and hug one person,
but it's gotta be quick if it's time. Okay, don't
stick your tongue down her throat. Well, a little church tongue.
I think I'm right about this. You could be right.
I'm just telling you what I'm gonna do. I'm just
saying a family of five, either you hug about it,
I'm not picking up. If I'm picking up a family
of five, something has gone extremely right. If you picked
up your sister and their kids. Uh yeah, I probably
wouldn't hug all of them. No, which if you only
if you only hugged one, well, I'll probably stay in
the car and let them load up. Wait, you won't
get out of the car for husbands there if it's
just her, she's married. Oh, husband can handle it. Always
got back issues. I'll get out and help. Nice of you.
Twelve forty Yeah, would hug them suck and thus delay traffic.
Oh five, you know what you are. You're the airport hugger.
Speaker 3: I'm not picking them up and swooping them around the
whole concourse airport hugger.
Speaker 1: Let me I can. Let's see, it's probably four to
five seconds maximum per hug. That's thirty seconds. And you
think an airport cops going like that, she's gonna crush
She could shut her mom ass up. I'm hugging my family. Sorry.
Seven one three, two, one two five seven ninety seven
one three two one two.
Speaker 3: I think I brought up serve of hornets and I
said this one, this is great seven one three two
one two five seven nine zero.
Speaker 1: Does the Matt Thomas Show with Ross with welcome back
to pull for It's okay, welcome back to the mat
topa show with Ross here on Sports Talk seven ninety
What are you putting a Twitter pull up about matth
Here's the question, because yesterday or on Sunday when you
pick me up, there was a grandfather that was hugging
the wife, the three kids and the woman and the
and our agitated airport employee was like, hurry it up.
My question said, then, crowded airport pickup area, you are
the one picking up a love one our friend. Do
you hug yes, quickie, no gotta go.
Speaker 2: It.
Speaker 1: I mean if I'm helping them with their luggage, So
most of the time you stay in the car, I
would say most of the time, I would say most
of the time. When when when my wife or my
kids pick me up, they stay in the car as well. Yes,
if you have to get out to help with a
bunch of luggage or something, then yeah, you get a
get a kiss. My get a little squeeze, been out
a full makeout session. Basically, hey, you hug with one hand,
squeeze with the other. What are you squeezing cushion? Okay,
hugging a squeeze? But you never heard of that hugging
a squeeze. Let's talk to uh Roger on seven out
of Hello Roger.
Speaker 12: Yeah, sometimes you have to categorize these hugs, especially airport
huggs that are very very uh should we say, at
a premium. So if you're if you gotta love what's
coming from across seas, and he's military, and and and
he just came overseas after a long after a long tour,
then yes, hugglers are applicable. Then uh uh. A family
member who maybe was just kind of a surgery, was
very sick. I haven't seen him in will hug applicable?
But if not, you gotta keep it moving like you
like you're at a like like like you got teammates
at an All Star game. You're fist bumped it. That's
when the fishbuff was created. You gotta frist bump.
Speaker 16: Put it in there.
Speaker 12: We'll talk about it later. Put put the luggage in
the back. Let's roll maybe all right, you gotta update
your two categories. Man, you gotta update that stuff.
Speaker 1: I don't know if iver fist bumped my wife, Roger,
you know, let me Frederick. Are you married, Roger?
Speaker 12: If I am married, when's.
Speaker 1: The last time you fist bumped your wife.
Speaker 7: Right after that?
Speaker 12: Well, after marathone?
Speaker 16: Maybe no?
Speaker 1: Oh Jesus, I knew that was coming. Excuse me, Jess,
that was the words that was terrible. Oh, dear Adam Splaine,
Uh says no, because then you have to help with bags.
What he's avoiding helping with bags? How many bags are
we talking about? Yeah, you're talking about a two week
vacation from Japan, Ryan says, Airport pickup are will be
far less crowded of learning. How about the cell phone lines?
Exactly what it feels like a weekend in Dallas? I mean,
Rogers makes a good point weekend in Dallas rather than like,
I don't know, three weeks in Japan or something that's
a little bit different. That is true. So somebody should say, hey,
I've not seen my spouse in this many days. Yeah,
you hold up a sign. Okay, it's been two weeks,
swear shirt, it's been three weeks. All right, so far
back off. Eighteen votes are in yes quick now eight percent?
Oh I think you're or what you're you're on the
don't hug, No, I'm on the It depends on the situation.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, Uh, it's gotta be but it's if you're
gonna do the you're gonna hug.
Speaker 1: It's gotta be fast, I mean super fast, because you
don't want I'm telling you intercounting. Airport has mean guys too.
They don't mint women. They just mean cops. Period. Yes,
the meanest cops in Houston are airport cops. They're pretty
chill at hobby. Well that's because you live in the
hobby world. I love hobby, all right. Hobby is my jam.
It's closer, faster, smaller.
Speaker 4: It's great.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, Uh, best of our interview start in
four minutes. Oh man, I can't wait. Well, get ready,
We're gonna from Joe Aspata, Jack Hunter, Brown Spencer, Getty
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Speaker 1: That's Uptown of Plant shapaio dot com. More here from
West Palm with a visit with Joe a Spoted Next
here on seven ninety is The Matt Thomas Show with Ross.
