The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Astros Beat Writer Chandler Rome Talks All Things Astros This OffSeason

Episode Date: November 13, 2025

Astros Beat Writer Chandler Rome Talks All Things Astros This OffSeason

Let's spend 10 quality minutes with Chandler O'm, let's not mess around. He's got a flight to catch. Hopefully he's in first class. Chandler, let's just knock out the coaching stuff first. Anything interesting about the new hires or still to be determined about how this organization shapes up from guys behind Joe Espada? Well, I'm an offensive coordinator, Matt, so you're going to have to alter your pre-show tweets now. You can talk about Nick Cayley and then whoever. You can talk about Nick Kaly and Anthony Iopausee, who is going to be the Astros.

Actually, no, Dan Hinnigan is the Astros offensive coordinator. He's a guy that's, he's a biomechanics guy, he's a new age kind of coach. He's been in the organization for a year. He's going to be in charge of like game planning and advanced scouting and kind of the data side of things. Victor Rodriguez is the number one hitting guy. He is the lead hitting coach. And Anthony Iopausee will work alongside him. So one thing Dana said yesterday is they wanted to have defined roles for these guys.

They wanted to have a clear hierarchy of responsibilities, of duties, of things these guys do. That's something that with Troy Snicker and Alex Centron, they didn't really have. They just kind of shared the hitting coach title and kind of divided their responsibilities pretty evenly. Let me ask you this, because I've been telling the audience this, and if I'm wrong, please correct me. Was it harder to get really good guys because of the lame duck status of both Dana and Joe? I mean, it's certainly not nothing, but, you know, you do look at the two guys that they hired, you know, Victor Rodriguez, Mike Schilt retired with the Padres, so he needed a job. Anthony Iopossey was not returning to A.J. Hinch's coaching staff in Detroit. So again, needed a job. You know, look, they talked to a lot of different guys. He talked to a lot of, you know, current hitting coaches elsewhere. They talked to guys out of the game, you know. I don't know that the lame duck status had much to do with it. I just, you know, my feeling, Matt, is. you know, the players are the ones swinging the bats. The players are the ones playing the game.

Like, you could tell me that they hired any hitting coach, Joe Smith, John Smith, whoever. Like, it's up to the players to go out there and perform. Now, can the messaging and the philosophy and kind of what they're putting in their ears and their eyes could that improve or could that be streamlined? Sure. But at the end of the day, this is a player's game. I read your tweets nonstop from Las Vegas. I was, I don't want to say blown away, but I was more than just normally surprised about the health of some. really important people, namely

Jordan Alvarez and Isak Perides. Issaac did everything he could to come back and at least pinch hit in DH for this team. But when you said he may not be ready for the start of spring training, is there any second guessing of maybe he should have just gone ahead and had the surgery? So maybe he

would have been ready for the start of next season? Well, no. If, Matt, if he had the surgery, they were looking at a six-month recovery for that surgery. So he would have definitely not been ready for the start of the season had he had the surgery. You know, Well, I think part of it, too, is just, you know, these guys don't, the minute the offseason end, these guys kind of rest a little bit.

So a lot of this may just be these guys have rested, you know, when the season did end, and now they're just kind of ramping up activity. And so with Jordan Alvarez jogging 65, 70%, that's just his gradual ramp up. You know, Paredes was always going to probably be a little bit behind going in the spring training. I don't think they're concerned that he won't be ready for the season. but yeah you could see him maybe a week or so behind people when they get to camp but that was to be expected and i think it's even more admirable now in hindsight that he came back and gave them what he could that last two weeks of the season general athletic astros beat reporter with us from las Vegas at the general manager meeting so for the audience it doesn't know give the essence of a general manager's meetings as compared to the winter meetings which will be coming up so it's kind of the same thing but it's a little bit bit on a smaller stage at the GM meetings. You know, at the winter meetings, the managers go, the clubhouse attendants go, the traveling

secretaries go, everyone in baseball goes to the winter meetings. The GM meetings is a little bit more low-key. The GMs are there, obviously, all the agents are there, and it's just a little bit more of like a foundation-laying thing. You know, this is where you go, and teams will meet with all the agencies there, and they'll start to say, oh, okay, well, this free agent's looking for this year's and this kind of money they'll meet with other teams like oh this this this this guy's available in trades so they'll kind of lay the foundation here and then over the next month keep working toward it and then you know

the winter meetings is where you see transactions happen but yeah it's it's a lot of standing around a lot of networking a lot of late nights um some watering holes because everything everything happens around the bar so um yeah just it's it's kind of the kickoff of the off season if you will. Cam Smith finished his 12th in the rookie of the year on the American League side of things. And then your quotes and your story today is about the fact that he may not be guaranteed a roster spot heading into spring training. Those are not words that you put in the Dana's mouth, but I'm curious the context behind it. Yeah, that was probably to me the most newsworthy, kind of revelatory thing he said yesterday. You know, it certainly wasn't a situation where

