The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Astros General Manager Dana Brown Joins Matt & Ross From Spring Training

Episode Date: February 18, 2026

Astros General Manager Dana Brown Joins Matt & Ross From Spring Training

Right now we are joined live by the general manager of your Houston Astros. It is Dana Brown. Dana, thank you for the time. I don't know how many other general managers get talked about in other 29 cities, but my man, you have carried a lot of conversation for the Houston Sports Show known as Matt and Ross. So we thank you for that. I love it. I love it, guys.

I'm excited to be here. Let's talk some baseball. All right. So I could bury it towards the end or I could put it right in the beginning. I'm going to go right to the start because there's other things I want to get. to. You didn't used to hit that hard. You're right.

I've usually signed a soft play, but not this time around. All right. I've got a segment of a population. Okay. Dana, you've got an extra great hitter who doesn't have a spot. Why would you get rid of them? Because the nature of the beast of a six-month baseball season says, somebody's going to get hurt.

Then I got a segment of population that says, how do you keep a guy like that? Not in a position. So I don't know what's going through your mind. You've not let me look at your text messages, your phone calls. You're probably not going to. But state of the still crowded infield at this point is you see it today here in spring training. Yeah, so this is what I would say. It's always good to have depth and it's always good to have power, you know, with that part of that being depth.

You know, part of that being depth is your power. So look, we know we have extra infielders. we think that it's going to be very competitive. You know, if we get an opportunity, you know, when we can make a move, we'll talk about it. But right now, as it stands, we welcome the depth. You never know when you're going to hit up an injury. We think that we can get these guys a lot of playing time. There are, you know, we've got some older guys on our roster that we have to, you know, kind of give a breather to.

And I'm just not excited about trying to give away a. really good hitter. And so, look, if there's something that's a match, you know, maybe we'll consider it. But other than that, we'll just roll with the depth. You have that. You've got a lot of young outfielders. I mean, we play GM on the radio all the time. I would think that if there's a deal involving somebody in the outfit that could

obviously be a guy. You've always been talking about a left-handed bat. That may perk your interest up a little bit. But let's get to the outfield a little bit. Zach Cole had a great September. Cam on a great March. I've said this before. I've heard it from a lot of baseball people that I trust.

You don't trust March. You don't trust September a whole lot. So tell me about what you think and what is expected of those corner outfitters in particular, knowing that you don't have a lot of people behind them fighting for it, but maybe that situation that could obviously change. So look, let's talk about the left-hand bat first since you brought it out. So it would be nice to get a left-hand bat we would be excited about, right? If we get that opportunity, I think we would probably move on.

it because I've been talking about a left-hand bat for forever. It's just, it's that hard to acquire a left-hand bat. They're not growing on trees and no one's trying to give up a good left-hand bat. It's just very difficult to do. And you probably have to give up something to get a left-hand

bat. So, is there a chance that we can get a left-hand bat? Sure. There's a chance. That's why we're having conversations. Now, as it relates to the young outfielder's, I would say, look, we're going to give them a good look in the spring and see what it looks like.

We have some things in our thought process that we feel like those two guys have to make adjustments, Cole and Smith. And so we're going to give them a close watch and see who makes the adjustment from last year that we think that they needed to make.

And so, if they make these adjustments, they could be part of the club. If not, you know, it's not too bad to have a guy start in AAA and build his way back up. So both talented enough to certainly make this team and I would be excited

that happens that means they're lighten the ball up so you know we welcome that but you know at the end of the day we want to see them make adjustments that you know that's fitting for the major league level and you know that they're going to be you know pretty good offensive contributors

you mentioned both Smith and Cole and of course as a general manager you know things don't always go according to plan but the plan would be for Cam Smith to find what he did early in the season and continue, and then the plan would be for Zach Cole into the season to keep that going. How do you just talk about both of those guys?

How do you get them to do that? Yeah, I mean, look, we got two new hitting coaches. We kind of got a new voice down in the clubhouse. One of the guys are veteran in Rodriguez. We really feel like he's going to make a big impact with these young hitters. He's got a roller decks of working with a lot of good Major League hitters. And so we feel like he can make the necessary. impact and we'll really be

leaning on him a lot for getting these guys over the hump. They both have teachable spirits. They're both really good athletes and they both want to get better. So we think it's a perfect match. Now we've got to see them execute it. And so

there's a good chance we see, you know, exciting young players just spring that both could make the team and we'll be all thrilled if that happens. You've enjoyed a surplus in the infield right now as we speak. I think we were teasing this

Joe a couple days ago. If people want to go see some future Major League arms, you don't hear the commercials about that with the Space Cowboys, you're going to have at least three or four that you would probably make 90% of Major League rosters, not front end but certainly back in. You've got 10 guys here at least

that I could see being a starter for the Houston Astros in 2026. Yeah, pitching, pitching is what Jim Crane and I talked about a lot this off season. And, you You know, we wanted to stock up, right? And we wanted to be able to get through, you know, this 162, win a lot of ball games, get back deep to the postseason.

