3/19/26 GM Dana Brown

0:00Baseball is back, and the first pitch is on Netflix. The New York Yankees, led by seven-time all-star Aaron Judge, head to the San Francisco Bay to take on Rafael Devar's San Francisco Giants. This season kicks off with one exclusive opening night game. Watch MLB Opening Night, the New York Yankees versus the San Francisco Giants live on Netflix. Wednesday, March 25th at 8 PM Eastern 5 PM Pacific. The New York Yankees, led by four-star Aaron Judge, head to the San Francisco Bay. That's not Houston. You're winners! That's not this team. Thank you, San Astros! You need the challenge. You need the burn because greatness is forged through the fire. Molded by the moment, and pursuit was won. Been around there, and coming home. The goal of the play to slide is, say, say, Astros come back and win it at the bottom of the night.

1:00Our journey requires an evolution. We imagine what it means to truly exceed our potential, battling for each other, and for the opportunity to push beyond. No matter what is stacked against us. We know the odds, yet we don't flinch. We don't wait. We chase the fight. And Albert is melted! Stay through our fields! Get to the side! A miraculous comeback for Houston! Can you believe it? Astro Line. Astro Line. Astro Line. Houston Brown and Houston Strong. Sports Talk 790 Astro Line. Astro Line. The official three-season show of Astros baseball. This is where we talk about your Astros. Join the show. Post your questions and comments on social media.

2:01Just be sure to hashtag Astro Line. What are you doing? And can you success? Continue to winning. You're talking about a dynasty live from West Palm Beach, Florida. Sports Talk 790 Astro Line. Starts now. Now. And greetings from Duffy Sports Grill and Downtown West Palm Beach on Club Addis for another edition of Astro Line. Our final Astro Line of 2026 spring training. I'm Robert Ford with Steve Sparks and Camps Winding Down a week from tomorrow. The Houston Astros open the regular season. I was about to say, that deserves some cheers, right? Eight days from today. That's right. Next Thursday, host the Los Angeles Angels. We know what the pitching match will be. Hunter Brown for the Astros. The Angels have announced Jose Soriano will be their opening day starter. OK, I want to know who's the next game. And maybe we'll find out the rest of the rotation on the show here with our guests in a little bit.

3:01But this is an exciting time in camp because, and I know you know this too, Steve, as a player, you have that kind of middle part of spring training when it starts to drag because every day is kind of the exact same, every day is groundhog day. But once you get near the end, there's some anticipation, whether you're fighting for a spot, whether you know you have a spot, and you're just getting ready before the season. But there's a lot of excitement and anticipation right now. You know, I've noticed it the last few days, too. You can see a little bit more intensity with some of the guys that are on the bubble. Uh-huh. And I think I'm a little bit more sensitive to those players because I was one of those. I was always in spring training a lot more stressed than the Jose Al-2 days of the world who know they've been on the team for the last 15 years, right? Right. So going into this last week and trying to put your best foot forward in these last few games, you get a couple of guys in scoring position, try a little extra hard just to try to get that big hit, maybe stick in your coach's mind that, all right, this is the guy that we won on our team. So it's stressful for those guys. They've got a week, you know, to plead their case, so to speak.

4:05And it's going to be fun to watch because I think there's a few positions still up for grabs. Certainly. And kind of, it'll be fun tomorrow, you and I will be doing, there are two games tomorrow going on at Cacti Park of the Palm Beach is tomorrow night, the Astros have a game. But the game, you and I are going to be doing for the Astros Radio Network is the earlier game that is the spring breakout game, Astros prospects against the Marlins prospects. And this is like to be the first one that I've done. This is the third year they've done it the last two I have been off for those games. So I'm looking forward to this. This is going to be a blast. Yeah, I'd love it. You know, I'd love to go over and watch the guys pitch on the minor league mounds earlier in the day. And there's one guy in particular, and I told you during the broadcast that Leomar Rosario is a guy that we need to watch tomorrow. Hopefully he gets into the game or he's still in 102 miles per hour in bullpen sessions. And that's almost unheard of. So he's a big guy. It's one of those guys that you probably want to push through the system a little bit and see what you got. But it's exciting.

5:06You start to see these guys, James Hicks, we'll start the game for the Astros, minor leagueers, and he was the Arizona Fall League pitcher of the year. So he's starting to get a lot more notoriety and of course a couple of recent first rounders in the Astros top prospects that we'll get a chance to see in actions. We haven't seen Xavier Nions enough, you know, and he was drafted last year at a high school. But he's a very exciting prospect. Absolutely. We're going to talk about that and more with Astros General Manager Dana Brown, who is our guest, as always, for the final Astro line of spring training. So we'll hear from Dana Brown here in a little bit. We'd like to remind you though, see Brooks Capka, Ricky Fowler, and Raining Champion, Min Wouli at the 2026 Texas Children's Houston Open. Houston's from Air PGA Tour event returns in Memorial Park, of course, March 26th of the 29th. That's not this week. But next week in tickets are available now at tcouopen.com slash tickets. We'll hear from Astros General Manager Dana Brown, when we return from Duffy Sportsdrill on Clematis as Astro Line on the Houston Astros radio network.