It is the final hour The Matt Thomas Show with
Ross here on Sports Talk seven ninety from West Palm
Beach and Astro Spring Training twenty twenty six. Astros will
get underway with games coming up this Saturday against the Nationals,
and this hour we're gonna let you hear from some
of our best to interviews while we down here the
last standful of days. And we'll start things off this
hour with a visit with manager Joe A. Spot I.
We talked with him a couple of days ago, and
obviously the number one topic of conversation is the congested infield.
But first things first, something's going to be very special
with this Astro team in terms of depth in their
pitching staff. In fact, we tease Joe about how good
the Sugarland roster would be when it comes to guys
not making the major league team and eventually heading down
to Triple A to start this season. But it's good depth,
says Joe, among other things in our visit with the
manager of the Astros. Yeah, and that's the whole idea
behind it.
Speaker 14: Create a create a line of defense is something happens
on the major league level.
Speaker 1: These guys can come up and perform.
Speaker 14: We added a ton of you picture, even the guys
from NI they're good arms some of the major league service,
and that was the whole idea behind it.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like you've got to set a date
in your mind? You know, publicly say it, but in
your mind, I want to have my rotation set by
a certain time. Yeah, you do.
Speaker 14: I think for the last week of spring training you
do have a pretty good idea of how your rotation
is going to look like, and you start lining them
up so you know who you're going to how you're
gonna you know, line them up not only for that
first series, but against the Red Sox, right, and then
there's an off day, and then we do have a
stretch of games, so we're gonna be facing the Mariners,
so we want to make sure that we line up
certain pitchers to face certain some of those teams. I
think the biggest question is going to be more the
middle of a bullpend some of the long guys, some
of those that's where we're going to be spending most
of our time.
Speaker 1: So if you don't use your starters a lot during
spring training because you they don't need to be burning up, right,
how do you do how do you get those middle
guys in when everyone needs to get anything? But but
there's plenty, there's plenty of innings, you know, even the starters,
you you know, you at some point you get him
throwing sixty eighty pitches, and but there's plenty of stuff
that we do in the backfield. Yeah, you know, we
do want to get.
Speaker 14: Him facing guys on the on the main field, but
we could create some some live vps and and try
to get them built up that way.
Speaker 1: But you know, you have to be creative.
Speaker 14: You just don't have enough innings here sometimes to answer
some of those all those questions.
Speaker 1: Sticking with the pitching, Christian Javier is an interesting one
to me. How what do you see from him where
he is now, and how do you get him back
to the guy that we know that can can be
somebody that can go out there and throw a bunch
of no hit innings if we've seen from him.
Speaker 14: You know, historically pitchers who come back from Tommy John,
they usually come back and happens what happens to have here.
Towards the end, you start seeing you know, his stuff
trying to come around, and he has some decent outings.
But then once they have a full off season of
you know, full strength live BPS, he was in the
dr throwing bullpens up to forty pitches. Now you see
some health. Now you can start you know, planning ahead
and and you start seen a good version of him again.
He's gonna be big for us. He's gonna be really
big for us. We get that Christian heavier, which I
know is in there, that twenty twenty two Christian heavier.
Speaker 1: Watch out. We had Spencer Getty about twenty minutes ago.
What what Spencer get It's gonna show up? Do you
think you hope? I should say yeah?
Speaker 14: And again, you know, I think Spencer last year, after
that injury and the post there in the middle.
Speaker 1: Just kind of you know, you know, makes up.
Speaker 14: He's messed up his rhythm and and and it sucked
because we had high expectations for him. We really like
this stuff. And once he gets going, he's he could
be pretty dominant. But I expect him to come in
and and and and be good. His stuff is so
good he could create swing and missus.
Speaker 1: Looking for guys.
Speaker 14: If we take us deep into the game, man, that's
gonna be that's gonna be key for us.
Speaker 1: We have discussed about the six man rotation because you've
got plenty of arms in the schedules trying he would
dictate that, right, is is it harder to give those
guys an extra day when they're feeling good and feeling
like that can go over there because it throws the
rhythm off or is it harder because you have to
know you've got one less mineral believer if a guy
is a tough day.
Speaker 14: Yeah, so yeah, let's tackle that one first. Anytime you
have a six man rotation, that is one less guy
in the pen, So any hiccup from your starters. Now
you start, you know, asking some of your high leverage
relievers to start throwing in down games and stuff like that.
So you're trying to avoid those those those things. But
you do your six man rotations for at the end,
you know, June July and you start getting into August.
You want those arms to be fresh, so you are
proactive in the front end. Try to be smart about
it and be patient about it because you know, in
August September comes around, you're unleashing them and you asking
them to throw getting to the one oh five, one
ten right like we did a few times to Hunter
last year.
Speaker 1: So it's tricky.
Speaker 14: You just got to be patient and and and that's
why bringing all these arms is important so we can
so we feel good about our about our death.
Speaker 3: Astros manager Joe spottles here on Sports Talk seven ninety
I'm not gonna ask you who's playing were But just
at a general humans standpoint, you know, you as a manager,
you have many different roles. You have to be psychologists,
you have to build relationships, you have to talk to
all these guys. What is that challenge like for you
trying to just because everybody wants to play every day,
which is a great thing and it's great and so competitive, yes, yes,
but and then try to figure out a way to
kind of figure this thing out with the personal, with
the human element of it.
Speaker 1: Man, I tell you the toughest part of my job.
Speaker 14: Right, we have a super competitive group of players who
want to play every day. And if there were not
like that, then I'll be scratching my head, like what
the heck, what's wrong with this guys?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 1: But they're not like that. They all want to play
every day. They'll every day players, right.