And so that's why we did what we did. You know, we added four starters and two relievers. And so we're fired up about all six of them. And so all of these guys throw pretty hard. They have really good stuff. They have some deception. And so, you know, when it comes to the starting pitcher, and we feel like it's on, right?

And so, and that's going to be led by Hunter Brown. You know, got him at the top. You know, you got Javier coming back with some experience, and we're looking for him to take that jump. And then, you know, we got some guys that we added that we feel really good about. Emi, when did that conversation come into play? Obviously, the DR has been something that's been important for this organization for the long period of time. We've been fans of this when we were kids.

There hasn't been a Pacific Rim connection to this. So when it was first brought up, what did you think? and then how did you then implement scouting, getting people involved in your department to say, is this really a guy worth putting some money in his piggy bank? Yeah, so the big thing is, you know, Jim Crane had the vision of, you know, getting more active in the Pacific Rim. You know, we partnered with, you know, Diken. Right. And so we were thrilled about getting over there.

You know, we sent, you know, our special assignment scout to John Watson. We sent over Charles Cook, who's an assistant GM. You know, we've had a few of our area guys over there, see EMI. And so, you know, when reports came back that this guy is pretty good, we looked at the data and the information. You know, you guys saw how the makeup is. He's a competitor. And, you know, so he checked off all three of those boxes, you know, makeup, data, and, you know, scouting eye. And so, you know, we were thrilled to jump in there.

We started talking to Boris, you know, early in the offseason. And then things heated up, you know, right there at the deadline. when we got it done, like, on New Year's Day. So we're fired up about him. He's fired up about being here. And so we're looking for some big things out of them. Astros manager, General Manager, Dana Brown with us here on a Sports Talk 790. Speaking of the pitching, pitching, more pitching.

What was it like for you going through the team building of knowing all the injuries last year, hoping that that's an aberration and not necessarily the new normal? but not wanting to overreact but also being prepared for the possibility of more rash of pitching injuries. Yeah, look, the pitching injuries last year were excruciating. I mean, it was really, really tough to watch. The injuries in general were excruciating. And so, you know, we wanted to be more prepared with depth. And so, you know, when we look at this and we, you know, we felt one game short

and we know that we had a ton of injuries. You guys have heard me say multiple times that at one point we had our one, two, and three hit her out. No other team experienced that in the course of the season last year, and then you experienced that along with some starters getting hurt and you come up one game short. So, you know, it's not an excuse. It's just a reality that, you know, the injuries pretty much cost us to the postseason.

And so we wanted to make sure that, look, let's stock up and, you know, let's be prepared that if anything, goes down, we have the coverage, right? And so, you know, that's where we are. We're locked in. The pitching is a big part of it. If you pitch, you're in every game. And then it's a matter of, you know, getting a big hit here, a big hit there and make a nice play on defense. And you're victorious. So, you know, that's kind of like what our thought process was. And we wanted to, we wanted to stock up. For a let your run. You mentioned Scott Boris. Have you invited him down for dinner this spring training at this point.

Yeah, I believe Scott owed me a nice bottle of wine. I'll tell him that too. No, we've had dinner when we did the my signing at Jim's place at Patente. Very good dinner, very good wine. And, you know, so we got a chance to fellowship a little bit and talk about, you know, even some future things that we may be doing with Boris. But, you know, ultimately, you know, we got a bunch of guys that are going to be a big part of the winning season this year. We're excited.

We're fired up. Boris happens to have a few of our candidates. So we're locked in and we're fired up. The guys are fired up. The energy around the spring, around the cages, and, you know, just having conversations, it's off the hook right now. So we hope these guys keep that type of energy. They're locked in, and we're ready to go.

The crystal ball for Dana Brown in two years when we've got a new labor agreement. whatever that may be. I said two. Hopefully it's one. Hopefully it may be two. Who's, is it going to, you have to redefine

how your budgets look. Are you going to redefine how contracts look? Will there be as big of adjustments for the teams or for the players do you think at the end of the day? Yeah, I have no idea.

It's, you know, we talk about it and it's tough to speculate. We have no idea. We'll cross that bridge when we get there. The one thing that I'm

quite sure about is, you know, Jim Crane is definitely dedicated to putting winning product on the field. We're going to be involved in whatever it takes to get players signed. And so we're hoping

for the best. And we're locked in about that as well. But we have no earthly idea how this is going to play out. It's almost like to take a new math class or something like that because there could be salary camps. There could be all sorts of things there. Dana, thank you for the time. We really appreciate it.

We'll see you back in Houston. Wish you know that been the very best of this entire season. And look forward to hearing from you often on this radio station. Thank you for the time. Absolutely. Thanks, Matt. Thanks, Ross. Appreciate you guys. Dana Brown, joining us here from West Palm Beach.

Matt and Ross continue here from our coverage of Astro Spring Training in a moment on Sports Talk 790.