Eight Astros landed in Baseball America's Top 100 Players List. Seth Payne and Sean Pendergast discuss them here.
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00:00It really is incredible, you know, and remarkable that with the Astros, and I know Baseball
00:05America's top 100 player list is a subjective list, there's no real stats, there's no computer
00:11science to it or anything, but that they've, I mean, we're coming up on a decade here pretty
00:19soon of this period of dominance that they've had, you know, at times dominant, at times
00:24merely highly competitive, but there's never been a major dip yet in this period.
00:31Other, I mean, at the very beginning before you even knew a team was where you go, you
00:38make the playoffs in 2015, you don't in 2016, but at that point, we didn't know how good
00:44we were going to have it.
00:45Yeah, you're still kind of building at that point.
00:47Yeah.
00:48Yeah, yeah.
00:492017 through last season, at the very least, a hell of a run of being World Series contenders
00:55and favorites at various times.
00:57And managing to maintain your spot on lists like this, and for those who don't know, Baseball
01:02America puts out a top 100 player list every year right before the season starts, and while
01:08it feels like, especially this offseason, Seth, with Bregman and Tucker both leaving
01:12simultaneously, same offseason, this is the first one where you've really lost two guys
01:17like that on the heels of several years of losing at least one guy that's that sort of
01:21category of a top 100 player.
01:23I mean, all the guys they've lost at the time they've lost them have been on the list like
01:27this, and many of them way up the list like this, when Garrett Cole left, and when George
01:31Springer left, and Carlos Correa, and Justin Verlander, and now Alex Bregman and Kyle Tucker.
01:37And yet, the Astros tied for the second most players in the top 100 players list going
01:43into the season, with the Dodgers behind only the Braves, another team that's lost
01:48a bunch of guys.
01:49I mean, they're like the Astros of the NL in terms of that, like the Braves have lost
01:53a bunch of guys, and there's still nine guys in the top 100.
01:57And who picked a lot of those guys or was involved with it?
02:00Dana Brown.
02:01That's who.
02:02That's nice.
02:03It's almost like Dana Brown's got two teams in there.
02:04So they're tied for second or tied for third?
02:06Tied for second.
02:07Tied for second with the Dodgers.
02:08Tied for second on the list, as of at least a couple days.
02:12As of at least a couple days ago, the Astros to win World Series this year.
02:18So all right.
02:19So I think it's, you don't even have to know anything about the Astros where you can fill
02:23in where the difference is between, okay, having the second most highly regarded players
02:28on your team versus, okay, why you're a little bit lower down on the list.
02:32It's because some of the deficits and some of the question marks are a lot bigger than
02:36they used to be for the Astros.
02:38So it's having, right now as it is in the lineup, we'll see, but having a center fielder
02:43and a right fielder that are huge minuses at the plate, that hurts.
02:48These things work against you.
02:49The part that I would be optimistic about as an Astros fan is I know that year in and
02:54year out, the Astros' younger pitchers are almost as a rule underrated by the rest of
03:01the league.
03:02And even though the league knows that guys like Hunter Brown are going to come along
03:08Or, you know, that Spencer Arrighetti very well could develop into a solid starting pitcher.
03:13They're calling it as they see it right now.
03:15Yes.
03:16I, and I think the other reason too, if we're just taking this group of eight players as
03:19sort of the, you know, the correlation between how good are you versus, you know, with respect
03:24to how many top 100 players you have, they've got eight in the top 100.
03:29They've got two in the top 68.
03:31You know what I mean?
03:32So they, yeah.
03:33Leon's 13th on the list.
03:35Framboise is 44th on the list.
03:38And then, so you're probably going, okay, well that's two and we're already to 44.
03:42Yeah.
03:43Christian Walker is next.
03:44It's 69.
03:45The Astros have five more players from 74 on Jose Altuve is 74, which is a little depressing
03:51to see.
03:52Cause it's one of those things like, ah, it's cool.
03:53He's still a top 100 training that direction where we've got to start to worry about Jose
03:59Altuve.
04:00Scott Paredes is 76, which I think tells you, okay, good job, Dana Brown.
04:05Good pickup in the Kyle Tucker trade.
04:07Yiner Diaz makes his first appearance in the top 185.
04:11Hunter Brown makes his first appearance in the top 194.
04:14Jeremy Pena returns to the top 100.
04:17He was 97 a couple of years ago, dipped out for a year and now he's 98.
04:22So you got a bunch of guys that are in that, in terms of a list like this, that are in
04:25that very good, but not yet great or not great anymore category.
04:30Yeah.
04:31Yeah.
04:32It's a, it's just a, it's a different, it's a different ecosystem, Sean.
04:35I'm going to start using the ecosystem the same way the magnificent Gladstone uses it.
04:39I'm going to talk about the ecosystem of the Astros and how, uh, how they can, how they
04:44can get back to the ecosystem.
04:46They used to be, you had to pick one guy out of these eight who would be a major surprise
04:51one way or the other who either would shoot way up the, who could shoot way up the list
04:55this year, or maybe it's overrated on this list a little bit.