Speaker 14: And I've learned that even working on some great managers,
sometimes you're gonna have tough conversation with players and they're
not going to like what you say, right, And there's
a level of respect there that ultimately I'm like that
decisions and I understand that they're not gonna like it,
but we have to do what's best for the team.
So if if they all understand that we're doing this
what's best for the team, our players knowing that, listen,
I am doing it for what's best for the players.
It's not personally just best for for the team. And
it's it's tricky, it's difficult, especially when you when you
have a ton of dudes. I just want to go
out there and and and and and ball and play
good and and the good players. All Stars, Silver Sluggers,
Gold Glovers, Hall of Famers, Hall of Fame, Hall of Famers.
Speaker 1: There you go, shooting Hall of Famers. Yes, exactly, you
know we got them all. Uh So, Zach Cole is
going to have every opportunity to win that left field
spot for you. You got Jenkins, center, camp, corner outfield
spots supposed to be power hitting. How long do the
least of those guys have You know what they're going
to I'm going to play him from from the get go. Here.
Speaker 14: They're going to get a ton of our bats, and
we we're looking for some of those guys to step up.
Really will like some of those guys to take over
that every day role. And we know that camp it's
really close doing that. Last year he got to a
good start, second half of the season did not God's good,
but we know he figures some stuff out. You know,
he's definitely in in in in that, in that that
competition there with you mentioned Sac. We just got low
Berfido with Jake, excellent center fielder. So it's going to
be interesting because I just don't think right now as
we speak today that I don't really know exactly how
that's gonna shake out. I'm hopeful that everything that we
are planning turns out that way. But these are young
players and we need to be patients and they'll they'll
they'll let us know there.
Speaker 1: He's just thinking. I've mentioned in my audience for years,
covering all these spring trainings, I don't trust numbers in March,
and I don't trust numbers in September. You've got one
kid who had killed it in March last year, who
look at head Upton downs as you would admit, but
defense with the great and then Zach was great in September.
So the brighter lights are in April. They count the
same amount of time.
Speaker 14: You know what, and what I like about what you
just said that that we do have a sample size
of what March looked like, so we know that March won't.
We have enough seeing on players that Okay, March, this
player could be a really good March player. Yep, right,
we saw this get in September. But we also saw
he did it in a pretty high leverage spot. So
he has some really good at bats, some big home
runs in big moments. So that stuff matters when you
are evaluating players. So we learn a lot about from
both of those players. So now I'm moving forward. We'll see,
we'll see where this takes us.
Speaker 1: You got one, I got one? Okay, sure, why not,
like you gotta feel good. But defensively, certainly out it's
almost whoever you pick, and not out of a hat,
of course, but whoever you picked to put out there.
The outfield defense is going to be improved.
Speaker 14: Yes, athleticism, guys can go and and and you know,
take care of Boston the gap whoever's not starting. You know,
for example, if you're done and starting left, I got enough.
I can replace defense and you feel really good about
about any of that stuff. But yeah, that's been our
goal this off season, trying to stay more athletic and
and we've been able to add a few guys that
helping us do that.
Speaker 1: Here comes the question, here a question you're moving around,
Tell me as much as you're wanting to tell the
city Houston. We have hundreds of people listening right now.
I wish it was, but it's a holiday. Yeah, walks in,
You hug him out and say, hey, how is your
off season? I'm sure you've talked him before. Then is
he going, Okay, I'm here. What do you want me
to do? I mean, give us as much as you can.
Speaker 14: Okay, he did not ask what you want me to do.
He already knew going in here what we wanted him
to do.
Speaker 1: But he's real.
Speaker 14: You know, once you get here and now anybody start
moving in first second, some third.
Speaker 2: I have.
Speaker 14: Full confidence that he could play all three. There's he
can do it right. We love the bat. But the
question is always how are we're going to make all
these work? And that's where I come in and we
have the conversation. You know this will play out. Let's
let's just give it time and see where it takes us.
And you know, it's just not easy for players too.
They want to know right now and it and I
and I and I get it but you know, and
it's they're all really good players. And that's where it's
a good problem. It's the greatest utility player in the
baseball today. You've got the greatest pinch hitter available for
you today. But you know another thing, I don't want
to look at him as a utility player because you know,
you know, but this is the thing about about when
you think about an utility player, you think defense first.
Speaker 1: This guy is one of the best hitters I know.
Speaker 14: So you know, this is what's the reason why we're
all like, okay, but you know, but you know, I
know our fans ask you these questions so all the time,
and it's fair fair enough, it's fair enough, and I
get I get asked the same questions. Uh, and I'm
going to continue to answer the same question. Let's just
give it time and and we played this out and
that is my my biggest job, and just make sure
that those guys stay focused on the mission.
Speaker 1: It may not happen here in spring training, but ultimately
I think the Astros will make a move to decongest
this infield. We hear from a guy who will be
the opening day starter for the Astros. It's Hunter Brown.
He'll join us next here on Sports Talk seven eighty.
Tell Me Show what Ross continues here on Sports Talk
seven ninety. We had the pleasure a couple of days
ago to visit with the staff ace of the Astros
pitching staff. Of course, it's Hunter Brown and Hunter and I,
along with Ross, sat down and visited about variety of things,
including finding out from him when he found out he
would be the opening day picture for the Astros at
Dyke and Park. So I flew in on.