6:09The hottest Astros gear straight from the source. Visit the Astros Centerfield Team Store for the best variety of jerseys, caps, collectibles, and more. We've got everything you'll need to show off your Astros fandom or surprise the Astros fan in your life. Stop by the Centerfield Team Store Monday through Saturday for the ultimate retail experience. Fans have taken off their ball caps, holding them up by the air. You team store hours and find out more information at astros.com slash team store. SCHN Plus is the newest way to watch the Astros anytime, anywhere. Get all your SCHN programming like the Astros, Rockets, and behind the scenes features all in one spot. Learn more at astros.com slash watch. And welcome back to another edition of Astro Line coming to you live from Duffy Sportsdrill downtown West Palm Beach on Clematis. I'm gonna see us when you make it down to Astros Spring training and subsequent years.

7:11Robert Ford and Steve Sparks are joined by Astros General Manager Dana Brown, Dana Good to see you. All right. How y'all doing? Doing well. I'm fired up. You sound like it. I'm fired up. Put a cup of coffee. It's only eight o'clock here at about six cups of coffee. So we're getting to the point in spring. Steven, I were talking about this a little earlier where the guys can see the finish line. The season starts a week from tomorrow. You got some decisions still to make. Guys are still trying to figure out their roles in some instances. For you, what is this, what is this time of year like for you or how much, how excited are you just to kind of get your, get your team together? Yeah. I'm excited because, you know, we acquired a lot of pitching on the off season. They always told you that pitching brings your blood pressure down. So if you get a lot of pitching, you're gonna be good. You know, you don't have to stress about it. And so that was one of the things we were focused on. I believe our bats are gonna turn the corner this year. We need to get healthy and stay healthy.

8:14And with the pitching that we have, we got a chance to be really good. You know, we were like the second best earner in average in spring training right now. So watch out. What can you, we're gonna pitch our way through it. What can you divulge about how this process goes when you're trying to get the last guys on the roster? What are the meetings like? Who's in there and how do you put together this team in the last week? Yeah. I mean, we could take our top front office guys with our, you know, our coaching staff, mainly the manager, the pitching coach, the bench coach. And we, you know, we try to grind through the decisions that we have to make to make this team the best that we could make it. Our focus is to get off to a good start. We think that's very important. And we just go through all the details, the decisions. And so all you fans out there that are stressing about, let me stress. You guys rest. I'll stress. What are the biggest things you're gonna be looking for over the next week?

9:15In other words, where do the biggest decisions you feel like you and your staff still have to make? Yeah. But the most part is bullpen. And you know, we have to figure out a little bit more of the outfield. You know, we were still grinding through clubs, talking about left hand bats. But you know, those are the two areas. Our rotation is really good. We have depth. We have to make some tough decisions. And they will not be easy, those decisions, because you're so good with the starters, because we signed four starters on your offseason. And so we have the depth. So even if we sustained an injury, we're good to go, you know, like last year. We went to, you know, all of the injuries, you know, we had to use 60 players to get through a season. Usually we used 44. We came at one game short. So certainly the injuries were Achilles heel for us. Name a couple of pitchers that have caught your eye so far this spring, because, you know,

10:16we've talked about this a little bit, but in the 14 years at Robert and I have even been doing this. Not sure that we've seen this type of depth with the pitching, you know, just quality arm after quality arm coming into the game. And only so many guys can make the team. Give me a couple of guys that are coming in to camp that are opening your eyes. Yeah, it'd be tough to just name a couple of, I mean, in my, like he came in, he's like 93 to 99. He looks really good. Burrow's the guy we traded for. Yeah, Pittsburgh. He looks really good. Both those guys haven't given up a run yet. We have Weiss who we signed. He looks good. And so paying, paying pitch again today, he looks good. I mean, we, we really had to bulk up the starting pitching because we know in 162 games you have to have the arms. I was watching the World Series last year and Dodgers continued to bring in good arm after good arm. And so fresh arms. Yes, fresh arms was what we loaded up.

11:16So if we score three, four runs, we should win the game. And so our position, our position players are aware of that, our pitching, our pitches are aware of that. And so these guys are really locked in and they're battling, I mean, they're battling hard. That's why, you know, our pitching has been so good this spring. Yep. You talk about some of the tough decisions you're going to have to make and every team has some tough decisions to make at the end of spring training going into opening day. All right, some of those tough decisions going to be about, because like you said, you've brought in all these starters. Obviously, some of them aren't going to be able to start in the big league club. As part of the tough decisions, figuring out guys who could start and maybe would be starting for a lot of teams and maybe moving them to the bullpen at least to start the year because I mean, you know, we've seen, you know, how valuable having a quality long reliever can be. Yeah, we're definitely going to, you know, our thought process is we're definitely going to talk about putting some of the starters in the pen because we have a good depth of

