Secrecy around Houston Astros leadership just reached a frustrating peak

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so jent I wanted to talk to you about this because Keith Law was on our sister platform ESPN 97.5 Joel blank and Jeremy Bram asked him about the national perspective of how the Astros front office is operating um as we’ve kind of talked about here um and as fans and media have kind of been murmuring about it seems like um you locally the the opinion is crane Bagwell Reggie Jackson are pulling the strings behind the scenes with Dana Brown acting as sort of a spokesperson for the team’s moves um Keith Law confirmed that it is the view that view is shared by the national media as well and you can go check out that interview on Sports map.com right now um but like I said this isn’t news if you’ve been listening to this podcast because that’s something that we have spec C at and questioned the internal power structure for quite some time but admittedly those of us who follow the team on a daily basis uh from day to day from game to game can certainly be victims of being in a bubble and so charling does does him does Keith Law confirming this is not just a a locally held belief does this provide some sort of Sanity check for fans and media that they aren’t crazy and and maybe a better question is is it really that big of a deal is it only a big deal because of the performance on the field right now well it certainly magnifies It Keith Law the athletic generally their their prospects guy but used to work for the Blue Jays so he has contacts across Major League Baseball um you know when Dana Brown was hired his background was in scouting and Player Development and the Astros farm system is in poor shape now but it was in a a worse state of withered status when Dana Brown got the job for a number of reasons some mistakes picking late in rounds year after a year because of the Astro success the no first and second round picks for two years because of the the cheating punishment and so Dana Brown’s been on the job for one draft right the second one is near at hand but you can’t just rejuvenate a farm system overnight so Dana Brown the biggest part of his job I think for which he was hired that’s over two three four year period and then we’ll see what Dana Brown has has done with the Astros farm system but he was not hired as the Director of scouting or the player Personnel director he was hired at least nominally as the general manager so was he hired already a little bit neutered in that area or you know youall handle the sort of beist stuff trading for that extra lever or spare part player but my kitchen cabinet meaning Jim Crane you know I’m I’m real buds now with baggie and Reggie and so we’re out on a golf course somewhere that’s where we’ll really noodle out the bigger stuff and the the bigger contracts and we’re gonna give Montero three years and we’re gonna go a third year on on Jose Abu um it would be a real interesting entry in Dana Brown’s diary to get to read if he was to vent on this stuff if he has stuff to vent about you know was he hired and you I don’t want to say a big bait and switch operation he’s getting a general manager salary there only 30 such gigs he got a nice bump I’m sure from what he was making making with the Braves but is he in the role that he fully felt he was hired to fulfill can’t know but many many Wonder for me this is kind of what we feared when os’s name was being thrown around is is possibly being the general manager we feared this type of thing to where it’d really be Jeff Bagwell and these guys behind the scenes calling all the shots and osus would just kind of do their bidding well it looks like it kind of happened anyway with Dana Brown as as we speculate on the outside looking in I I don’t know if it made that big a difference I think at least Dana Brown is it seems like maybe he one extra voice in the room maybe of kind of Sanity of just a a pure baseball guy just giving his opinion somebody that’s not doesn’t have any connection to Bagwell or anything like that but but he is I think just that just a voice in the room not what you would expect with the general manager where you think what they think would carry more weight than somebody that’s just an adviser but you know we’ve been talking about this for a long time this it looks like that’s what it is it’s Bagwell and crane and they talk about their baseball men and I think this National opinion of the Astros goes back to when they parted ways with James click you know who gets rid of their general manager after winning the World Series so it goes all the way back to that and I still think that was a huge mistake and it’s one of the reasons they are where they are right now this season with a losing record in my opinion and you do have to wonder how much power does anyone really have uh how much micromanaging is happening behind the scenes I can tell you that it does make me rethink a little bit of the Dusty Baker situation because now I don’t know what kind of pressures he was under I know we had Bob Nightingale you know run that article that was basically saying that the the analytics guys ran uh Dusty Baker off which I think is complete nonsense because there’s no analytical person in charge that is making decisions for this team because they are making decisions that go against the numbers right now that does not seem to be the case but I would buy an internal power structure that could run off a manager in fact we speculated in the last episode whether or not Astros would go through another manager just for the sake of someone having to fall on the sword for the results of this season and I think part of the fr frustration from the fan base and the media’s feeling is really from a feeling of being gas lit because and I can let me just give you a prime example of that was Tuesday Chandler