Speaker 11: I think it was Monday.
Speaker 1: You thought you were in trouble, right, Yeah, that was
a joke that I guess, uh a little better, DFA.
Got to work on your stand up?
Speaker 2: No, yeah, I know, right, and just you know, usually
when you're in the building for I think about thirty seconds.
Speaker 11: And then uh, Josie, yeah, come see me. I was
just like, oh man, you know, it's like it's like
when you're in school. What did I do already?
Speaker 1: Kind of I'm kiddings. H Okay, let's be brutally honest.
You knew what the conversation was about, right, come on,
don't lie.
Speaker 2: No, I actually I didn't expect that, oh okay, like
camp had started, I didn't really know, it could have
been anything.
Speaker 11: You know, Joe could have just been.
Speaker 1: Like, hey, what's up, Yeah, for something like that, who knows,
you know.
Speaker 11: So but now then he broke the news.
Speaker 2: I was obviously really excited, and you know, just got
to get through get through the next couple of weeks
here and in Roland opening day.
Speaker 1: So is there literally a Hunter Brown calendar that's I'm
doing this this day? I mean, even if you didn't
know your opening day, do you have a specific calendar
about what you're doing every single day leading up to
that opening day?
Speaker 2: For the most part, you kind of just know what
what games you're projected to pitch in. Yep, you know
what your lives and bullpens look like. Usually get that
when you when you get to camp. So yeah, I
mean every year they kind of have it. You know,
maybe TBD here or there, but for the most part,
you know, and then especially as a starter, it's like, okay, well,
if I'm thrown alive here or in a game, more
than likely five or six days from now doing it again.
Speaker 1: So did you give from Bernie Detroit Eats locations to go?
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: I just told him if he if he needed any
to let me know just a could hook him up.
Speaker 2: That's right, And that's right. I told him, Uh, he's
got that. And then obviously all the other guys on
the team, but I said, hey, I got a I
know a lot of people over there. If you need anything,
let me know.
Speaker 1: Now, you're a Detroit guy like myself. You went to
Wayne State. My mom went there, so shout out to Wayne. Wow,
that's right. How about that. Have you gone to the
Spie hot dog store in Detroit?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 4: I have not.
Speaker 1: Downtown Detroit, there are two hot dog places. They share
a same wall, their families and they've got in a
fight like fifty years ago.
Speaker 2: You're talking about Lafayette and yeah American, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I've been there.
Speaker 1: I'm a Lafayette guy. Are you really?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 1: You gotta pick? Is it like you have to pick
a side type of thing. Yeah, you're kind of committed.
Speaker 11: You know.
Speaker 2: When I was younger, my dad and uncle they just
always did Lafiette. I think Americans probably a little bit.
Speaker 1: A little bit.
Speaker 2: Better aesthetic, if you will. But you know, Lafayette is
where I go.
Speaker 1: All right, So what's the number one to eat for
you in Houston, Texas? Houston, I've been doing Blue Door
a lot. I like that place. Nice qualm yep.
Speaker 11: Uh, they're great over there.
Speaker 2: They're treating well and think it's you can't you can't
really miss with anything there.
Speaker 1: I like.
Speaker 2: Uh, I mean ironically, I like gold to Tony's Detroit South.
Speaker 11: That's good, it's a good spot.
Speaker 1: I love go Jets. You have jet yet, Yeah, it's
more of a change. I'm just throwing it out.
Speaker 11: And then I'm trying to think of what else?
Speaker 1: Last thing and very Detroit, yes, and then we're done
with this. Do you like Werners?
Speaker 11: Yeah?
Speaker 14: What is it?
Speaker 1: Ginger soda? It's disgusting. It's my mother grew up on it,
so give it a shot. It's whiskey. And if it's bad,
that's right. All right, back to baseball we're having. We
got around for like nine minutes. I gotta been focusing
on food for the first three of it. It's good stuff.
You've got a lot of bros now in your Are
you getting to introduced yourself? And you guys been I
mean if we get name tags, name tags, a lot
of new arms is uh, it's new, it's exciting, it
feels depth wise, hunter, I bet not the thing bad
last year was bad, but it feels like there is
gonna be some greater competition, especially at the back end.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think we've got a lot of
guys that are, you know, coming in ready to compete
for a job. I think, you know, every year in
including myself. You know, this year is a little different
with being name that, but I think every year you
come in trying to try to protect protect your job
or get a new one. So I think, like you,
like you mentioned, there's a there's a ton of new faces,
and then there's a lot of guys who maybe you know,
maybe didn't have the year that they wanted last year,
or you know, can build on doing some really good things.
You know, I saw a blue ball Throat throw a
bullpen or throw a lobby p today.
Speaker 1: You know, he had a great end of the year.
Speaker 2: Alexander had an awesome, awesome ten twelve starts for us.
So you know, the door's open for a lot of
guys to come in and and and make a you know,
earn a job.
Speaker 1: What is that like for you now to be named
the opening day guy and you know we've had you
on for the last couple of years here to where
you were the you were the young pup, you were
the sponge choking up everything from everyone else. Have you
seen it's a little bit of a change in the
guard to that or what what is that like for
you just as being one of those guys in the clubhouse.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think guys asked me, you know
already We've only been in camp for a week, but
guys definitely asked me a few more things that you know.