12:19starters. And so when you take some of those starters and put them in the pen, not only can they go one inning, but they can go one to three, sometimes four innings. And so that's going to get you through games. It's big when you're doing 162 games. And so ultimately, having that type of depth is really good for your pitching staff. As I mentioned, we score three to four runs a game. We're going to win those games because I feel really good about the pitching. So my brother pressure is down, I'm 125 over 75, I mean, that's what we're doing. Oh, wow. I'm not a, I'm not a shame to say it, you know, you get stressed out in this job, but pitching lowers your blood pressure. This is a fact. You get to find it. 36 years in the game. I'm going to tell you. Do we have a lower your blood pressure? Do we have a nurse here with a stethoscope and one of those cups that they can put around you anyway? Yeah. I might do it in public. I'm not the target for it. I know the last couple of years or so, we've seen the Astros at times go to six man rotations,

13:20right? I know there's talk about doing that again this year. I know there's been conversation about whether you start the year with a six man rotation. You open the year with seven straight at home against the angels and red socks. Then that first road trip, three city road trip, there are two off days on that road trip. I imagine that factors into the decision too, whether you're going with a five man versus a six man to start the year. No doubt. The plan is that the start of the year will do a five man and then when we go to that stretch where we have 23 games over 25 days, we'll go to the six man and we're trying to protect our guys early because one of the things you want to do with this stretch of 162 is you want to make sure that you protect your starters. I feel like with talking with our guys that early on, first part, for the first four weeks or so, maybe three weeks, it's going to be like a five man and then we're going to shift

14:21into a six man and then we'll play it from there, but you have that flexibility because you have the depth and the starters and you have to protect your starters. I mean, Hunter Brown was a big workhorse for us. He's our number one and so we have to protect them. The one thing you don't want is your workhorse going on the IEL. So we'll do whatever we have to do to protect them. We have the starter depth to do it and our guys are locked in. One of the biggest questions coming into spring training was you've got too many infielders people would say and with Parade is coming back from injury last year and where is he going to play? Is he going to play some seconds, some thirds, some first base, whatever. Have you guys kind of hashed through some scenarios and how you're going to get at bats and playing time for everybody? Yeah, that's treat us like extra money in the bank. We can never have enough extra money in the bank and these guys are really good and ultimately having that extra player, Parade is going to play second. He could play first.

15:21He could play third base so we could rest these guys. We have a few of our infielders that are older so you can give those guys some rest and we grinded through last year with all those injuries. We had to play guys from multiple games even when they needed rest and so we were going to come through this season. We're going to have a good depth in our infield. We're going to give those guys the appropriate rest. We feel like with the rest that they're going to get, they're going to be more productive and so I'm excited. I'm really excited about it. This is AstroLine, the podcast. We'll be right back. Memberships for the 2026 buddies club presented by HEB are on sale now. On 12 and under will receive four 2026 regular season Astros tickets, a drawstring bag, widget hat, socks, shoe charms and lanyard. Plus, buddies members will have the opportunity to be selected for exclusive buddies experiences including the chance to meet the Houston Astros players. Don't miss your chance to be part of the club.

16:22Visit astros.com slash buddies to learn more or join today. Go for more with the college branded Venmo debit card and earn up to 5% cash back with Venmo stash. Got paid back? With the Venmo debit card, you can instantly access your balance and spend on what you want, like game day snacks, gear, tickets and more. The more you do, the more cash back you can earn. Plus, there's no monthly fear minimum balance. Sign up now at Venmo.com slash college card. The Venmo master card is issued by the bank court bank NA, select schools available. Venmo stash terms and exclusions apply at Venmo.me slash stash terms. Max $100 cash back per month. Get ready to experience Astros baseball the way you want. Whether you're a die hard fan or looking for exciting moments, the Astros have a ticket plan built just for you. Choose from full and partial season tickets to be there for every unforgettable play. Want more flexibility? You can offer a mini plan or a flex plan and catch the action on your own terms. With options for three games or all 81, there's a plan for every fan.

17:23Visit astros.com slash tickets to choose your player. Welcome back. You're listening to Astro line with the log jam that you have in the infield with a lot of good players who need to play the D H roll figures into that and Yordon figures into that because obviously I know the plan is for Yordon to be the primary D H and a big key to any successful astros season is keeping Yordon on the field more often than not, which obviously was a struggle last year and you want to avoid that in 2026. So I'd imagine that's to be a little tricky balancing act too because if you put Yordon in left field and free up that D H spot, you know, that could open up a spot for Christian Walker, Esok Parade is to D H and get both of those bats along with Yordon's bat in the lineup. With the way things sit right now, how much do you envision Yordon playing left field if the roster stays constructed the way it is? Yeah, so Yordon is going to get the majority of his time as the D H, no doubt about it.

18:28He's a D H that's his comfort level, that's our comfort level. We know that we're a better team and he's a D H. However, you know, we do have some players that we, you know, have to get into the lineup. So if he's not D H and he'll be in left field, we'll work it that way. You know, out to V, we'll get some days that's a D H. Parade will get some days that's a D H. Both of out to V and Parade will get some days at second base. Parade will get some days at third base. And so Joe's going to have to, you know, shift it around a little bit to get all these guys some playing time to get them to proper rest that they need. And the one thing I've learned in 36 years in this game is you can never have enough talent. And so you hand the manager all the talent, you can hand them and let him shift and do what he has to do to get these guys playing time to make the team successful. And so these guys are all on board.

