00:00Buffs is the best wings in Buffalo.
00:02That's what I was, uh, that's what I was, I asked, I asked one of my friends that lives in
00:06Buffalo,
00:07which I realized I should have done before I told you to go to Twitter.
00:10Not that, like, you shouldn't go to Twitter or anything.
00:13I'm, I'm here for all the opinions.
00:14Oh, you know what I'm going to find is a place that doesn't have big name acclaim or anything.
00:18And, uh, find like a little neighborhood or something.
00:20You will find people in Buffalo are, um, really cool.
00:23Like when you go to bars and stuff, it's just, uh, uh, just very, very nice people.
00:28Yeah, that's what I hear.
00:29For anybody that has trepidation about ever traveling to genuine upstate New York, just
00:33know this.
00:34It is almost nothing like New York city and the downstate area.
00:38It's like almost completely, uh, 100% different in so many ways.
00:44Yeah.
00:44We're excited, man.
00:45We're excited.
00:47We've been, we've had really good luck with these trips.
00:49Everywhere we've been, the fans are really good.
00:51We've been to green Bay and Kansas city, Tampa, Baltimore, DC, Pittsburgh.
00:57Those are the ones we've been to.
00:58And everybody's great.
00:58When you tell them you come in specifically just because you wanted to experience their
01:03place, people tend to be really nice to you.
01:04Oh yeah.
01:05Yeah.
01:05Yeah.
01:06There was a, they're, they're looking for a convert too.
01:08Right.
01:08You know, as I, as I tell you about how great it is in upstate New York, people are leaving
01:13in droves.
01:14Okay.
01:14So I don't need to move there.
01:17You know, Hey, you know, I don't think I'm going to, I don't think I'm going to abandon
01:21the Texans, but they are two and five.
01:23If you want places that were thriving hubs of industry in 1947, but it was since kind
01:29of fallen into disrepair.
01:31That's my, that is the place for you.
01:33That's actually my kink.
01:34Yeah.
01:34Okay, good.
01:36Can't wait.
01:37All right.
01:38Pain and Pendergast with you here on a, on a Tuesday.
01:41This was, this was Tyler Stafford of the Crush City podcast.
01:45He does the podcast with Chandler Rome.
01:48They do a really good job with Astros stuff.
01:50They put some good clips out there too.
01:52And we got some interesting times coming up here in baseball because the world series
01:56is about to end possibly tonight.
02:00The Brewers are up three, nothing.
02:02We should point out that the Astros, at least the rumors were that they were hoping to have
02:05a GM in place by the end of the world series.
02:08So it could very well be that Matt Klein, the assistant GM of the Brewers, like the second
02:13the world series ends that the Astros announced, here's our GM.
02:16We don't know.
02:16He's thought to be one of the leaders for that job.
02:19But we're going to have a period of time here, Seth, when the world series ends this week
02:23at some point and between then and December 1st, where teams are going to be able to conduct
02:30business.
02:30They're going to be able to sign free agents.
02:32And the reason December 1st is important is because that's the date that.
02:35Owners would be locking out the players and we would have a work stoppage.
02:39There is going to be a window here where business is going to be able to be done within baseball,
02:44including trades.
02:46Here's Tyler Stafford of the Crush City podcast saying it would be malpractice for the Astros
02:51to hold on to Jeremy Pena, who's heading into the last year of team control with the Astros.
02:58So to me, then, it's if Correa is okay playing shortstop, then you can just trade Pena.
03:04If he is not, then you have to trade both of those guys.
03:07Pause for a second.
03:09When he says both of those guys, the other guy he's referring to is actually Paredes that they would trade.
03:13Yeah, I know it sounds like Correa, but yeah.
03:15So continue.
03:15You have to trade Pena in order to get value.
03:22And if you still need Correa to play third, then you got to trade Paredes too and find a shortstop
03:28in there,
03:29improve other parts of your team.
03:31But I just, it would be malpractice for them to keep Jeremy Pena.
03:36Yeah, I truly, like, I think, dereliction of duty.
03:42Dereliction of duty.
03:43Dereliction of duty.
03:44If you hang on.
03:45Daryl Morey taking flack on this.
03:47You hang on to your second best player.
03:49The, okay.
03:51I don't know if I'd go as far as to say dereliction of duty.
03:54I think some of this also depends on what does a new CBA look like.
03:58And it might be the case that retaining Jeremy Pena makes a lot, is more palatable.
04:05If only there's a limit on number of years that teams can offer and everything.
04:10If they do something, then, and I don't know if there will be a salary cap or,
04:16but I think there's going to be some kind of restriction on the ability of teams like the Dodgers and
04:20everybody else to get these deals.
04:23The, then I think that maybe it becomes more realistic that you can retain him with a deal that, like,
04:32that Jim Crane would be comfortable with.
04:34And you're like, so that's the part where I stopped short because I think everybody assumes, okay, nobody's going to,
04:40like, there's no way in hell the Astros are going to be able to pay him what he thinks he's
04:44going to get elsewhere.
04:45But maybe there actually is, depending on what the new CBA looks like.
04:48Yeah, the new CBA is a huge variable in all this.