Maybe I'm like like, oh, I remember, yeah, now I
remember asking that question now. But I think I think
that's how our clubhouse is. You know, it's pretty It
starts with you know, with hell toove right anybody. He's
he's so great and open about anything, and it's kind
of the transparency of that throughout the clubhouse. It's uh,
you know, open door policy, which just about everybody, so
you know, from the coaching staff down to the players.
So you know, you're opening those questions and guys, guys,
let am you know fire away.
Speaker 1: You've had a chance not of playing all the different ballparks.
I want to ask you about West Sacramento. It was
tough to watch games there. Uh that ball They should
do something because I felt like every game I watched
between you and the Ages was like eleventh to ten
or something crazy like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's uh, I mean, just just call a spade
a spade here. It's not a great park. You know,
you play and league parks and it's the big League,
so you should be playing in a big League park.
That's kind of where I stand on it. I'm happy
Tampa's going back to the trop this year.
Speaker 1: That had been weird too, Huh.
Speaker 2: That was yeah, that was I mean I think I
gave up a home run at fifty degrees that, you know,
off the bed. I thought that'll do. They would catch
it at second and went over the fence. But yeah,
it's just something we got to deal with until they
get over to Vegas, if they do. But yeah, it's
definitely not It's not when you circle on the calendar.
They can't wait to go there.
Speaker 1: Try to change anything. I mean, what can you do,
Like you don't want to get it in your head
too much? Lecture maybe, Yeah, No, I think it's more
just like it's more of I'm trying to think of
like the best way to pay. Yeah, we're on for
another hour and a half and we're roasting, you know.
Speaker 11: When you go when you go to when you go
to Fenway, go to Yankee.
Speaker 2: Stadium, when you're pitching a dike In Park, you know,
there's that innate like all right, this is you're.
Speaker 1: Ready to go.
Speaker 11: Whereas there it was like.
Speaker 1: There was just no no vibe.
Speaker 2: And it like for us at that point this season
when I pitched there at the end of the year,
I was like, all right, this is kind of the
biggest series of the year for us at this point,
and you know, you kind of got to bring your
own juice and and you don't need that from from
outside factors, but you know, the stage sets itself, right,
So I think I think that was something that you know,
I thought about going into it and was like, all right,
I need to kind of turn up the energy a
notch before that.
Speaker 1: So you're one game away from making the playoffs last year,
Seattle obviously got to you guys late to win the division.
Tell me I'm wrong if you can't. It feels like.
Speaker 3: There's gonna be some extra sizzle if there already wasn't
when the Astros and Mariners even playing April coming up
this year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think all in all, in division
games kind of bring that. But yeah, I mean it's
fair to say that we are not happy that they
won the division last year and we want it back.
So had some had some good series obviously, like you said,
you know, I mean, even though they swept us, it
was it was for the most part, a good series.
We just just didn't go our way, you know, didn't
come out on top of the games that we needed to.
Speaker 11: So they ended up win the division. And yeah, and
like I said, we want to back.
Speaker 1: So yeah, do you spend a lot of time in
that minute you collected by yourself but collectively saying hey,
if we'd have gotten that series or that game. The
margin of error is so thin even if you play
one hundred.
Speaker 2: And sixty two games, No, because you can look back
at you know, maybe whatever miscellaneous game in April and
if you would have won that one, right, you know,
so it's hard to pinpoint it.
Speaker 1: But you know, in the moment that.
Speaker 11: It's hard to it's it's hard.
Speaker 2: To not say that too at the same time of like, okay,
well this is the one at that moment that we
had the chance to and it just didn't go our way.
But but you know, how many, how many games throughout
the year. Do you do you win that you maybe
on paper shouldn't have won. You know that you come
back and went out exactly so, and you play one
hundred and sixty two of them?
Speaker 3: Hunor Brown with us here on Sports Talk seven Idy,
What about you you personally, obviously opening Day Starter had
a great season last year?
Speaker 1: What do you want to do more? Are There's certain
things you're trying to refine, like how how do you
get better? Because we know you're a great competitor, You're
always looking for an extra edge and doing whatever. What
was the off season like for you to where you
don't want to get complacent, which I know you're not
going to, but you also don't want to push yourself
too far. Just this your mindset, I suppose. Yeah, my
mindset was more so.
Speaker 2: And I've tried to take this pat together the last
couple of years of stacking them together. I don't think
it's really hard to make an overhaul in three months,
especially when you know I threw a bunch of innings
last year excuse me, the last uh, you know, the
last three years I had career highs. So it's something
necessarily that you can't you can't overdo the the amount,
the workload, so you try to stack them up over Okay,
maybe this is my two year plan, this is my
plan for this season going forward. You know, how is
this off season gonna help me for next off season
and into the next one.
Speaker 11: You know, you want to pitch for a long time.
Speaker 2: You want to play for a long time, So this
this offseason was kind of just stacking those together with
the with a couple of years prior. And then as
for the baseball stuff, you know, just trying to perfect
what I what I do, and then you know, you
can take it on a scale of like, Okay, I
probably walked too many lefties, probably fell behind more guys
than I than I wanted to. I always have room
to improve my slider, you know, my sliders cutters, sliderish.
So you know, would love the two plane the two
plane break on it. You know, I've been chasing that
well really since I got into pro ball, so you know,
and then you just try to refine those things and
then be able to apply them in the season.
