00:00All right, let's shift gears over to Dana Brown.
00:02That news came down right after you and I got off the air at 8 o'clock yesterday.
00:06I went to go have breakfast, and I sit down, and I pull out my iPad,
00:09and I open up my email, and there's an email from the Astros.
00:12Dana Brown and Astros mutually part ways.
00:15I'm like, okay, this week is popping early.
00:18So Dana Brown essentially fired by the Astros yesterday.
00:22Bob Nightingale, Chandler Rome has done a nice job of covering this
00:25throughout the whole saga, and he's kind of foreshadowed this thing
00:29for a long time.
00:30Bob Nightingale of USA Today had some really interesting nuggets
00:32in his recap of this.
00:34Nightingale's very plugged in.
00:35The night guys on Area 45 have him on from time to time.
00:39And I guess here's how it went.
00:41Sunday's loss to the A's was sort of the last straw in all this,
00:44blowing a 6-0 lead to the worst team in baseball one night
00:48after blowing a 3-1 lead late in the game.
00:51So Dana reportedly was fired by Sunday night and was back on a plane
00:56to his home state of New Jersey by Monday morning.
00:59So he was out quick.
01:00The biggest and strangest thing for me is that in that article,
01:06Bob Nightingale said that Joe Espada was informed by a high-ranking official
01:10within the Astros that he was not going to be offered a contract for next year.
01:14So essentially, he was done after this season,
01:16and he was offered the opportunity to leave as well or stick it out through the rest of the year.
01:23Espada chose to stick it out for the rest of the year.
01:25Now, we haven't heard anything from Joe Espada since he missed the game on Sunday
01:29with a family emergency.
01:30He is with the team in New York,
01:32so I'd imagine this is going to be one of the more interesting Espada media availabilities
01:36to listen to before the game today.
01:38So be on the lookout for that.
01:40Well, and all of that is going on, too,
01:41as Espada's dealing with whichever this family emergency is that he was dealing with.
01:46There's a lot going on, man.
01:47Yeah.
01:47Yeah, there's a lot going on.
01:48So Espada, so we don't know the motivation.
01:51You know, does Espada want to finish, just finish what he started?
01:54Does Espada think that there's a Hail Mary that he can prove himself?
01:57I'm really anxious to hear from him today.
01:59As far as who's backfilling Dana Brown,
02:03it's going to be a committee of assistant GMs that are still in the building
02:06and Jeff Bagwell, which has Astros fans super stoked.
02:10People are super amped up about that.
02:12I'm really excited about Bagwell era 2.0, yeah.
02:16So that's the Dana Brown situation,
02:19and I guess, Seth, the thing that just jumps out to me,
02:22not firing Dana Brown, I thought this was an inevitability,
02:25the timing of it and the fact that the Astros are in first place in their division,
02:30albeit in the worst division possibly in the history of baseball.
02:33We'll see how it plays out.
02:34And they're doing it with what is a known lame duck manager.
02:39I've never experienced anything like this before,
02:42where it's been reported that the manager is essentially going to get fired
02:45at the end of the year.
02:46But go out and get him, boy.
02:48And who knows?
02:48Maybe this is something.
02:50My guess is the Astros like Joe Espada.
02:52I don't know what they think of him as a manager,
02:53but he seems like an ultimately likable individual.
02:57Does this make them, in a weird way, go play harder for Joe Espada?
03:00It ends up being a major league type of thing,
03:03where this is Cleveland.
03:05Cleveland, they'll have a, I don't know, a picture of Jim Crane up there
03:08in a bikini or something that they'll keep disrobing each time
03:12that they win something.
03:14Yeah, it makes them very, very odd.
03:16By the way, it had been inaccurately reported a few times
03:19that this would be the first five-team division to have all teams
03:22end with a negative run differential.
03:24The 2005 NL West, the Padres won that division
03:30with a negative 42 run differential and an 82-80 record.
03:34Okay, okay.
03:35So it's the worst division in a long time.
03:37If things finish up the way they look right now,
03:40this would be the worst one in the last 20 years.
03:42Yep.
03:44So what is your concern level about the Astros now heading into a period
03:50without a GM?
03:51Now, the one thing about heading into potentially an offseason
03:54without having hired a GM yet is there's probably going to be
03:57a work stoppage, which would prevent Bagwell and Crane
04:00from going and spending money on the next Jose Abreu
04:02and Rafael Montero.
04:04Okay, if there's any positive to take out of any of this,
04:07it's the last time the Astros were operating without a GM.
04:10It all came together very rapidly after a World Series victory,
04:15and they didn't get their GM back, and then they went on to just wait
04:20and wait and wait to hire one.
04:22And while they were waiting, they made some devastatingly bad moves.
04:26This, I would guess, this is part of hopefully a strategy that,
04:31nope, we're going to have our ducks in a row,
04:33and we're going to find the right person.
04:36And, yes, as you said, too, there's probably going to be a work stoppage.
04:38So nobody can do too much damage one way or the other.
04:42But they've got plenty of time to maybe find somebody that fits Jim Crane
04:46and his philosophy, his goals, et cetera, better than maybe Dana Brown did.
04:51Is this, this is my question, and we can dig into this more
04:53because we've only got a couple minutes here,
04:55but I think it's worth bringing up.
04:57Is this even a good job?
05:00Like, this is absolutely a job for a GM that is clearly on the down,
05:04I mean, like, obviously, just look at their record.
05:06It's clearly on the downside in the back end of what was an amazing era
05:09of Astros baseball.
05:11But, I mean, like, things like watching Dana Brown get a trade vetoed
05:15by the owner and this cabal of other people that Jim Crane's got surrounding him.
05:22He had a deal lined up to get an outfield bat for Brian Abreu,
05:25and it got vetoed by other people in the building.
05:28Like, if you're a GM, if I'm a GM, like, I need a clear understanding
05:33of what the operating procedures are here.
05:37It almost feels like it's that if you're the GM, like, you're working with Jim Crane,
05:43but it's like if you're married to Jim Crane, but every time that you make a family decision,
05:48he has to go and talk with his brothers and sisters about it.
05:52Yeah.
05:52And then they all get together, and then, you know, the sister-in-law that hates you says this,
05:58and then the brother-in-law that has issues with you says that.
06:00And all of a sudden, you don't know, I thought we agreed to this, honey.
06:04I thought we agreed to this.
06:05Why is this blowing up in my face?
06:07No, no.
06:08And clearly...
06:08It's a dysfunctional family.
06:09It's a dysfunctional family that's vetoing what I think...
06:12I think that would have been a good trade, Brian Abreu, for the outfielder whose name escapes me.
06:17It would have been such a good trade, I can't remember the guy's name.
06:20For the guy from the Twins, it was a lefty bat in the outfielder who's having a good year this
06:23year.
06:24Yeah, no, it would be like the family's...
06:25But they're vetoing smart things, like a nice, solid mutual fund,
06:29so that they can invest in some magic beans or something like that.
06:32Right, right.
06:35Or her ex-boyfriend, Correa.
06:40You're like, oh, yeah, no, remember how nice it was when you were with Correa?
06:43He was the guy.
06:44Yeah.
06:44Yeah, yeah, you should bring in Correa instead.
06:46There's a lot to get into, man.
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