04:59Yiner.
05:00Yiner.
05:01Yup.
05:02Yeah.
05:03Yiner.
05:04Yiner would be the guy.
05:05Yiner did.
05:06Yiner did a lot of things really well as a young catcher last year.
05:07And the, and, and his, his ability at the plate is very, very promising.
05:13Um, I think Yiner is the guy that's probably less discussed than he should be.
05:18Uh, but still is a work in progress.
05:20Yeah.
05:21Yeah.
05:22And he's going to continue to improve defensively now.
05:25And remember there was an article out early in the year that said, well, okay, he was
05:28really bad at pitch framing and which is a big deal these days in baseball.
05:32Um, but people were saying, well, might not matter.
05:37Right.
05:38Zone because of the challenge system.
05:39You gotta remember, you only get two challenges per game or at least two successful challenges.
05:45You only get to, how's it where you get two challenges.
05:48If you're successful, you can keep challenging, but it's not like it's going to take pitch
05:51framing completely out of it because there's the pitch framing especially is good for the
05:56ones that the batter isn't going to feel confident enough to challenge that it was like, okay,
06:01it was right on the brink.
06:02It was right on the line and you're getting those calls that an umpire might've might've
06:07maybe made a mistake and called it in versus out and all that.
06:10So I, it's, it's a thing.
06:12He's got to keep working on that.
06:13That's a great point.
06:14It still matters.
06:15Yeah.
06:16You get, the way I understand it is you get to keep challenging until you get two of them
06:18wrong.
06:19Right.
06:20Right.
06:21Yeah.
06:22I just tried to figure out a succinct way to phrase that.
06:23You start off with two challenges, you can lose them.
06:26So it's not like you can use them liberally whenever you feel like you gotta be careful
06:29about it.
06:30So pitch framing is still going to matter.
06:31It's still going to matter.
06:32Yeah.
06:33It's still going to matter.
06:34You gotta fool the batter a little bit.
06:35You know, now there's a, with the pitch framing before you're trying to fool the umpire, but
06:39now you also got to be sure that the batter doesn't feel like you had to jerk your glove
06:43out there to get it.
06:44That's right.
06:45Um, Yiner's a good one.
06:46I would say, man, all three at the bottom of this list of guys in the top 100, like
06:50Yiner, Hunter Brown, and Jeremy Pena, I'll think are fantastic candidates for the answer
06:56to the question I posed to you, if you, if there were a big riser from these, cause I
07:00mean, Hunter Brown is 94 on the strength of basically four months of baseball last year.
07:06He was abjectly the worst starting pitcher in baseball for two.
07:10If he had the entire season last year that he had from June on, he'd be like, feel more
07:17like he's that guy.
07:18Cause that's how he ended the season.
07:20Then he's then, then he's going to revert back to what he was and pain has been outstanding
07:25this spring.
07:26I mean, I, we've all been kind of waiting and hoping for Jeremy Pena's offensive game
07:32to catch up to what he was offensively in the post season in 2022, like for, for 2022
07:37to not look like the anomaly anymore, to make it look like all the work that he puts in
07:41in the off season and becoming a better hitter comes to fruition with some better numbers.
07:45And he's, he's had a really good spring so far.
07:48I guess I'm glad you brought up a hundred Brown because it's true that, Hey, he added
07:52the sinker, RIP Alex Bregman.
07:55Thank you for everything.
07:5660th best player.
07:57Alex Bregman encouraged that.
07:58Yes.
07:59Including that.
08:00Yeah.
08:01Suggesting that a hundred Brown uses sinker, but after I didn't arbitrarily choose this
08:05after his last, his, he had a poor performance in June 2nd after that he ended up.
08:15So from June 8th through the end of the season, he had a 2.2 ERA with a batting average of
08:22two 21 against him.
08:23Yeah.
08:24I mean, that's like in my mind, that's where I'm glad you framed it the way you did.
08:29Cause I think I've almost thought like, yeah, a hundred Brown is who he was from June onward.
08:35And that's all there is to it.
08:36He does have to show that he can do it for an entire season, but cause I did the same
08:40thing with Javier where Javier kind of got worked into being a starting pitcher and then
08:44ended up being brilliant, but in limited usage and that it was different once, once
08:50he had to do it for an entire season.
08:51That's the big question with all of these guys that the pitchers that are swaying to
08:57be fixtures on the staff is even in this day and age where they get load managed a lot
09:02more closely, you know, there's more science behind it.
09:04A lot of teams with six man rotations.
09:06So you're pitching every five days instead of every four days, that kind of thing, or
09:10with four days rest, you're pitching with five days rest, that kind of thing.
09:14They're all by definition approaching innings loads that they've never hit before.
09:20You know?
09:21Yeah.
09:22There's, there's nobody pitching 210 innings in the minor leagues or in college or in high
09:26school or anything like that.
09:28Yeah.
09:29It's a, it's a big leap to what you're hoping for.