Speaker 1: Last question, the easiest way to calm you down if
you've missed a pitch or you're in a run, you've
given up two or three in a row, somebody coming
up to the to the mountain talking to you, the
catcher doing it, or stepping off the river and just
walk around and kind of giving yourself a second. What's
the easiest way to settle you down?
Speaker 11: Yeah, I mean, I think it's it's it's internal for me.
You guys might see me.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 11: I think most pitchers I can speak for, if you
if you throw two.
Speaker 2: Balls, or you give up a home or something that
the first thing guys want to do is is grab
the rosin bag or you know, take a couple extra
steps behind the mound, you know, kind of recenter yourself.
I think is is kind of the easiest way to
go about it, especially because you know when things are
going wrong, that's that's the number one thing you want
to do is slow it down. Okay, get back to
what I need to do, get ahead of guys, execute pitches,
things like that. You know, when Josh comes out, you know,
for the most part, it's talking about what to do next,
whereas you know, maybe a catcher comes out, they got
a little bit more of Hey, I think you've been
doing this.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: Josh does do say that, but he's more about the
next hitter that's coming up. Whereas you know a catcher
or even you know, in years past it's it's Breggie.
Now we got Carlos comes into the meetings and stuff
like that, and they can say, hey, Okay, need a
big ground ball here. However it is that you're going
to do that, and then that's where Josh can kind
of say, hey, so and so it's a bunch of
groundballs on this pitch.
Speaker 11: Maybe maybe we lean into that to have that, But yeah,
I would say, I would say all those.
Speaker 1: Hopefully Hunter will not need many moments to decompress over
the course of the twenty twenty sixth season. More of
our covered cheer from spring training in West Palm Beach
continues in a moment as you listen the Sports Talk
seven nineties. The About Thomas Show with Boss continues here
on Sports Talk seven nights Earlier this morning, had a
chance to visit with Jeremy Painey in the clubhouse, first
of all, to congratulate him about his upcoming marriage.
Speaker 9: I mean, it's something I've been wanting to do for
a long time. Yeah, and you know, I was in season,
she was in season. I feel like the off season
was only the only appropriate time. Yeah, I didn't want
to do it when she was still playing, you know,
I wanted her to focus on her season and then
once our season was over is green light?
Speaker 5: So who's handling all the Marrior are plans? Is that
going to be after the season? Are you guys going
to try to talk it out during the year.
Speaker 9: I will talk it out during the year. We'll definitely
plan it during the year. And uh, now we're kind
of both going back and forth, both given in posts.
But she's doing most of the work.
Speaker 5: I haven't married a long time to let her do
all the regular things whever Man had.
Speaker 1: Worked out for you this camp. I mean, you're now
one of the older guys on the team. Is that
kind of crazy to think?
Speaker 9: You It doesn't feel like that, you know, I still
feel like like I'm that young kid with you know,
coming into my first been training. You know, I have
all the energy in the world, I have all the
ambitions in the world, and you know, we have a
great team, and I'm excited to be around these guys.
And I still I get excited to be around some
of the guys, you know, learn from that and pick
their brain.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so.
Speaker 5: It had to have been.
Speaker 1: I think it was thrill for everybody, especially you guys.
It's Octobra, You're not playing games.
Speaker 5: I mean, the debts. How long did that take?
Speaker 1: The stink in and was there a level of frustration,
disappointment and I gotta get back on the field as
sad as possible.
Speaker 9: I mean, I feel like our goal is always to
get into the postseason and make a run in the postseason.
You know, we didn't achieve that last year, which was
tough for us as a whole, as an organization. But
at the same time, you know, it's time to turn
the page, you know, Robert spring training and you know
we have a new season upon us, and it's time
to bounce back. You know, it's time to get back
into the playoffs and make a run.
Speaker 1: How was it it looked like to me watching you
guys that your relationship with Carlos at their base or
was amazing.
Speaker 5: I mean, it took no time for you guys to
transition together, right right.
Speaker 9: You know, Carlos has been great to me since the
first day I got to the organization, you know, spring
training twenty nineteen.
Speaker 10: You know, I got to hang out with the team.
Speaker 9: Quite a bit, you know, Joe Spoda kind of took
it upon himself to get me playing time with the.
Speaker 10: Mob games in spring training.
Speaker 9: So I would come from the minor league side and
hang out with the big leaguers, and you know, it
was pretty cool.
Speaker 10: Pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Does that happen a lot. I mean, that's a pretty
special situation for you to be able to be with
those guys so early in your career.
Speaker 9: I mean, guys usually get the opportunity to come up
and play back up some games, but I feel like
Joe was make me back up almost every single game.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 9: I feel like I was barely in minor league spring
training and I feel like I was over and I
didn't play much. You know, I would come into the
eighth inning, get one, not back. I would come in
to ninth in just play defense. But just being around
those guys, man, it was special because you get to
pick their brains, you know, how the big leaders think,
you know, and.
Speaker 10: It's exciting for me.
Speaker 1: So do you look back at that and go, man,
I made some mistakes when I was younger, or I
just kind of just soaked everything in.
Speaker 10: I mean I try to soak everything in.
Speaker 9: Yeah, you know, if you look back at the team
we had twenty nineteen, Like it was unbelievable.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 9: I had guys like Michael brand Lee around me. You know,
I had guys like Josel Tuve around me. It was
it was special, special for sure.
Speaker 1: Do you find younger guys coming to you asking those
same kind of questions that you were asking for or
five years ago.