19:28We talked to him. I know, you know, the media was talking about trades and all this other stuff. But you need the depth in 162 and then when you get to the postseason, we'll figure it out then when we have a lot of extra players. We need some production from our young outfielder's. I think that's going to be a big part of where we go offensively. How do you envision the depth in Sugar Lane this year or even AA? But it feels like with the competition we saw in camp and the talent that we saw in spring training camp as well. Looks like that team in Sugar Lane is going to be loaded. Yeah, I would say Sugar Lane is going to be loaded. Corpus Christi is going to be loaded. We have a lot of talent. And so there's only but so much room at the major league level. And so these guys, we'll get some time in AAA, AA, but we'll put the best team at the major league level. And so it's all about winning. If you don't win, get to the postseason, it's not a success. You know, you talk about the depth and the minor leagues and obviously you look at the

20:32rankings. Farms to some rankings in the last few years. The Astra is generally right near the bottom for the last few years. What do you think since you've been a general manager? What do you think this farm system has improved the most in your eyes? Yeah, I tell people all the time, you know, it's like the O which is a vice movie, Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. A lot of times they talk about, you know, you guys rank here or you rank there and all these teams that rank high, they never play in the postseason. And so the most important thing is the minor league system is a group of players that you have to get ready for the major league level. And so the whole key is you want to win at the major league level. If you're winning at the minor league level and you're not winning at the major league level, I mean, that's not successful, right? You have to win at the big league level. And so we have a group of guys that we feel that we move quickly to try to get to the big leagues to make the major league team better. And so we're not going to slow roll guys to make our minor league system win more games

21:34but suffer at the major league level, it just doesn't make sense to me. And so the minor leagues is put together to filter players to the major league level. And that's how we look at it and that's where our focus is and that's why our window is always open to win and get to the postseason. These guys are always so busy Dana in spring training that we don't get a chance to really talk to him too much because they're in the cages or they're in the backfields but a new pitching coach, two new hitting coaches, I'm sure you've gotten a chance to talk to these guys. What's their perspective coming into a new organization and how do you feel that that transition is going? Yeah, sometimes you need new voices and it's just a part of what we do. You've been in a game for a long time and you have to sometimes make difficult decisions and you have to make changes. And so with the higher Victor Rodriguez and Ioposi and Katz, those guys are really long-term

22:34baseball guys that have been in a game in a long time. And so Victor Rodriguez has been a hitting coach for such a long time to work with so many good hitters. And so we felt like we needed a new voice. When you transition from a group of players that you've taken high in a draft, whether it's Braggman or Tucker and some of those guys, look, you're not picking at the top of the draft anymore because you're picking at the bottom of the draft because your team is really good. And so you have to be able to develop players and sometimes you need a new voice to get these players to their ability. It's a lot easier to coach Tucker, it's a lot easier to coach Braggman and sometimes you've got to get that different voice that some of these guys that weren't drafted as high and they're going to get the message and you have to translate that to the majorly level for success. There are a couple of different ways to go about bringing in coaches to your major league

23:36staff. You can obviously promote coaches through your system, who have been in your system, bringing them out to the big league level. That's happened with a lot of guys, Omar Lopez, an example of that. Or you can bring guys in from other organizations, which is the path that the Astros took for the most part with some of the changes to their coaching staff this year. Was part of that too, you almost wanted to get, I mean, you talk about different voices, but also just people with different perspectives who have been in different organizations and see how other teams do it and maybe bring some of that here. Was that part of the thinking too? Yeah. So for example, when I took over the job in 2023, we didn't make many changes. I was coming from a winning organization. I was transitioning to a winning organization. And so we kept a lot of people on staff. We didn't make a lot of changes because we were trying to continue this success in the winning. Ultimately, as you go forward and you have to make some decisions on where you're going

24:39to go, you sometimes have to make these decisions. And so these decisions are not easy to make, but they're necessary to make because, look, you want to continue the winning, and it's very important. So we had to go out and we had to look for new voices, and that's exactly what we did. But in the meantime, we promoted, you know, guys like Joe and Spada to manager, Omar Lopez, shout out to him with the Venezuelan win. I mean, we promoted him to, you know, bench coach. And so we had a lot of good people on our staff. The other thing that I want the fans to understand is the success of the Astros, it makes you a target for other organizations. They come after your, you know, your better employees. And so they're always saying, hey, what are they doing? Well, we got to go get this pitching coach. We got to go get this guy. And so they're always looking. Our phones are ringing off the hook on the offseason. It's like we don't even want to answer sometimes because we know that other teams are calling

25:43for our guys for promotions. And you know, you can't block people from promotions. It's just not the way to do things, it's not good business. You know, these guys, they work hard, they have families, and you know, they want to do better. And so, you know, sometimes we had the mercy of losing good workers because we're successful. And teams are always trying to pull from the better teams to get their better employees. And so we have to face that as well. So there's a lot going on behind the scenes that people do not know about. But make no mistake, you know, we're trying to keep our best employees and we're trying to continue this window of winning. And that's the most important thing. Our last Astro line last year, I think back to just basically a year ago and you were our guest on that Astro line and you were talking a lot on that show about Cam Smith and his potential chance to make the roster and what he could mean for the team. Where is he compared to this time last year?