04:50If nothing changed at all, then, yeah, I think that if a new GM comes in, and you're not going
04:56to hamstring him by saying,
04:57well, I want you to build, I want you to build for the future, but also, God help you if
05:03you miss the playoffs.
05:04I think you've got to rip the Band-Aid off for a year or two and actually genuinely start rebuilding
05:10your farm system.
05:11And I just don't, I don't know if that's where, I don't think Jim Crane all of a sudden is
05:15going to have a moment where late in life,
05:17over some time over the next few months, he's going to change that attitude.
05:20Jim Crane has to be honest with himself about where this team is right now.
05:24From a roster construction standpoint, Dana Brown just left this with just such a janky roster.
05:31And where the minor league system is, I mean, there's some help on the way, but it's years away.
05:36This minor league system is at its best right now, down in the very lower levels.
05:40Those guys are at least a few years away from contributing, if they ever contribute at all.
05:45Who knows what guys that are hitting .350 in single A look like even at triple A.
05:50You don't know.
05:51I think Jim Crane just has to be very honest with himself about where this organization is.
05:55I think, I feel like the Kyle Tucker trade was somewhat of a tacit admission of that.
06:00They're like, okay, this isn't the glory days anymore.
06:03If it were the glory days, they wouldn't have traded Kyle Tucker a couple of years ago.
06:06They would have just rode that out and let him walk in the end.
06:09Because that's what they did with Garrett Cole and George Springer and Carlos Correa and Justin Verlander
06:13and Charlie Morton and on and on and on and on and on and Alex Bregman.
06:17But I think they've got to be honest with themselves.
06:19I think, too, it's hard to say it's a dereliction of duty without knowing, okay, what exactly are the offers
06:24out there for Jeremy Pena?
06:26I wouldn't trade Jeremy Pena just for the sake of trading Jeremy Pena.
06:30Right, right.
06:30You know?
06:31No, I mean, it has to be like, look, the Kyle Tucker trade ultimately.
06:34I mean, depending on how Cam Smith works out, that's the kind of trade that made a whole lot of
06:40sense.
06:41Yeah, I would do that.
06:41I mean, that's one that, all right, you conceded that you weren't going to be able to pay Kyle Tucker
06:46and you got in a young five-tool player that should ultimately, like, is that as good as a draft
06:54pick?
06:55You know, we'll see.
06:56Yeah, I would say it's as good as a draft pick.
06:57He had just been drafted like a few months before that.
07:00Yeah, I mean, like, unless, you know, unless Chicago saw something in him where they were just genuinely pessimistic about
07:05him.
07:05Right.
07:06And then, and you've got Paredes, you know, you get three players out of there, three.
07:10Like, that was a good, that was, whether it worked out or not, that's the type of deal that you
07:15want for Jeremy Pena.
07:17Yeah.
07:17If it's not, like, if it's not a bunch of extreme prospects.
07:22Yeah, I would say, that's where I was going to go with this, is they were still, when they made
07:28the Kyle Tucker trade,
07:29I think you could still argue that this was a team that was at least a contender within the ALS.
07:33I know they won the division this year, but they were 81 and 81.
07:36They won the worst division ever this year.
07:39You know, part of the Kyle Tucker trade was clearly getting help at the big league level that year with
07:44Paredes,
07:45and to a lesser extent with Wisneski.
07:47The Pena trade might be something, Seth, where it's five guys that haven't played in the big leagues yet for
07:53him,
07:53or four guys that haven't played in the big leagues yet, because you're just at a different stage now.
07:57Now, they're in a really interesting spot, because they've got a few pieces on this team that are high-level
08:04pieces,
08:05more than a rebuilding team has, and yet they are so in need of, at the very least, a hard
08:11reset, if not a rebuild right now.
08:13Like, they're just in such an awkward position right now, and it's exacerbated by the division.
08:18You know, like, that they, it almost would, they almost would have been better off being in a division last
08:23year
08:24where the division winner won 93 games, and you were really honest with yourself about where you're at.
08:28They're popping, I know you pop champagne because you win the division, but I'm watching them pop champagne.
08:32I'm like, these guys think there's something that they're not right now.
08:36Like, they are not, and they learned that.
08:38They got swept by the White Sox right out of the playoffs.
08:41Yeah.
08:41You know, so it's, it's an interesting spot, dude.
08:46It's an interesting spot for this team.
08:47Now, practice and, and dereliction of duty.
08:50I like Tyler Stafford's, and I like the hyperbole.
08:55Yeah, the, when do you, what's your over-under on when they hire a GM?
08:59Uh, within the next week.
09:01Within the next week?
09:01Yeah, within, within the next week.
09:03You got inside info on that?
09:04No, no, zero, zero.
09:05But I just think they're, they definitely, they got to get, they got to get ahead of this.
09:08And A, one, you know, have as many people involved in the process of the CBA and with eyes on
09:14it and understanding exactly.
09:16Cause there's a lot of, when there's a new CBA, whenever it happens, there's opportunity there.
09:20Yes.
09:21It takes, seems a long time to figure out like how things change and where, where the opportunity is, where
09:27like, oh, okay, wait a second.
09:28Now, all of a sudden this type of contract makes sense that you want to be ahead of the curve
09:33on that and take advantage of it.
09:34And instead of just being the team, that's just now getting back into analytics.
09:37Thanks.