09:32I tell you if I cherry picked even further and went from July 12th to the end of the
09:35season, cause there was one, uh, he, he gave up seven earned runs on July 6th versus Minnesota.
09:41I was there.
09:42I was at that game.
09:43That's right.
09:45Yeah.
09:46Yeah.
09:47Yeah.
09:48Yeah.
09:49It's not, honestly, that one bad outing didn't hurt him all that much over, you know, from
09:50June onward.
09:51Cause the ZRA was 2.32 as opposed to 2.4 or whatever.
09:54Um, but the, yeah, from June onward, that was an outstanding major league pitch.
10:00Absolutely.
10:01Absolutely.
10:02And if I wasn't at the ballpark, he'd have been even better.
10:04Is there a way, can you filter game?
10:06Sean Pendergast was not at, I'm not going to pay for the premium version of baseball
10:11reference because that's one of those things that in a, in a fit of desperation at 3 AM,
10:16I'll be like, yeah, I'll pay $30 a month for these advanced stats and ability to do calculations.
10:22And then, and then a year and a half later, I'm, uh, I'm, I'm, I'm emailing a furious
10:28email to baseball referencing.
10:29I never signed up for this.
10:31I don't know what you got.
10:32I don't know what shenanigans you guys are up to, but I demand a refund.
10:37You got a little horny for some advanced stats and it happens on the internet, man.
10:41You spend money on stuff that you didn't never thought you'd spend money on before.
10:44Never go on baseball reference drunk.
10:47Okay.
10:48Right.
10:49Right.
10:50Yeah.
10:51Yes.
10:52Only stats.
10:53I went on only stats.com.
10:54Um, so, uh, so those are the eight.
10:57If you're wondering former Astros on this list, uh, Kyle Tucker 14 right behind your
11:02Don 60 Alex Bregman, Carlos Correa still getting a little top 100 love 84th on the list of
11:08top 100 players.
11:10Kyle Tucker for any of you interested in a little bit of like, let's, let's follow this
11:15through.
11:16All right.
11:17He came back from his injury last year.
11:18Remember where he kind of just lazily took his time coming back from what was a minuscule
11:23microscopic fracture small enough that the modern technology and imaging couldn't even
11:29pick it up yet.
11:31to basically sit out an entire, uh, from, from the vernal equinox to the, to the summer
11:39solstice and beyond, um, uh, in the playoffs, he batted 0.0 and so far in the regular season,
11:52he batted 0.0, 0, 0.
11:55Yep.
11:56He was over for today on the opening day in Japan.
11:58Yes.
12:00I think most Astro fans root for these guys that leave in free agency or root against
12:04guys that leave in free agency for George Springer and that it hasn't worked out that
12:08well.
12:09I think most will root for Alex Bregman, except Bregman, except for the unfortunate circumstance
12:14of him playing.
12:17There was narrative around how he handled the whole free agency to where he drew a lot
12:20of people.
12:21I think a lot of Astro fans just remember that how long it took for him to arrive at
12:25going to the Red Sox.
12:26There was a, there was a, so you think they're going to root again?
12:28Yeah.
12:29Was there a time in fatigue at the end of that whole journey?
12:32There definitely was for me by the time it was over and it was definitely over.
12:35I was more mad at baseball writers than I was at Alex Bregman himself.
12:39Yeah.
12:40Um, Carlos Correa, I think people are just, what's that?
12:45Complicated.
12:46It's complicated.
12:47Yeah.
12:48I don't, I don't, I don't think they want to see him have X's to have success.
12:52I don't think they root against them, but I don't think they really want to see him
12:55have success.
12:56Um, who else am I missing?
12:58Verlander.
12:59Verlander will be, yeah, I think Verlander the root for playing the Astros.
13:04I think people will be cause plus Verlander's at the point now where it's just a, it's a
13:07good story.
13:08You see a guy pitching well in his forties, if he does well, it'd be really good.
13:12Good for him.
13:13That's a good Nolan Ryan.
13:14That joint.
13:15I can't quite put my finger on it, but Tucker is at the top of the list of guys that I hope
13:17fail at his next.
13:18I really do.
13:19I really hope he fails.
13:20I hope he falls flat on his big stupid face.
13:24That's kind of what I'm thinking.
13:26I hope a baseball hits him in the forehead as he lazily tries to make his way over to
13:30cause you know what it is with Tucker.
13:32What is it?
13:33He just defensively seems like he lost interest the last couple of years.
13:37It felt like, um, all those things where early in his career, AJ Hinch had to have a, a talk
13:44in two with him about how he needs to show the same level of urgency as the other guys
13:49on the Astros.
13:50And yeah, I eagerly await him getting a gigantic contract somewhere.
13:56Well, disappointment and a weight around the ankles of some poor franchise that gave him
14:01a 12 year deal.
14:02Okay.
14:03Okay.
14:04This is, this is a good thing.
14:05I want him to poo holes the hell out of some franchise.
14:06This is it.
14:07This is a, in 11 years, three 36, man, that's what they were estimating yesterday on MLB.com.