26:46Yeah. I mean, I don't know if you guys saw that home run he had, you know, it was an absolute bomb. Yep. To the pole side. Yeah, to the pole side. I mean, Cam Smith has a chance to be a star. I think he's realizing that and he's understanding it. But at the same time, you know, he's 23 years old, you know, and it's tough to put that much pressure on a young player, right? And so I mean, we think he's got star power. We know he's going to be a star. We hope he really turns the corner and be that star this year. But you try to not put too much pressure on the player because it's so important that this guy be a piece of this franchise. And so I'm looking forward to, you know, seeing what he's going to do this year. He's already learned a lot. He's made some adjustments with his hands. I don't know if the fans are paying that much attention to it. He was more straight up and down, more he's more locked into his load and he's having success

27:48and he's hit the ball hard. So I think this is the year you may turn the corner and really be an all star and a star. And I think he's had the talent, but, you know, the makeup is special. We all know about that and we feel like this guy is going to be a big pillar for us. If he's not hitting in the middle of the order, before the end of the year, I would probably be wrong in my projection. So you'd be surprised? I would be surprised. Yeah. I think it's hard to put him in that position this early, but I think he's a monster ready to explode. As a talent evaluator and a former scout and with what you're talking about with Cam Smith. And I'm not just saying just Cam, but when do you start thinking about, then we ought to think about starting to lock this guy up. When do you broach those conversations with those guys agents and things like that? Yeah, I mean, that's an important part of what I want to do here and I mean, I know

28:52when I was in Atlanta, we locked a lot of guys up. You know, it's always difficult to do that because you're an enormous race with a player at the agent, but don't think we haven't thought about it. We thought about it. I mean, this is a guy that, if he turns the corner this year and he looks really good and he feels, and we feel like he's got it figured out, I mean, we would love the lock him up. I think he loves it here in Houston. As most people know, it's hometown, it's like just a few miles away, you know, from spring training. So he's locked in, he loves it here. And I feel like this is the perfect candidate to lock up long term and hopefully we have the opportunity to do that and this, he's a prime candidate for that, though. All right. We'll have more of the Astros General Manager, Dana Brown, as we continue on Astro Line coming to you live from Duffy's Sports Grill on Clematis, downtown West Palm Beach, and on the Houston Astros Radio Network. Place up and join the run, Astros Race to the Penet, presented by Houston Methodist,

29:56is Houston's newest 5K 10K set to start and end at Dyken Park on Saturday, May 2nd. Young runners age 12 and under can take part in Orbit's Kids Dash, completing one lap around the outside of the stadium. All participants will receive a commemorative t-shirt and finisher medal, plus you'll get to experience a post-race party on the Dyken Park Concourse, visit astros.com-flash-run to register today. Don't miss opening day, presented by Adobe on Thursday, March 26th, when the Astros host the Angels at Dyken Park. Get to the ballpark early to celebrate with opening day street fest, presented by Bud Weiser. Get tickets now at astros.com-flash-promotion. As a slicing fly ball to right field, that could be trouble. And that is over the wall at Wright Center Field for a home run by Bryce Matthews as it's sliced, and I think the wind helped it a little bit and carried over the wall for a two run homer. Astros lead at three nothing. Well, Bryce Matthews going the other way is first time up to advance the run, or this

30:58time hitting one deep to right field, and I think you're right, I think that wind is starting to blow out towards Wright Field. Bryce who hit all four of his big league home runs from the pole side on the pole side, is that one the other way? This one's a no-datter. Wright Field indeed, there's that goal. Big home run to Wright Field, it's back to back for the astros, and it's four nothing. The difference in distance significant, the Bryce Matthews home run was hit in front of the boardwalk area that a lot of fans watched the game from. That ball as it was, it was hit. The fans on the boardwalk started looking behind them, because they knew that ball was not only good to get to the boardwalk, but over their heads and well beyond it. Wright Field are a herred man, he barely moved in Wright Field, and I think everybody knew it with the crack of the bat. Or well, the distance on that home run. And welcome back to AstroLine, coming to you live from Duffy's Sports Grill on Clematis downtown West Palm Beach. It's a spring training tradition down here for these AstrosLine AstroLines here at Duffy,

31:59so make it down to AstroSpring Training, make sure you come down and see us for an AstroLine program. When you come down next year or the year after that or whatever, you make your trip to West Palm Beach for AstroSpring Training. Robert Ford and Steve Sparks joined by AstroSj normal manager Dana Brown, Dana. We just heard highlights from the AstrosLine yesterday in Bradenton over the Pittsburgh Pirates, one of your former organizations. And we heard the back-to-back home runs by Bryce Matthews and Zach Cole in that ballgame offer pretty good pitcher in Mitch Keller as well. And those are just two of the young players that I have to imagine you're pretty excited about as a GM of this team. Yeah, we call it clips of coming attractions. And so, you know, those two guys both have exit velocity with their line drives. They hit the ball very hard. Zach Cole in particular, it's really good. I mean, these are two pillars that we're relying on. And so Bryce Matthews is working his tail off, you know.