Speaker 10: I feel like they asked better questions than I did.
Speaker 1: I was just fie.
Speaker 9: I feel like these guys are very confident, you know,
they know what their game is. You know, they love
picking people's brains. But I was more shy, you know,
I was kind of just they're looking trying to learn
by scene.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 9: I was never want to just approach someone and ask
him a question, you know, but if they open that
door for me, then I felt the confidence, you know,
keep talking.
Speaker 1: About it, got more questions here with Jeremy Penia, Jose's
back at second base primarily, and look, I think what
he did last year in volunteering himself in the left field,
Everybody's going to do that, and maybe ten years down
the road they may ask you to go to third
base something like that. What is that like watching a
guy like that go to a new position for the
good of the team, but you know, in his heart
he wants to be.
Speaker 9: A second base I mean, it says a lot about
the type of person he is and the type of
player he is. You know, he's a player that's always
going to do what's you know, best for the team.
He wants to see the team do good. You know,
he wants to see the team win. You know, he's
been here through the ups and the downs off this team,
you know, from when he first got to the big
leagues to winning the worlds, multiple World Series, you know,
so I feel like Altuva is very is very inclined
to help in this team win and is a player
that you know, he tries to make everyone better and
if that meant last year trying to move to left
field and makes the team better than you know, he's
a guy who's just put in the lineup and he's
gonna find a way to help the team.
Speaker 1: What do you want to get accomplished or I know
that Joe mentioned a few weeks ago that maybe some
of the older guys won't have to play as much
as spring training. Have you kind of mapped up a
schedule what you'd like to see done for yourself. In
terms of playing time, I mean, I'm gonna have to
play quite a bit.
Speaker 9: I'll be playing pretty early spring training because of the
World Baseball Classic, so you know, I'm preparing a little
earlier that I usually do.
Speaker 10: But yeah, I'll be playing right away. Joined my Dominican
Republic team and go from there.
Speaker 1: How amped for you for that, Because here's the thing
we argue about this on my radio show, about the
importance of it. I can't be in your skin because
some man of your guys like yourself and other countries
have said this is such an important event. So to
wrap this up, what makes this WBC, even though it's
every three years, so important for guys like yourself, I'm.
Speaker 9: A special It's special. I feel like you grow up
admiring these guys that represent our country.
Speaker 11: You know.
Speaker 9: You admire the Arbapoutholes, you know, the Miguel Tahadas, you know,
and they never had a problem with putting on that
uniform and represent our country, you know. And you know
what they did in two thousand and thirteen, I believe
when we won the WBS money. Yeah, two thy thirteen,
when we won the WBC, the whole country it was
like a big celebration, you know, And I remember I
was in I was in high school, and that's a
memory of vivid moment for me, you know, Coret memory,
you know, Robinson Cano, Like I admired all those guys,
you know, and they brought the trophy home and it
was special for us, and I hope to, you know,
kind of give the country that same glory. You know,
we have a great team to do it, and we're
going to go enjoy ourselves and compete.
Speaker 1: See, even though I may not be the biggest fan
of the WBC, you can clearly hear in the conversation
the Germany and I had that he much appreciates the
time he gets to represent his team in the upcoming WBC.
More here from West Palm Beach In a moment, As
you listen to Sports Talk seven ninety the final segment
here of our coverage from spring twenty twenty twenty six,
we'll focus on a visit we had a couple of
days ago with Spincer Arraghetti. Obviously a terrible set of
injuries last year that precruited him from having much of
a twenty twenty five season, so we obviously had to
ask him when we visited with him a couple of
days ago. How was the off season, How was the rehabilitation? No,
it was good. My off season was good.
Speaker 17: I took more rest, so I got three opinions when
I had the elbow thing pop up, just to make
sure that you know, everybody was on the same page,
and it was. It was Meister's kremchak. It was our
our team doctor at home, and everybody's recommendation was just
give it a break it let it scar up a
little bit. There was some inflammation, just like a little
bit of like no tears anywhere, but like a little
spacing that shouldn't really be there, you know. It just
seemed like there was some some wear and tear happening
from the way that I was throwing the ball that
wasn't supposed to So shut it down.
Speaker 1: Start at square one.
Speaker 17: Eight weeks later, played catch for eight weeks low intensity,
then the next eight weeks after that, ramped it up,
and that was the whole off season right there.
Speaker 1: So for me it felt normal.
Speaker 17: I don't really try to throw hard when it's not
time to, but I also never take eight weeks down from.
Speaker 1: Throwing in the past.
Speaker 17: I'll give myself three to five days and then you know,
just light toss three times a week.
Speaker 1: So that was the hardest part for me.
Speaker 17: It was just showing up to the gym every day
knowing I can't play catch and I just got to
do my rehab stuff.
Speaker 1: But it was the best thing for me.
Speaker 17: Shoulders feel healthy, almost feel really healthy, so that's really
what I care about at this point. And things are
starting to feel really smooth on the mound again, which
is what I'm used to, and I feel like I'm
writing stride. I got alive tomorrow for the first time
or actually second live this offseason. I threw on a
dike in before we came down here, and I'll throw
one tomorrow, another twenty pitch live, so it's just kind
of slowly building back into it. I think I'll have
live bullpen live Bullpen game, so I won't throw the
first week of games, but I'll be right back in
there in the second week of games, and I'm really
excited for it.
