Brian McTaggart on Astros Season, Wild Card Exit & What’s Next

0:00this is Matt and Ross in the morning. 901 on sports talk. Seven 90 our last regular 30 morning visit with Brian McTagger now. We're going to get him on for breaking news if necessary. Not a necessary one to we were going to miss Brian McTagger. You can't be just been all off season going to University Houston events. Or can you Brian McTagger? Good morning to you. Well, I think I'm going to try at least a start and Saturday with the big UCF game. It is a big game. No question about as America saying big and UCF in Houston all together bring your your raincoat and your galoshes I think is what you need could be could be a quick. I see. Yeah. All right, speaking of messy, what the hell was the first ending yesterday, Brian McTagger? Yeah, that was that was definitely messy. You know, I asked these sparks before the game. I said, you think they're going to win today and he said, well, no, we'll know by the end of the first ending just, you know, referring to Hunter Brown.

1:01But yeah, it anything that could go wrong did go wrong. That ending and a couple of errors and Alvarez not being able to catch up ball in left field and it was just a disaster. You couldn't ask for a worst start. You know, they battled back and got close with the homers, but you just you knew after that first ending that just wasn't going to happen and they didn't. What is do you in your mind just being a baseball guy is that does hunters blase and blase may be too strong of a term. Just ordinary season and then the obvious meltdown in the Astros front office, which still is very much incomplete. What does that make you think about how much they'll talk about a hundred of the offseason in terms of trying to extend him. And again, I don't want to get too much into that, but it certainly is something to be discussed at some point by somebody who's going to be running in charge of the space ball team. Yeah, I think it'll be discussed. I don't think it's a huge priority at this point.

2:02You've got two more years. And this is probably the time if you're going to do it, you get it done and you know, maybe you can get it done cheaper than you could after last year, but you know, I think they're bigger. There are much bigger conversations that they have to have just with the lack of talent. So many different positions, but you know, I think it's something that the new jam, whoever that is will probably approach hundred something and see, you know, I don't think Hunter is going to Hunter and Scott Borser are not all of a sudden not going to take a smaller deal just based on a season where he wasn't as effective as zero before and pitched and was hurt for two and a half months. So, but I think it's going to be a huge priority for the Astros. Any chance. I think the answer to that is zero, but I'm going to see what you have. Any chance that Joe's future can be determined by the new general manager already. You think that Jim Krain is going to make that decision fairly quickly. Yeah, I think that will come fairly quickly.

3:05I mean, I think whoever the new GM is is going to have a chance to hire a manager. But I do think that that Jim will make a decision on Joe sooner than later. I think he almost have to. So it's going to be an offseason where, you know, if they do part with Joe, they're going to be looking for GM and a manager, but the GM is going to come first and he, you know, Joe's not back. GM obviously is going to have, you know, the right away to hire his own manager, which wasn't the case with Dana Brown because, because Joe was already hearing and, you know, got promoted. And so I think there'll be a fresh start in a couple of those areas. But that's just one of many changes. It's going to happen this offseason. I mean, I think we could see changes with the entire coaching staff. Obviously, the roster is going to look a whole lot different. They're just in a spot now that they probably haven't been in a long time. This organization just needs a reboot in a lot of areas. And it's going to be challenging to do financially. But it's

4:09going to start with the GM and in the, in maybe the manager and a lot of the coaching staff and then you work from there. And with the general manager, Brian, we knew the instructions for Dana Brown. It was rebuild the farm system, stay as much as you can under the tax and then compete at the major league level. What are the instructions for the new general manager? Basically the same thing because the farm system, while it does have some guys on the horizon, I mean, most three or top four guys of teenagers. And one was just recently drafted if you're looking at the MOB pipeline list. So it still would be to rebuild the farm system. But also you're, I just don't know what the instruction will be in terms of trading away your major league guys, whether be Pena or Walker, whomever, and still trying to stay competitive. Yeah, I think you got to walk down both of those paths. I mean, I think they need to keep what they're doing in the farm system. It's going to make a little bit better. Like you said, most of their top talent is it is a high A maybe touching double A. Those guys are going to be coming a little bit quicker and maybe start to see some of

5:13those guys in 28 or 29. But certainly look at the AAA roster and there's nothing that really excites you and you know, double A. There's a few guys. You know, she evolved the catcher, obviously, getting, he got up to AAA at the end of the year, but was at double A most of the year. But one of the ways they could add some talent pretty quickly, like you mentioned, would be to make some trades. And I certainly would be willing to listen to offers for Jeremy Pena. You do have Korea coming back next year. I don't see a scenario where Korea, Paredes, and Pena are all on the team. So do you, I think they certainly pick up Paredes' option because then they could trade him. But if you trade, if you pick up Paredes' option and keep them, you trade Pena, put Korea short. You could get, you could get a return for Pena. You know, if you look around the league, you know, teams are looking for short stops of that caliber. I would consider trading Yiner Diaz, you know, defensively. He's not good, but he had such a good offensive year in the second half that maybe

6:17there's some value there to some other teams. Of course, you're going to have to go out and get another catch. You're going to have a couple of your top prospects that catch as well. So there's just a lot, there's just a lot, this is going to be a difficult job for any general manager to come in because there's a lot of things you have to do and you have, you know, payroll limitations. It's still a top, but I think there were the 14 times payroll, so it's still a top half in the league. But yeah, it's going to be an interesting offseason for sure. Brian McTagger, astros.com, MLB.com with us here on a sports talk 790. And what about the rotation going into this year? We were like, Hey, you know what? They got a lot of options, but a lot of those options washed out and they will have another offseason of a lot of options. But no sure things. Do you think would they look into the free agent market or trade market as well for somebody that can can be a true number two behind Hunter Brown? Yeah, I think they have to. I mean, one of the reviews on Dana's gone is because the misfires last offseason, they added all this pitching