33:00Of course, he's a native, you know, he's really locked in and he's working really hard to try to do something to impact this club. And of course, Zach Cole left him bad, really good, walking more this spring than he's ever walked before, hitting the ball very hard. Most people don't know like he had a ball in New York that was long gone with the wind was blowing in. So, he's done very well. And so, we're looking for some big things from both of those young players. And I love the fact that they both put the ball in the seats. You guys saw a little bit of clips of coming attractions from Matthews last year in Arizona. He kind of carried us that whole weekend. And so, think about it. This guy just, you know, 2023 he was playing in college. You know, he's already making an impact in 2025 at the major league level. And so, we look for special things from Matthews. Danny, you set something to us last year and we were talking about, and you were talking

34:00about as a scout, that a lot of times players, when they make a move in positions, you don't like them to go from the outfield to the infield because that usually doesn't translate very well. But from the infield to the outfield, like Bryce Matthews is doing this spring, what we saw Cam Smith do last year, sometimes with special players, they can do that. Yeah, I would always say from a scouting perspective, if you're moving infielders to the outfield, you're working on all cylinders because that usually means that you have a load of infielders, they can't crack in in the infield, so they kind of break in in the outfield. And so, that means your system is becoming loaded with special players, which I think that's a good thing and we're moving in the right direction. And so, we need the production that we should have at the major league level and these guys have that opportunity to make it. Yeah, when you talk about Bryce Matthews moving to the outfield and getting time in the outfield, and when you make these decisions, I'd imagine the individual factors in, because

35:01not every player has the sort of makeup or really the desire to make that transition. But you know, talking to Bryce Matthews about who's actually on our Astraline program last week, he seems like he has bought into it and he's excited about this opportunity to place some outfield, which he's done. I know he did play some in college. Yeah, two things I would mention there, one, he played some in college, so he's done him before. Very, very important. And then, when you still have Hall of Famers like Craig Bigeo and your organization who played catcher, second base, outfield at the end, I mean, look, those are things that speak volumes, you know, to young players and so they get it, they understand it, they know it's a team game, it's a concept of what you do in winning the organizations. And so, they're locked in and they understand it. When I saw Jeremy Pagno last year, he made a lot of strides in swinging at pitches in the strike zone, pitches that he could handle, pitches that he could drive. Can Yiner Diaz do that?

36:03How do you teach guys to recognize pitches and stay in the strike zone? Yeah, early on in spring this year, Diaz was locked in. You know, he kind of like drifted a little bit at the last few days and we talked to him about that and we'll get him back to being locked in. If Diaz could lock in, that's a big bad for us. You know, he had 23 home runs and had over an 800 OPS in 2023, he's really, really good. And so, you know, the league found out about him and they started pitching him differently. And so, we're locked in and letting him know that look, if you're going to be a star, you're going to be good, you're going to be an all-star one day, you've got to get locked in and you can't, you know, these guys are going to plan for you to hit certain ways and you have to make the adjustments. And so, talent-wise, he's got it. He's got the effector. But he has to continue to make these adjustments and we feel like he's going to be all right. How can guys start recognizing pitches like that?

37:05Dude, guys just have a hard time seeing the spin for the slider? Yeah, I think the big thing is we have to get guys locked in to looking for the express, which is the fastball and adjusting to the off-speed because it's slower. Sometimes, guys, you know, they'll start guessing and they'll start looking for off-speed. Now, the fastball comes, they have no idea, it's too fast, they can't handle it. And so, they get sort of out of sync. But it's a natural instinct to try to go to what you think the pitcher's throwing you. But, you know, as Bagwell talks all the time, he's like, you've got to be ready for that best fastball. Another hall of family organization talking good things about what you need to do to be successful as a hitter. And so, I think sometimes, you know, look, these players sometimes are like little kids, right? They could be a little stubborn. You know, I tell my kids that you can't do this, you can't do that, and they're stubborn. And at some point, they learn and understand that this is what needs to be done for you

38:07to be successful. And I think we're getting guys to that next level, and that's, you know, why we win games. Want to ask you about Christian Walker, and sign them to a three-year deal before last season. Got off to a really rough start. But he had an OPS over 800 from July on for the rest of the season, and a lot of leading the team and home runs, and his numbers at the end of the year looked more similar to what he had done in Arizona, which is why you brought him in. When you think about Christian Walker, year two with the Astros, what are you seeing, and what do you think this year will look like for him? Yeah, the one major thing we have to get through the Christian Walker is, listen, don't let the Crawford boxes get you off your game. A lot of times, you come to a new ballpark, Crawford boxes are so close, you feel like you could turn and pop the ball up, and it's out of the ballpark. And guys start pitching your way, you start chasing, and people who don't realize is this