Rome breaking the news that Christian Javier was scheduled for uh Tommy John surgery and prior to that our update from Dana Brown had been you know idia and Javier were feeling better Chandler Rome Tuesday breaks the news that Javier was having surgery mlb.com picked up the story and through their website on their RSS feed astros.com actually pulled in a story that credited sources that ariti and Javier were getting surgery before the Astros would even confirm which they would finally do on Wednesday at least acknowledging that they were getting elbow surgery but not confirming that it was Tommy John surgery so in a time in which it feels like the Goodwill is just continuing to be burned with fans right now do you think continuing with this high level of secrecy when really there doesn’t seem to be anything to gain from it uh do you think this is just a very interesting decision to say the least well it said winning is the best deodorant so losing is like a a skunk cabbage rub um you know maybe the Astros are just charmingly naively optimistic when it comes to injuries right it took him three days to realize uh Kyle Tucker’s walking on crutches maybe he’s not going to be able to play tonight so they retroactively put him on the iil he’ll be out until at least this coming weekend or maybe he’ll be out till mid August who knows we’re talking about the Astros here so I’ve said before I just find it uh annoying the the obfuscation the the duck and Dodge there’s no competitive benefit whatsoever derived from trying to think teams oh no we’re scared maybe Javier is going to come back because he doesn’t need Tommy surgery so I I just find it silliness uh but it’s nothing new with the the Astros Mo but you know all they’ve done is win win win win win so when the light shines a little bit differently when you’re at 30 and 36 where they are starting starting this week um you know there’s going to be less tolerance or more more annoyance at at anything that goes wrong or doesn’t seem on the up and up I just find it odd when they pick and choose on you know what the deal is like we find out that night that Kyle Tucker had X-rays and they were negative they let us know that in the finale of the Angels series bregman got hit on the hand again after the game janler roome was tweeting out that the first one he took actually hit him on the hand the one that happened in the finale actually hit him on the wrist so not in the exact same spot so it looks like he’s going to be okay so it’s funny when sometimes they’ll they’ll let you know stuff right away and then you know with the AR and jav air stuff you’re just sitting there going what is going on what is taking so long so it’s just so inconsistent I I don’t know what these guys and I’m a WWE Fan so I love a good swerve but I don’t think we’re going to be late in the season and Christian Javier’s theme music comes and he comes running to the mound with a folded steel chair in his hand again like you’re not getting over on anybody you’re not going to gain more leverage everyone knows that you’re in need of starting pitching so I don’t understand the the need to continue to uh have this highlevel Pentagon level of secrecy when it comes to injuries so anytime there’s any sort of ambiguity you can’t help but think well there’s no telling it could be a week or it could be season ending I’ll give you guys the last word yeah a little a little prish at times everything is good everything is good we have but good news for you um hey the more pressing matter is the estra start the week six and a half back of the Mariners Seattle is four with the white socks so it’ be a big surprise if they do anything less than hang three more wins among those four games on the wall uh Astros need to win the series in San Francisco blowing that game Sunday you know a three and three road trip does not cut it it’s not a miserable trip on its own face value or of its own face value where the Astros are in the standings when you’re playing two losing teams you can’t be going 500 when you’re trying to Roar from from behind so you know if if they take two out of three in San Francisco it’s a four out of six road trip okay then come home and see what you do with the Tigers yeah they get they got to get back to 500 and and get this thing competitive before the All-Star break if Dana Brown’s right we’re going to be buyers not sellers this is the time to to get above 500 start playing good baseball and we’ll see what happens we’ll see if they they add some more talent to the roster or if if they’re just not that good and they do end up being sellers but I don’t think that’s going to be the case I think they’re going to get back to 500 I just don’t know if that they’re gonna backslide again I just don’t know if this is that team that finally kind of gets cranking and it just took a while I just feel like there’s something about this team even when they pile up a few wins that they’re they’re going to give away a few I think they really are around a 500 team well the numbers show that out they for the largest sample size now you know being uh you know that 160 180 game sample size that shows that they’re just they are a 500 team um and looking back on last season they they only win the division with uh Seattle and Arlington cooperating however Texas and Seattle were cooperating this week so really unfortunate that they weren’t able to close the deal on Sunday but such is baseball that’s going to be it for this episode of Stone Cold shows if you listen on podcast and you enjoy the show please be sure to give us a five star rating Charlie Josh and I will catch you next week but you don’t have to wait that long to get your Houston sports fix all you have to do is subscribe to sports map Houston and sports map Texans on YouTube and we’ll have some more content for you during the week until next time ghost Ros [Music]