Speaker 1: Got a lot of competition. Men. We want you back
to where you were a couple of years ago, but
there are guys chasing after you right now, and that's
healthy and cool, but you still want to be a
part of that opening six five rotation.
Speaker 17: I love competition, though, I mean, I feel like that's
been my whole career and my whole life up to
this point. Is proving that I'm one of those guys
that should be taking the ball when when we're starting games,
and that is exactly what I'm here to do. This
spring training has proved that nothing's changed. I prove that
I'm the same guy that I was in Really the
second half of twenty four is what I'm the most
proud of in the big leagues, and that's exactly what
I'm chasing is just be that guy again.
Speaker 1: How do you get back to that guy? What is
that like? It feels like it's kind of very unique
journey for you. As you said, you're in the second
half of the twenty four then of course what happened
last year. Where are you right now as opposed to
where you were around that time, both mentally and physically.
That's a tough question to answer. I mean, obviously, over
the course of the season you.
Speaker 17: Gain some and lose some certain places, and during the
off season you're trying to sharpen everything. So right now
I feel like everything is sharp I feel like my
velocity is very normal, definitely a little bit higher than
it was last year coming into spring training, so I'm.
Speaker 1: Excited by that.
Speaker 17: I was not excited about how hard I was throwing
when I did come back from injury last year. But again,
it's tough to shut down for eight weeks during the
year and then get back up to where you were
before that. So the thumb thing was again my chocolate
to bad luck, but it was tough to overcome that
and the fact that I was able to get back
quickly and pitch for the team again with something I
was really proud of. Granted, now I look back at
it and I realized I wasn't fully prepared to be
doing that, neither mentally or physically. So this off season,
I feel like I did a lot of, you know,
more things than I would normal in an off season
to make sure that my body was going to be
ready and going to be fully prepared, and I think
it's been good for me. I got a much more
regimented arm care program this year and in the past,
like before I got called up, like I it's it's
it sounds crazy to admit this on air, but I
wasn't doing arm care like I was never one of
the guys doing fore arm exercises.
Speaker 1: This part of the conversation.
Speaker 17: No, honestly don't because it's it's part of the growth.
Like I'm proud of it now, like I've got the
I've got the wherewithal to know, like I can't pitch
thirty times in a season in the big leagues if
I don't do this stuff. So it's really it's really
good for me. I have a fantastic team of people
at DST in Houston that helped me find exactly what
it was I needed to do day in and day
out to feel good and to be ready to take
the ball. So yeah, I'm just excited to get down
here and compete.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you've talked about growth and one of the things
we've had you now on just about every year the
last couple of years, and we talked about.
Speaker 1: Being more into numbers and spin rates. And then after
your first lengthy year and twenty four kind of backing
off that a little bit, where what's your relationship with
with the kind of the finding the harmony between using
both the numbers and just the feel.
Speaker 17: So I think during rehab and during the post rehab throwing,
it was really important for me to like dive back
into the technology again and make sure that the release
window was the same as it was and the extension
and the shape on all the pitches like that was
that was good for me to like check off those
things post rehab or post shutdown, I guess. And now
that I'm back competing again, I'm trying to kind of
ignore the computer programs a little bit, you know. Obviously,
I'm I'm taking what our analytics team says and trying
to apply it to what I like to do. And
I think that that's the happy balance is is I
got to go out there and play my game and
pitch my game, but I also need to listen to
the guys that know a little bit more about the hitters,
and they get paid to sit there and do research
about the hitters. So anytime any I don't know if
you guys are familiar with Holden, but he's the guy
that we work with on the pitching side for the
most part in the analytics team, And anytime I have
a question about like, hey, like is this pitch better?
Is this pitch better to this hitter? Like, I'll go
to him because I can't just watch the video and
know that. I mean, I can go in there and
I can look at all his numbers and stuff, But
we have so many things that go into what our
game plan is that I got to give and take,
you know, Like, if I feel strongly convicted about something,
that's what I'm going to do in the big moment.
But when there's there's opportunity for me to like learn
something about this hitter or that hitter, I need to
take the chance to do that too. So I think
it's just I'm somewhere right in the middle now, just
kind of the same as the last time we talked
about it.
Speaker 1: Spencer Getty with us here on the Matt Thomas Show
with Ross from West Palm Beach. Has the skip told
you guys don't even bother challenging on abs?
Speaker 17: Or is he what has been an efficial mess goes
without saying, dude, I think everything's a strike. That's the
real problem is my my eyes move a lot, and
the ball stays in the same spot. So I don't
think I could ever possibly tell you with one hundred
percent certainty, like on borderline pitches whether it was in
or out. So in my head I will never once
put the hand on my hand, you know, I'll leave
that to the catchers because they're really really good at
knowing the strike zone, and obviously the hitters are as well.
So I really think that's what it's more for us,
is for the guys that are confident, and whether it
was over the plate or not, I think up and
down is gonna be it's gonna be a learning curve
like the I don't know if you guys have watched
Triple A games in the last few years with the ABS,
but it gets a little inconsistent at times, just a
little bit, I mean, and I think that some of
that was intentional, like tinkering to try to find the
strike zone. But it now seems like they've got a
pretty good algorithm where it's like relative to your stance, height,
relative to your load.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like, I think it's in a good spot.
Speaker 17: I think it's probably I don't think they would put
it in the big leagues if it wasn't ready for
us to use it.
Speaker 1: So I think you're glad. Yeah, No, I am really
glad about that.