7:21depth. And that was really the focus of the entire offseason was adding pitching depth, trading for burrows, signing in my Ryan Weiss on and on. And those boots just didn't work out. I mean, you know, burrows could, you know, I'm not giving up on burrows at all. I mean, he could still be the guy who could contribute, but they need, they need at least a couple of quality starting pictures. I'm not talking about, you know, high end guys, they just need a couple of guys who can put in the middle of the rotation. And maybe they could trade for one and, you know, maybe the paying your trade is something that they could get somebody like that. Maybe they can sign somebody for agency. But they have to upgrade their pitching. They absolutely need more pitching depth. I mean, in the end of the year with a bullpen game on Sunday to win the division, they started the playoffs with a bullpen game. And then basically they had one last night, because Hunter Brown doesn't last the first inning. And then they have another bullpen game. It's just you just not going to, you're not going to go deep in the playoffs if you're pitching six, seven pictures every night. It's just not a formula for success. So they have to find a way,

8:26again, to try to upgrade this pitching staff and do it better than they did last year because a couple of those guys, two or three of those guys they brought in were just complete flops. So if any of your fans happen to see you at the U of H game this Saturday and they say, hey, Brian, is the Astra is going to retool? Or are they going to what else we're going to rebuild? Rebuild, blow it up, blow it up. Any of the different terms you may hear. I know retool sounds cool because you got some core pieces. Obviously, Yardon is that core piece and Hunter Brown. And you've still got Carlos Craigs hopefully will be back. But with so many spots, improving of the starting rotation, the outfields got two thirds of its spots that need to be improving. Frankly, Cam's got to improve from year to year. It's, it feels more like a reorganization rebranding, whatever you want to do is compare to just adding a piece or two because a piece or two means a retool. When you are, when you're starting over from scratch, that's five or six spots. And that's what the Sastro team needs. Don't you think? Yeah, I think they,

9:30they have a lot of holes in they have so they do have a core of players. Like you mentioned, you know, the Payneas Careas, pitching staff, you got Hayd or Back Brown, you do have players going to build around and I don't see them. It's going to rebuild. They're going to get rid of all those guys. I mean, we saw that 15 years ago where anybody with a contract or any value was traded. I don't think Jim Crane's ready to do that. He says the windows always open. So I think retool might be a better word. And how do you do that? Well, I mean, that's going to be up to the new general manager, but you probably do have to get rid of some guys to get something in return and try to get this turned around pretty quickly. But you know, when they rebuild it 15 years ago, you know, they had all these guys coming up. They had Breggman and Krea and Springer and you know, Singleton, although he didn't work out, but McCullochers and just Talham after talent. And those guys aren't here yet. Maybe in a couple of years, they have that. So I think the only way you try to retool is you got to trade from your core a couple of those players

10:36and then try to get, you know, maybe some of the higher end prospect for two from another team. And maybe those guys can help you sooner than later. If you are flying the wall in the room between Jim Crane and Joe Aspada, if they meet and say the next 24 to 72 hours, what's that conversation going to be like, you think? If you were able to get in there with them? Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, you know, Joe is asked point blank yesterday. He wants to be back and he says he does. Of course he does. I mean, there's only 30 of these jobs. And you know, Joe is here. But if I'm Joe, I'm like, how are we going to improve this roster? Yeah, I can't manage this team again. If I'm fucking guys out of Mexico, the Mexican league, you know, like Nelson Velasquez to start a playoff game. If we have a guy who was in the independent ball, not that long ago, Josh Hendrixson pitching key innings in a playoff game. If we're putting a rookie in center field, Lucas in Lucas Spence, if we're throwing,

11:38you know, rookies out of the bullpen like, you know, Uola and other guys. I mean, it's just, it just was not a formula for success. My question, if I'm a spot is like, how are we going to improve this roster in the next year or two? Because I don't think I don't think anybody who manages this team this year could have gotten more out of them just with the roster they had. I mean, look at the bottom half of the batting order on a night tonight basis. It was just a couple. You almost, you had a couple of guys who weren't really big leagueers in that batting order every day. I was supposed to win with that. That would be my biggest question. How are we going to improve this roster? How quickly can we do it? Yeah, I'm part of that. You can kind of hint at there. Brian would be the bullpen. I mean, that's been a hallmark of this great run. The Ashtras have been too. I mean, a bra you has gone. I don't know who the seventh and eighth inning guy is for the Ashtras next year. And where do they come from? You know, the bullpen did a pretty good job for majority of the year. And losing Oakert was a was a big blow for sure. You know, the

12:39Abraew, the little the month or six weeks where he was bad, you know, that hurt. But bullpen's one of those things that you can fix pretty quickly. I mean, you can go out and sign a couple of guys on one year deals. Who could be good for you? So I don't think I don't think that's as big as a concern is starting pitching that up. Of course, that's that's harder to address. And just the holes in the line up. And you mentioned the outfield probably one of the worst defensive offensive offensive outfields they've had, you know, left field. You rotated guys through there and no one was the answer, you know, center field. They're still looking for a center fielder since George Springer left. I mean, they they just run through guy after guy. Maybe Lucas Spence was a guy. I don't know. We thought that last year was that collo. Was that collo? Maybe the guy so far he hasn't been. Those to me are bigger concerns than the bullpen.