Dana was being negative or down on Cam Smith. But, you know, he says, look, this is a production game, and he's got to produce, and we've got to be open-minded. This was Dana's quoting, so we have to be open-minded to the thought that if he doesn't produce and he doesn't have the adjustments that we need to make this off season, that we could send him to AAA. And Matt, you know, you watched him last year toward the end. If that team wasn't as injured as it was, and if that team didn't have a lack of options behind him, I think Cam Smith would have probably been in the minor leagues, you know, toward the end of last year because he really fell off in the second half.

it was a snowball effect of a lot of things. What fascinates me, though, is like if he is not penciled in as the everyday right fielder, and if he's not going to spring training with a guaranteed roster spot, like, you know, they can't just, they've got to have some insurance behind him. Does that mean they're in the outfield market? Does that mean that they may be, you know, a trend toward keeping Jesus Sanchez instead of, you know, maybe trading him or non-tendering him because they need that some insurance behind Cam Smith. Does this mean Zach Cole is a bigger piece of the puzzle?

This means maybe they're reticent to trade Jake Myers, who they're getting a lot of calls on because his value's never been higher. It opens up a lot of questions as to kind of how they're going to proceed this offseason. Listen to Dana yesterday. It sounded like they have some work to do in their outfield. His exact words, when they need to firm up the outfield. I'll be interested to see kind of what, how Cam's status, how that kind of affects what they do on the open market. A couple more minutes here with Chandler. We're surprised that Christian Walker was poo-poohed by Dana about being a trade target. I would read that quote a little more carefully.

Nowhere did he say I'm not trading Christian Walker. All he said was, we haven't talked about Christian Walker in trades. And Christian Walker's our everyday first baseman. Most of those things can be true on November 11th. I still think they're going to have to find a way to solve this infield logjam. I personally, barring an injury, I personally can't see how they carry both Paredes and Walker and get them every day at Bats. And for the money you're paying these guys, $20 million to Christian Walker and about $10 million to Esok Paredes, those are guys that need to be in the lineup every day. And, you know, Dana was a little more forceful and a little more assertive that they don't want to trade Esok Paredes.

His quotes on that were very a little more illuminating and a little more. You tell they had some weight and some heft behind them. I think the Christian Walker one, I think, quite frankly, it was a non-denial denial. It was on November 11th, yes, maybe they haven't discussed Christian Walker in trades. And maybe he is, and he certainly, as of today, is there everyday first baseman. But that certainly could change. Yeah, I saw that too. And I'm like, wait a minute, that doesn't, I don't care who you want to get rid of.

You, you start pretty should be the first baseman of this team next year. I mean, I don't know any other way to say it. And again, the only reason why you would not pencil him in today, obviously, is how his hamstring is. But that's something for down the road. Okay, look, Dylan Seas was on their radar for the Astros of the trade deadline. It did not happen. But you know, in wrapping this up, Chandler, when Jim Crane's got somebody on the mind, on the brain, he goes after guys, i.e. Josh Hater, i.e. Justin Verlander. How serious do you think at the end of the day?

It doesn't mean they're going to grab him. But how intense do you think Dylan Seas conversations will be with the Houston Astros? I think they'll check in. I mean, certainly if they had interest in them at the trade deadline, then obviously, you know, they haven't lost interest in the two months since. I find it hard to believe that they'll get to the years and the money that Scott Boris will want for Dillan Seas, especially, you know, this is an organization under Jim Crane that the most they've ever guaranteed to a pitcher in free agency is $95 million. And that was the Josh Hader, who pitches one inning.

You know, the most they've ever guaranteed a starting pitcher in Crane's ownership seniors, $85 million to land some colors. it's going to take more than that. It's going to take years. It's going to take money. And I'm here to tell you they don't want to go over the luxury tax. At least not right now. They don't want to go over the luxury tax this winter. So that's another reason why they probably are going to have to trade some of these guys

just to get some payroll flexibility to get some arms in here. I think there certainly will show interest in Dillencease. I don't see them going to the lengths that Scott Boris will want for him. I think you mentioned Justin Verlander. I think Justin Burlander is a more realistic. target. And I think maybe someone kind of in that middle kind of a two or a three type starter is probably more what they'd be looking for maybe other than Dillen'sies. And the very last question, how interested will Hunter Brown be in the amount of money

the Astros spent on pitching this off season? I mean, look, Scott Boris said it yesterday. You know, they'll listen if the Astros come to them. But here's the thing. Like Scott Boris doesn't, you don't hire Scott Boris to do a pre-arb extension. You don't hire Scott Boris to do a pre-free agency extension. and also it's not as if scott boris won't do an extension the aster's is just going to have to blow hunter brown away they're going to have to blow the market value away they're going to have to give him a reason to say i'm going to skip free agency where 30 other teams can bid on me and the astros under jim crane like and it's worked but they've never been the team that's going to blow anybody out of the water with their contract offers so um i see this going a lot like how all the other homegrown superstars have gone, and it's just going to, you know, he's going to play out his kind of final couple years, and then he's going to head into free agency where he can get one of those long, big deals

and have 30 teams interested in his services.