39:11guy had over an 800 OPS on the road, and he hit like 21 home runs of the 27 and he hit. And so I think he gets into the, you know, Dijk and Park, and he's like trying to do too much, and he's trying to pull. It's like, Christian, stay to right field, stay the other way. Let your talent take over. And you know, it's a natural instinct for a player who's coming to a new organization, to want to do too much. He starts trying to pull, it's a short porch, and left field, you get into bad habits. And so now I think he's more locked in to driving the ball the other way, if a pitcher makes some mistake on the inner half, turn on it and hit the ball to left field, and it's going to go out in the Crawford boxes. So I think that's the main thing. If we could take his production the second half and on the road, he's the old Christian Walker. The problem is at home, for the most part, he struggled because I think the short home run porch kind of got in his head a little bit.

40:12And it's not like you're not going to get rewarded at Dijk and Park if you drive the ball to right and right side. You can still hit the, like there's some ball parks where you're not, but that's not Dijk and Park. Yes, and he knows that. Look, these major league players that have been around for a long time, they know and they understand where their struggles are. If you ask him, he'll tell you. So this is not a secret. He knows that he has to learn to stay the other way at home because it's so easy to look at the short porch and left field and just want to do too much and turn and get the club in a good spot. Yeah. I felt the last three years now, Dana, that Brian Abray used probably, in my eyes, one of the most indispensable players that you have on your team. You've needed Brian Abray on many occasions for a lot of different reasons, but maybe none more so than right now. He's a closer in the waiting almost, but very thankful to have him, aren't you? Absolutely. Definitely has the talent to close.

41:15And so with Hader being delayed, he's going to assume the closer role, I'm sure. And so this guy is really good, big time weapons, sometimes he freaks me out because he toys with the hitter sometimes and it's like, just get rid of this guy, just go after him. And he'll flip the curve ball up there and he'll throw a ball and he's going to be like 2-0, 3-0, walk a guy and he'll strike everybody out. It's like, don't play with these guys, just go right at him. You have really good stuff, you threw up to 99, you've got a power breaking ball. Let's get him done in four pitches, that's what we think. But we forget these guys are majorly hitters and they understand it and they get it, but I got to be honest, it's very refreshing that if your closure is going to be down for a few weeks at the start of the season, they have a guy like Abray, who is like a major. This guy can close on championship clubs.

42:17And so we ultimately have two closures on our back end, we're very fortunate and haters a little bit delayed, but you know, Abray you can definitely fill in that gap. How do you feel about getting to Abray you and eventually hate her once he's healthy? How do you feel about the rest of that bullpen and how does that shape up right now? Yeah, I mean, we really have a good bullpen and as I mentioned earlier, our starting depth is so good that we're probably going to take some of our starters and put them in a pin. And so you're going to have starters pitching out of the pin, the velocity usually goes up. And so pitching wise, there's no secret that we're the second best earner in average in spring training, you know, in terms of runs given up. And it's because we have such a deep pitching staff and it starts with our starters and some of those guys are going to end up in the pin to start the year because we have

43:17a couple of guys that are going to be delayed. You could also build those guys back up, put them back in the rotation to extend your depth. So I mean, it's all about pitching Jim Crane and I talked a lot this off season and we were like pitching, pitching, pitching, pitching, pitching really, you know, levels it out for you. We saw like the WBC like as good as good as the US lineup was, you know, they ran into some good pitching and if you could pitch, you have a chance to win. So we locked in this off season and we went and got four starters and two relievers and so we loaded up with six pitchers that we feel going to impact, you know, our team. We saw Lance McCulloch Jr. pitch in Bradenton yesterday and once again, he looks different from what he did the last couple of years. I mean, he looks aggressive, fastballs ticked up, but it just looks like somebody who's going to challenge guys in the strike zone and I'd love to see that. Yeah, it's so encouraging. Lance has had so much success in this organization.

44:17It's very encouraging to see him battle through all of the adversity and right now he's in a spot where he's 92 to 95, right? And I love to get my scouting eye view and I look at this guy and I'm like, man, this guy is 95, he's thrown up to 95 and he's really getting it done. And so we're looking for the old school Lance. Yeah. I mean, that's what he looks like right now and he's been aggressive and he's been pitching with his fastball and he's been mixing in the curve at the right time and so, you know, there's a good chance that we turn the corner and, you know, we have the depth to protect them. You know, we're really good with our pitching right now and I'm wearing a good spot and I feel really good about it and I'm fired up for the season to start. Want to ask you about three pitchers who are new to the organization this year and, you

45:18know, kind of in all in different spots. You have Orion Weiss coming back to the United States had a lot of success in Asia, in Korea, Kiway Ting. We touched on a little bit earlier but someone you got from the Giants, you're very excited about a lot of strikeouts but also a lot of walks in his big league time at this point. And Peter Lambert who is a pitcher, you know, he was a second round pick of the Rockies at a high school in California years ago in camp on a minor league deal. Tell me about those three guys and just what you've been seeing with them and what, how do you think they can fit in? Yeah, look, I got to be honest Weiss is a guy that I'm really fired up about. He's 93 to 97. I mean, really good arm. Big dude, good human being, competitor, great storyline, you know, of all the things that he'd been through and he came to Houston and he really feels like he found a home.

46:23And you know, I always say Houston is where pitchers come to get better. And so he's already starting to, you know, take his climb and we're fired up about him. You know, we're going to, at some point this guy, he could be used out of the pin, you know, he's going to be probably a starter at some point during this year. But he's flexible, you could do, you know, you do a lot with him. You know, Tings has a really good arm. He's 92 to 95, you know, got to get him in his zone. The thing I love about Tings is he strikes out at a good clip, left handed hitters. And so this guy has a really good chance of turning the corner. I remember talking about him at the Winter meetings. I couldn't get him off my mind, you know, because that old scouting thing kicked in. And we found an opportunity where we were able to get him and we made a trade even after when the meetings, because we think this guy is really on the brink of really exploding.

47:24And so he's big time too. And so, you know, we're fired up. There was a third one. Oh, Lambert. So Lambert, so the thing with Lambert is, you know, he's been up to 96. He's got the really good breaking ball. We're at the position where we're like, okay, do we want him to relieve or do we want him to start our depth? And we're trying to make that decision right now because he can do both. And so all three of those guys have power stuff. And so it's a good problem to have. We're in such a good position right now when I'm pitching that I feel really good about it. And I've said it, if we can score three to four runs, I feel good about us winning the game because our pitching is that good. This thing for me, Dana, Mike Burroughs, I don't think we've seen a cleaner spring training than what he's had so far. He's dropped his arm angle, everything's flying out of his hand, everything's crisp, locations great. You got to be thrilled with that trade.

48:26Yeah, you know, Mike Burroughs, the story is like we played those guys, you know, last year and you drop the hammer on the asterisk. He came into the game and Gavin and I were sitting up in the GM's box and we were like, who is this guy? Like what is it? Freak this out. Yeah. So we never forgot. And so there was an opportunity where we could make a trade with Pittsburgh and was like, hey, what about that Burroughs guy? Like you guys willing to talk about him? And you know, Pittsburgh's trying to get better and they're trying to get position players when we work the three way deal. And Burroughs might be to pick the click man. He's got that competitive nature. He's a quiet assassin. Yeah, he looks tough. Yeah, he'll take you out man. He's really good. I'm fired up about Burroughs. All right. Fired up about Dana Brown, Astro's general manager. Thank you so much for joining us. All right. Is it over already? Are you hungry? No, I'm not hungry. I'm on a diet except for these desserts.

49:27Well, that's a good diet then. Thank you so much for joining us. We'll be back for one final time on AstroLine coming to you live from Duffy Sports Grill on Clematis and downtown West Palm Beach and on the Houston Astros radio network. Lease up and join the run. Astros race to the pennant presented by Houston Methodist is Houston's newest 5K 10K set to start and end at Diken Park on May 2nd. Visit astros.com slash race to register now. Houston, get ready as your Astros return to the diamond in 2026. Ready to chase the fight and compete for baseball's biggest prize. First half single game ticket to Ron sale now. So grab yours today and don't miss the action. Witness every home run defensive web gem and walkoff live from Diken Park. Down the right field line. That's a base hit and work going high. Lock in the best seat to catch the Yankees Dodgers Rangers and more before it's too late. Astros walking off to the line. Get tickets today by visiting astros.com slash SGT. Jose L2V in the Astros. Host Mike Trout in the Los Angeles Angels at Diken Park March 26th through March 29th.

50:31Catch the entire opening series and secure your tickets now by visiting astros.com slash SGT. And welcome back one final time on Astro line coming to you live from Duffy's sports grill on Clematis, our final show of 2026 spring training. I'd like to thank everybody who tuned in to Astro line, especially we'd like to thank all the fans who were able to make it down to spring training and to Duffy's. Appreciate you and hope to see all of you here next year and to see some new faces here next year to mix in with some of the people who have been regulars here over the years. I'd like to thank all who made the broadcast possible. I'd like to thank all the great people at Duffy's, our senior producer, Josh C, our producer engineer Matt Poltz for Steve Sparks and Robert Portsang so long from Duffy's sports grill on Clematis in downtown West Palm Beach. Astro line. You've been listening to sports talk 790 Astro line. The official pre-season show of Astros baseball. I love this city.

51:31I love this T.S. Bro Ryan on sports talk 790 home of this draws. See you later. Jose Altuve and the Astros host Mike Trout and the Los Angeles Angels at Dijk and Park March 26th through the 29th catch the entire opening series and secure your tickets now by visiting astros.com slash SGT. Two teams. One cup. The prime time stage is set for the TGL presented by SoFi finals Los Angeles Golf Club versus Tiger's Jupiter links. Up it's playoffs tune in Monday March 23rd 9 p.m. Eastern on ESPN 2 and Tuesday March 24th 7 p.m. Eastern on ESPN and on the ESPN app.